JJB shares it grounds with a supermarket - perhaps its a Wigan thing?

What's the likelihood of your new expensive supermarket CEO going down with a season ending knee injury or having to retire due to concussion?

Morrisons have a turnover of roughly £16 billion. Once you realise the numbers involved your comparison starts to look flawed at best.
Try comparing with a company of similar size and turnover and all of a sudden salaries become a major issue. Every position at my company has a salary range when we are recruiting and finance put strict limits on salaries compared to turnover. If we don't have the money we don't hire the people. A private company like ourselves has to live within its means. Sure, it's taken us longer to do some things but a lot of the companies we have encountered as competitors and customers over the last 20 years of our existence have gone bust or faced savage job cuts before being bought and stripped out.
Sport isn't like business, it's emotional and it's entertainment. When you combine those factors people go bonkers.
It may just be the simple truth that the "Market" for rugby league in this country simply cannot support significantly higher salaries for players. The problem with sport is that supporters and even club chairmen desire victories on the pitch. Real industries measure success by revenue, sports clubs measure success by winning games. That's why so many sporting organisations end up in the $h1te.

I have always had suspicions of the structure of the cap. I would think it lends itself to some creative accountancy. Payment to third parties perhaps?.

Je suis d'accord monsieur

Isn't the "market" for rugby league players rugby league clubs? Hasn't the "market" set players values by voting on a cap? If the players don't like that, they have other markets they can pursue, including the NRL and Rugby Union.

Alternatively, they are free to pursue careers outwith rugby league and in any industry or profession that doesn't set the market by way of a salary cap. They could even get an economics degree and become a CEO of a major supermarket.

that being the case why does penalties for breaking the cap exist? if the market had set its rate then no club would or could ever break it and the penalties would be entirely mute.

The fact is the cap exists and those penalties exist explicitly and solely to stop the market from setting that value.


Why should they need to? There is no industry where no businesses go bust. Why can a CEO sell his skills on the open market but not an RL player.

I would suggest most industries measure success by profit, shareholder returns, cash generation.

Most businesses major asset is a product of some kind, in sport the players are the asset and as such are what the club is selling. It is in the interest of the club to have the best players they can not the best players they can combine within restricted limits. That is where your comparison is flawed.

I guarantee in your business if your business saw a star performer who would add value they would employ them without the need to compromise yours or anybody else's salary. That is not the case in RL and that is the issue when you have restrictions on earnings

The standards in SL are falling because the cap is now falling behind what is available in RU and the NRL and clubs can no longer afford better players. Its a chicken an egg would revenues increase if the likes of James Graham, Sam Burgess and modern day Buderus, Gidley, Ali etc were running around every week in SL. Perhaps the market is distorted in SL by the cap?

I would suggest slim but what are the chances of your new expensive player making a decision that could cost the jobs of thousands of people? All business take calculated risks when they employ personnel the risks increase with the size of the enterprise.

Not sure Thurston has had a season ending knee injury and as far as i know he hasn't had to retire through concussion.

Thurston's salary is about 15% of the Cowboys' total cap. Equivalent to about £250k over here. I reckon there is one, maybe 2 players in SL on that salary. The problem is that when you pay your star player(s) that amount, you have to split the rest between 25-30 players, leaving an average of about £55k. Which is simply not enough for an elite sportsman.

agreed

Ask a swimmer if 55 grand is not enough for an elite sportsman. Different sports have different definitions of what is a satisfactory salary.

Swimming is a hobby though! Like Golf, Cycling and Soccer!

I'm not making a comparison - you are. You brought up supermarkets with multi billion dollar turnovers and 10's of thousands of employees.
You don't know my company, there is no way in hell we would pay someone an unreasonable amount of money. We regularly turn away people at interview who make salary demands that exceed our pay structure. Nobody adds that much value.
And if you think that's bad business then we have managed 15-20% growth year on year selling to an industry that has been decimated during the last decade. And all within our means.
You cannot argue that an industry cannot spend more than it earns. Success on the field in RL does not mean financial success - the sport is overburdened with examples of clubs who have spent to buy success, most failed and nearly all had to suffer serious consequences.
I won't pull up examples because you know as well as I do who they are. These are the comparisons that matter - not with multi billion pound businesses.

But your company defines what is a reasonable amount of money. Your company decides it's pay structure. Your company makes its own decision on how much value an employee adds and how that translates in to a reasonable salary and it is your companies decision to turn away people who ask for too much and your companies decision to employ people whose expectations are what you deem reasonable. Those levels are set specific to your business your business's plans your business's they aren't set by an external force.

Your business is able to live within its means precisely because it doesn't have an SC. The SC doesn't force clubs to live within their means. 1.8m is too much for some. Very low for others.

Would your company be posting 15/20% growth if they weren't allowed to offer those employees what they though was reasonable salary?