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Mild Rover wrote:
The cap is a red herring in more than one way, imo, and distracts from more meaningful stuff.
The UK economy is knackered, especially in RL’s traditional heartlands. So, while it is very disappointing that the cap has risen so little (or fallen quite a lot in real terms), it’s not like anybody is profiteering.
Other sports have flourished with caps in place, and seen their caps grow. I suppose it is a bit different if your league is the pinnacle of its sport, like the major US leagues or the NRL. But the CFL has a cap, and does okay - it just accepts that it has been left behind by the NFL. We’re not far off that for SL vs the NRL and I don’t think the NRL is a sensible yardstick anymore. The issue is money, and I don’t believe the cap is shutting out investment - and unless potential investors start coming forward to say it is, I’ll remain sceptical. In part because the cap itself is now a bit of a joke. It hasn’t brought sufficient competitive parity (although it could be worse, I admit) or financial stability to clubs. And it has so many loopholes we may as well not bother and save a few quid on the admin. It’s only benefit is that it annoys Wigan fans who imagine it holds their club back (it doesn’t, but if it annoys them that’s a minor plus).
If I’m not mistaken it wasn’t that long ago the NRL was in serious financial difficulty to the point of almost going bust. Hopefully they’ve sorted the management and issues in regards to the wastage of money. Not sure increasing the NRL salary cap is a smart move or not so soon but increasing salary cap in the SL right now I think would be a disaster. The game needs to improve its financial foundations and stabilise before increasing financial pressures on clubs.
Look at how the Rugby Union fared and the amount of money the sport was getting at club level and SKY and terrestrial coverage along with the media.
Statistics: Posted by Chris71 — Sun Dec 25, 2022 10:02 pm — Replies 3403 — Views 497380