The interesting and perhaps disheartening thing about the raising of the cap in Australia has been the immediate demand for unrealistic salary increases by players looking to sign new deals.

We can only assume that something similar would happen here.

A club announces that it has an extra few hundred thousand, and players start to ask for inflated wages. And who could blame them? It's human nature.

For me, once the cash is in place - and I agree with Dave O that it needs to be found and provided across the SL board, rather than through the generosity of wealthy individuals - the cap needs to be moderated sensibly rather than simply done away with or raised willy nilly. If you got exemptions from the cap for home-grown starlets, and if you could call on a central fund of extras for marquee players etc - i.e. if the only cases where the salary cap didn't apply were specifically laid down in law - that should stop ragtag and bobtail suddenly doubling their asking price. That should also improve your chances of keeping your home-grown talent, and attract the occasional big name signing to to put a few extra booties on seats.

Rather than have exemption of youth coming through, have it on proximity to said club, it stops the rich clubs going across the country hoovering up the best talent.

A bit like when you waved the pound notes under Micky Learmonths nose then?

If the next 'Tomkins' was found in Hull, you're telling me that Wigan, Saint, Wire even Leeds and Hudds wouldn't try to recruit him for their team?

No we'd certainly all be after the same player without a doubt,but the Rhinos wouldn't win the race if it was purely based on the money offered.
Although the Rhinos have learnt how to win major trophies and on a regular basis too without having to do this

I disagree, Rugby Union is far more reliant on sugar daddies than Rugby League and most clubs would not be paying anywhere near the salary cap in that sport if it wasnt for them. The RU clubs on the whole lose vast amounts of money and most would be out of business if it wasnt for their sugar daddies. Even some clubs that are now holding their heads above water are only doing so because of the vast amounts of money that has been spent in previous years by their sugar daddies to get them to that position.

Meanwhile good youngsters outside the heartlands struggle to get picked up at the expense of worse players near SL clubs who wouldn't count against the cap.

Do a Google search on the BT Vision deal with RU and you will soon see the idea Ru is reliant on sugar daddies is yesterdays news. Clubs are going to get a 50% increase in income right from the off.

RU administrators have stated they intend to use the cash from BT Vision deal exactly as I said to allow their clubs to pay higher wages.

It is a £152m deal over three years.

That is the sort of cash injection required in RL to allow it to increase the salary cap by a meaningful amount to allow it to compete for talent long term. My point is it won't get anything like that amount from RL's so-called sugar daddies.

I'm pretty sure IL said at a fans forum that when there is a vote on the SC he votes for an increase in line with the rate of inflation.

I dont think that this TV deal is anywhere near as good as you seem to think and there are still an awful lot of unanswered questions about it, even the figure of £152m is disputed with some saying that it doesnt mean £152m in cash but overall value with things like marketing, technical support and community schemes included. The deal is also for £152m over 4 years, not the 3 that you state, and it is for far more than just the Rugby Union Premiership, including things like European competition and sevens. Also they will not get a 50% increase in income, like you state, right from the off. Broadcast revenue may go up but that is totally different to total overall income and I would definately take all the PR spin that the likes of Mark McCafferty come out with with a pinch of salt.

The deal includes a 3 year deal for all European matches that involve English clubs which means bye, bye Heinekan Cup and either a Heinekan Cup under a different name (if they can get the other nations on board which seeing they are all peeved off with this deal is up for debate) or at worst an Anglo French cup. However whatever they do they are setting a 1/3 of this 152m aside to split with the Celtic Nations and/or French to try and get them on board, which is obviously going to divert a good chunk of the TV deal away from the English clubs. In particular the ones that cant get into Europe and are already struggling financially, i.e the ones that need it the most and are already reliant on benefactors, will be hardest hit. The rich may indeed get richer but the vast majority of English clubs will fall further and further behind.

This TV deal has an awful lot of implications for RU and most certainly do not seem to think that it is a good deal, there are very few fans who are keen on this deal and most seem to think it is no where near as good as it may initially seem. The contract is also disputed by European Rugby Cup, who oversee the Heineken and Amlin Challenge Cup tournaments and the RFU have also refused to ratify the deal.

RU will still be reliant on sugar daddies and this TV deal will do little to change that. The last lot of figures that I can find show that out of the 12 RU clubs 7 lost well more than a million with 10 of the 12 making losses. Any extra money from TV revenue wont even cover these losses, never mind paying for the salary cap to go up. The sugar daddies walk away and the majority of RU clubs would go bust with or without this new TV deal. In a way though I suppose the RU clubs were pushed into this as Sky offered RU less money than the last TV deal and the RU clubs are desperate for money.

Good informative post.

I suppose one thing that Union are good at is bigging up their sponsorship deals so that, at least to the untrained eye, they look brilliant. That way, when they come to the next round of negotiations with other sponsors, they've got a strong platform. They build an impression that they have got a product worth throwing millions at - even if it's boring s***.

The RFL give away their sponsorship for nothing then tell every man and his dog about it

Yes your right it is four years note three. It is for 69 Arriva premiership games a year and European games featuring UK sides from 2014 and the rights to screen matches from a sevens competition.

It's still £38m a year going into the sport and it is definitely going to be used to increase their salary cap.

"It will mean an increase of 50% in television revenue for our clubs and means we can look at the salary cap [which is £4.5m plus add-ons] for the season after next. Our aim has for a long time been to put ourselves on a par with football's [second tier] Championship and we are well on our way."

From here

rlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/sep/12/premiership-rugby-bt-deal-broadcastrl




Rubbish. A 50% increase in TV revenue and the amount of money this will inject into the game means exactly the opposite.

It doesn't really matter though from an RL point of view. The fact remains in order to compete with RU and NRL salary caps RL needs to find a lot of cash from outside the sport because RL's sugar daddies are not going to bankroll the sport to the required extent. You can seek crumbs of comfort on RU clubs balance sheets if you want but they aren't going away.

Another new investor at Bradford to give the club a six figure sum.

rlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21699726rl

Disgraceful, the sport doesn't want these kind of sugar daddy offerings

Another thing which I have noticed in recent years re the salary cap is that on club's accounts the Salaries figure goes up each year. So if the top 25 playing staff have theirs fixed at £1.65m then the increase is coming from the non playing staff.
Can't think of much dafter than that which leave us in no doubt that the SC needs either a radical improvement or better still its abolition.