Martin Offiah delivers damning verdict on current state of Super League with major warning

[nathan_rugby]

Rather than throwing money at one of two marquee players whilst keeping the rest on a tight budget we would have been better growing the cap on line with inflation and setting reasonable minimums for the lowest paid players. Quite why we seem so against allowing players to maximise income through advertising and external revenue is beyond me. Now we have a faceless sport with no nationally recognisable faces still playing. Have we been taking tips on levelling up from Boris?

Wouldn't this just result in paying players a little bit more than they earn (rightly so) rather than tackle the problem of our cap vs the likes of union and NRL and also our cap resulting in rugby league not being a desirable financial career.

[nathan_rugby]

Rather than throwing money at one of two marquee players whilst keeping the rest on a tight budget we would have been better growing the cap on line with inflation and setting reasonable minimums for the lowest paid players. Quite why we seem so against allowing players to maximise income through advertising and external revenue is beyond me. Now we have a faceless sport with no nationally recognisable faces still playing. Have we been taking tips on levelling up from Boris?

I’ve said this all along, don’t care who they are, to pay one or two players an incredible amount of money while the others are on small contracts is what creates bad feeling in camps IMO!

Jake Shorrocks is on more money at Newcastle Thunder than what he was on here!

And yes, let the players earn money from advertising or whatever to maximise their wage is a no brainer!

Since this stopped there isn’t one player from Rugby League that is known outside of the sport anymore! Then we wonder why tv monies keep plummeting Excepting Rob Burrow atm

Is this a hunch or fact?

[Mike]

So Wigan develop a player from junior level and he becomes a first team regular and Toulouse can say “We will have him thank you very much”?

This would never work. You would have to put so many caveats into who they could take it would probably end up no different to picking from the cast offs.

Then there is the player himself to consider. You can’t force someone to go and live in France. Or it seems Wigan for that matter (Hardaker). Forcing a player to leave a team he wanted to
play for presumably because he wanted to sign a contract for them is never going to fly.

Works fine in the NHL for example.

The NHL draft is a draft of junior players and European prospects not a mechanism for clubs to poach another clubs established players which is what I think you are suggesting.

Once a player is drafted the club holds his NHL contract from ages 20-27 so this doesn't allow what I think you mean which is the likes of Toulouse to have first pick of a selection of other clubs first team established (and therefore contracted) players.

Many NHL draftees seemingly don't actually make it to be NHL pro players anyway as once drafted get sent back to their junior leagues, the clubs keep an eye on them and if they don't progress they don't end up as a senior player in the NHL.

I just looked it up and what I found was the draft is made up of "All players who will be 18 years old on or before September 15 and not older than 20 years old before December 31 of the draft year are eligible for selection for that year’s NHL Entry Draft. In addition, non-North American players over the age of 20 are eligible.

The players are drafted from three major pools:

1. Major junior hockey leagues in Canada and the USA: The Canadian Hockey League (CHL) in Canada – comprised of Western Hockey League (WHL), Ontario Hockey League, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) – the United States Junior Hockey League (USHL) and Canadian provincial junior hockey leagues
2. European junior and senior men’s hockey leagues
3. NCAA teams (college players)

https://hockeyanswered.com/how-the-nhl- ... ete-guide/

So the draft is restricted to 18 & 19 year olds and players not from existing teams but from Canadian and American junior leagues, North American Colleges and from European teams (which is like saying SL is free to sign NRL players).

What NHL draft isn't, is a mechanism for the likes Toulouse to poach an established player from Wigan and it's also not even a mechanism to poach another clubs junior players (who they will have developed themselves) because they don't seem to have any. Like the NFL in the US, it seem junior development in the NHL is solely a college/junior league thing.

From what I can gather they seem to make a big thing about it. It all seems part of the show but given the club they are drafted to owns the players NHL contracts when they are aged 20 to 27 then the only way they will move clubs is if they are traded i.e. the same as a transfer in SL so I don't see how an NHL draft system giving Toulouse a pick of 18 & 19 year olds would help.

