Quote: BogBrushHead "It's not the idea of a cap that I see as wrong, it's the fact it is such an arbitrary number, bearing no relation to the club, it's income, or it's potential.
Saying "You can all spend £1.6m on salaries" is the most ludicrous thing anyone has ever done in sport. It penalises those clubs who can (and often do) generate way more than this figure, and encourages those that don't generate the income to spend money they haven't got (societies problem all 'round these days).
If the salary cap was based on matchday revenues - and by that I mean genuine 'through the gate' revenues, not backhanded one off 'sponsorships' - then what would be the problem? If 15-20,000 fans turn up at Wigan/Leeds and pay £15-£25, why should they lose players to NRL/Union simply because other clubs cant get 5,000 through the gate, even at reduced prices? If only 3,000 people can be bothered to watch a team, then I'm sorry but you will be watching a crap team. If you turn out in more numbers, then your team will be allowed to improve as revenues improve. Again, why is that such a difficult concept?
The current situation whereby (to keep top players) clubs with genuine spare cash have to skirt around the salary cap by offering outside perks, family jobs, and elongated contracts, simply because certain other clubs shout 'foul' as they can't afford it is farcical. I'm surprised the RFL haven't stipulated all players have to drive Trabants and live in identical state run apartment blocks so no-one looks more equal than the others!'"
The system you seem to want is the one which failed previously though, when it left us with just one club, which bought all the very best players just to let them moulder in the reserves for no other reason than to prevent other clubs from signing them.
No system is ever perfect though, and as you rightly point out, neither is the salary cap. Incidentally, we aren't losing players to either the RU or NRL because they have a free for all, but because [itheir[/i cap is set higher. Not sure if they're offering better model Trabants though.. The cap in the UK has suffered from a certain amount of 'mission creep' as well, initially set up to [hopefully] prevent clubs overspending, it became a mission to even out the league and get a closer competition, whilst losing the overspending element. Again as you point out, it's hardly worked there either.
At the end of the day, cap or no cap, clubs have to generate income and big city clubs with larger catchment areas are always going to dominate. The one element you missed out was the rôle of the 'sugar daddy', who provide income over and above that generated by a well run business. These can be capricious though, and can go as quickly as they come and, whilst in situ, they can distort the internal, particularly player market, in the game. In my opinion, we allow these people to run unchecked within the game at our peril.