pie.warrior wrote:
forget top NRL players coming to superleague, their new proposed cap of AUS $5.7m for 2013 which equates to an average of £151,000 per player for a 25 man squad compared to £66,000 per player in SL......... Just goes to show how far we are behind in promoting the game in the UK and how it is perceived by the general public at large
If you pay peanuts you get monkey's. I said this years ago when the sport as a whole went full time. It was obvious to me back then if the sport wanted players to stop being semi-pro and earning a wage outside the game it was going to cost the clubs a lot more money in wages to compensate. The fact the sport in the UK is in no position to keep pace with the wage inflation that is part and parcel of professional sport in all its various guises does, as you say, show how far behind we are at promoting the game. It hasn't even kept pace with RPI and wages in general never mind wages in other sports.
The only reason the NRL can up the cap is due to external funds flowing in from TV rights etc, not because they put a few more thousand on the gates. It's the same with RU. The multi- million pound deal they signed with BT Vision is allowing them to pay their players even more.
If you listened to IL on Wigan TV and on GMR recently he says the RFL are moving in the right direction in bringing in revenue to the game and disbursing funds to clubs. It needs to do a lot more of that so we move away from almost taking pride in paying players a relative pittance as professional athletes.