I was taking about the expansion draft in the NHL. Google NHL expansion draft and then you can tell me why I'm wrong more accurately.

Also players can be made to move if traded. The clubs decide the trade, not the players (until they become free agents). That

[josie andrews]

Rather than throwing money at one of two marquee players whilst keeping the rest on a tight budget we would have been better growing the cap on line with inflation and setting reasonable minimums for the lowest paid players. Quite why we seem so against allowing players to maximise income through advertising and external revenue is beyond me. Now we have a faceless sport with no nationally recognisable faces still playing. Have we been taking tips on levelling up from Boris?

I’ve said this all along, don’t care who they are, to pay one or two players an incredible amount of money while the others are on small contracts is what creates bad feeling in camps IMO!

Jake Shorrocks is on more money at Newcastle Thunder than what he was on here!

And yes, let the players earn money from advertising or whatever to maximise their wage is a no brainer!

Since this stopped there isn’t one player from Rugby League that is known outside of the sport anymore! Then we wonder why tv monies keep plummeting Excepting Rob Burrow atm

Is this a hunch or fact?

It happens in all walks of life! Why do you think “Equal Pay” came about!

[DaveO]

Rather than throwing money at one of two marquee players whilst keeping the rest on a tight budget we would have been better growing the cap on line with inflation and setting reasonable minimums for the lowest paid players. Quite why we seem so against allowing players to maximise income through advertising and external revenue is beyond me. Now we have a faceless sport with no nationally recognisable faces still playing. Have we been taking tips on levelling up from Boris?

I’ve said this all along, don’t care who they are, to pay one or two players an incredible amount of money while the others are on small contracts is what creates bad feeling in camps IMO!

Jake Shorrocks is on more money at Newcastle Thunder than what he was on here!

And yes, let the players earn money from advertising or whatever to maximise their wage is a no brainer!

Since this stopped there isn’t one player from Rugby League that is known outside of the sport anymore! Then we wonder why tv monies keep plummeting Excepting Rob Burrow atm

If you won't pay top class players a big wage then you will end up with a team of average players. Top players won't come for average wages.

I am convinced Rads has tried to implement some sort of tiered pay structure similar to the one he highlighted Leeds had a few years back and I think we are seeing the result. Average players across the park.

If some players get their noses pushed out of joint because the club decided to pay a Man of Steel class player a huge wage they are in the wrong profession.

The image rights issue is one I have banged on about for years. Relaxing this restriction won't solve things overnight but it would draw attention to the game which in turn might help it grow sponsorship and help increase the crowds which eventually might allow it to increase the salary cap.

[DaveO]

I was taking about the expansion draft in the NHL. Google NHL expansion draft and then you can tell me why I'm wrong more accurately.

Also players can be made to move if traded. The clubs decide the trade, not the players (until they become free agents). That

I still don't see how it's applicable here. First of all they did it to add new franchise not an existing club to their competition. This is very different. That franchise is paid $650m for the privilege and all the other teams bar one got over $20m as their share of that which is in effect compensation for having to "expose" a set number of players to the draft. The one that didn't get the pay-out is a newish team so was protected from the draft.

What compensation do you propose Toulouse pay the other SL sides for doing something similar to this?

The other clubs still got to protect up to 11 players from the draft and some players had "no movement" clauses meaning they must be protracted so you are still not going to get many top players if you did this in SL but whoever you get you will still end up forcing those players to relocate.

Relocating like that in the NHL is obviously a part of the sports culture and those entering the sport in the initial draft do so knowing this is the case and they can end up anywhere and know an expansion draft can also mean that. As I mentioned in my previous post these clubs don't develop junior players either so don't face being forced to give up players they developed for what in RL won't be anything like the sort of compensation on offer in the NHL.

As the likes of Toulouse aren't a new franchise with no players what happens to their existing players? Are they all paid off to be replaced by draftees? Who pays for that? How many draftees would they want from other clubs? In the NHL it was 30 players and they had to take players from each club. How would that work in RL? If it was smaller number of players it would have to be at least one from each club (so 11) to make it fair. They might not even want 11 players but they would have to take 11 otherwise it would be unfair.

The fact they can draft a player then trade him away seems daft. What that could mean is Toulouse could trade a Wigan player they drafted to Leeds! This sort of thing happened in the 2021 NHL expansion draft where Tyler Pillick was drafted from the Arizona Coyotes but the Seattle Kraken (the new franchise) traded him to Calgary! Unless Wigan got paid more money for releasing him then Toulouse could get for trading their draftee to try and stop this you end up with a stupid merry-go-round of transfers where instead of Toulouse getting a Wigan player, Leeds benefit instead.

There also seems to be the potential for side deals where existing clubs get the new team to pick a particular player they exposed to the draft because they want rid for some reason (too high a contract maybe) in return for some concession down the line. It's like a soap opera which I am sure is played out and reported on with great enthusiasm as all part of the sport with people in bars arguing about drafted players and concessions but I don't see what if offers RL.

It might all work in the NHL when you want a brand new franchise who needs 30 players but I don't see how you can shoehorn this onto a structure that isn't franchised based in the first place. Clubs have too much invested in players they developed and we just don't have the culture of moving counties never mind countries.

The game would need a totally radical overhaul to make it franchised based where Wigan & Saints etc didn't have a junior team at all. All junior players were in a junior league with teams not associated with clubs and not contracted to clubs. Then there could be a draft for the junior players if you can persuade the players if they get picked by Toulouse or Les Cats they are off to France and if a lifelong Wigan fan gets picked for Saints he's going to Saints and Yorkshire based players may even have to come to Lancashire. Once you have this culture embedded than you can have your expansion draft if you want to add a new team but without going the whole franchise hog like this I don't see how it can be made to work for RL.

[nathan_rugby]

I’ve said this all along, don’t care who they are, to pay one or two players an incredible amount of money while the others are on small contracts is what creates bad feeling in camps IMO!

Jake Shorrocks is on more money at Newcastle Thunder than what he was on here!

And yes, let the players earn money from advertising or whatever to maximise their wage is a no brainer!

Since this stopped there isn’t one player from Rugby League that is known outside of the sport anymore! Then we wonder why tv monies keep plummeting Excepting Rob Burrow atm

Is this a hunch or fact?

It happens in all walks of life! Why do you think “Equal Pay” came about!

This isn’t about equal pay though.

If you remove the marquee and get rid of the salary cap then you will still have the best players paid the best salaries.

If you remove marquee and increase salary cap inline with inflation then each player just gets a bump and the gaps between everyone stays the same. This is fair pay.

[Mike]

I was taking about the expansion draft in the NHL. Google NHL expansion draft and then you can tell me why I'm wrong more accurately.

Also players can be made to move if traded. The clubs decide the trade, not the players (until they become free agents). That

I still don't see how it's applicable here. First of all they did it to add new franchise not an existing club to their competition.

I knew I was wrong, even before you'd found out what the idea was!

Its clearly not exactly the same scenario, I'm not saying it is, and I'm not saying the exact same solution applies. However, a semi-pro team (or one with semi-pro standard players) coming up into Pro league has a lot of parallels. Seems like a extremely related set of issues to me. They're replacing an existing team which has already been asset stripped, so they can't even inherit the best of the worst in the comp.

How would you do it - i.e. bring a new team into the league? I think you're answer in the past is that you can't, but if we want to do this, how could we make it work?

Also, I'm interested in how the sport could attract all this new money that's gong to be requried to drop the salary cap etc. Where's the incentive coming from in the current structure? If we dropped the salary cap then maybe a rich chairman would come and throw money at a specific club for personal ego reasons - maybe that's enough. IMO a whole game approach is much better. The whole sport run as one business.

[widdenoldboy]

The problems are easy to spot but difficult to solve.

The RFL is judged on results so they are not doing well at all.

The rules around players earning money from media etc seem perverse.

Salary Cap had its uses in stopping clubs overspending and going bust but its now setting a very low bar and holding the game back.

[Levrier]

I imagine that if/when we go to two divisions of ten then the cap might be revisited.