The "Oakley Rule" and the future of the game

[Bluelegs]

What would paying the same crap list less achieve? more footy dept. spending?

Player salaries as a whole are a reflection of the AFL's popularity as a sport, not their performance. If they are generating that much money in entertainment value then that's how much they deserve to get paid. Obviously Melbourne doesn't entertain much, but you have to be consistent across the league.

If you have more room left over in your cap you have more room to spend on trades/free agents come season end, more to spend on retaining stars.

 

[WinmarToLockett]

What a s**t thread.

Imagine if we'd offered Chris Dawes what he was worth? "Here, come play for the worst team the entire league has seen for 20 years. We'll give you a half-eaten mars bar. It'll be great!"

You might want to get used to overpaying players. Unless Paul Roos can work a miracle, we'll probably be doing that again this trade period.

Anyway completely off topic, but imagine what would have happened had Judd signed back when he left West Coast? He was pretty close, by all reports...

 

[coniglio_number1]

What is the penalty for not meeting the minimum?

You get forced to have a highly paid spud on the team for bigfooty lulz

 

[LeverPuller]

Okay let's say there was no minimum cap, Melbourne then get a reputation as being a club that skimps on its players much like the LA Clippers through the 90's and 00's where the only FA they could attract were guys at the end of their careers, players they drafted left as soon as their rookie contracts were up.

Is that what you want Melbourne to become, a feeder club to the rest of the competition?

They are already.

Free agents that have left Melbourne: Jared Rivers, Col Sylvia, Brent Moloney. (Plus Scully if you want to include expansion losses)
Free agents for Melbourne in 2014: James Frawley
Unrestricted free agents brought into Melbourne: Shannon Byrnes

Every other acquisition Melbourne has made has been a delisted FA (Rodan, Cross, Riley) or a trade (Tyson, Vince, Dawes, Clark, Pedersen, Michie). Players are going to Melbourne out of their own desperation or for the big bucks, not because they're a 'prime' destination.

 

[Underdog]

The point is equalisation. Pay the current Melbourne players what they are worth, have a crack at some stars with the spare cash. Brings down the better clubs, lifts the bottom clubs

There's nothing stopping that from occurring now, they just need to manage contracts smartly.

FFS, if players aren't performing, you're not obliged to pay overs for them. Get rid of them and recruit someone who WILL perform.

 

[TedDougChris]

They are already.

Free agents that have left Melbourne: Jared Rivers, Col Sylvia, Brent Moloney. (Plus Scully if you want to include expansion losses)
Free agents for Melbourne in 2014: James Frawley
Unrestricted free agents brought into Melbourne: Shannon Byrnes

Every other acquisition Melbourne has made has been a delisted FA (Rodan, Cross, Riley) or a trade (Tyson, Vince, Dawes, Clark, Pedersen, Michie). Players are going to Melbourne out of their own desperation or for the big bucks, not because they're a 'prime' destination.

I don't believe you will fix the problem by reducing player wages and further impacting on the your list profile issues.

 

[mick06]

There's an easy way to solve the problem for poor lists. Have a chook raffle at the start of each season and pay a random player 1.5 million

 

[TedDougChris]

We would have overpaid to get Dawes anyway thats how you get players from the other clubs

Agreed - we have paid over to get Crameri to the club - not by a lot, but we still had to do it.

 

[jim boy]

How about this for a plan - pay your current players whatever you think they are worth, then target whoever you want for $1 million dollars a year, you'll have close to first pick in the PSD, so you dont have to worry about trading.

 

[Underdog]

How about this for a plan - pay your current players whatever you think they are worth, then target whoever you want for $1 million dollars a year, you'll have close to first pick in the PSD, so you dont have to worry about trading.

Exactly, it's not rocket science. If you're retaining and thus overpaying non-performing players, that's your own fault.

 

[Topkent]

Exactly, it's not rocket science. If you're retaining and thus overpaying non-performing players, that's your own fault.

Yup theres a dozen players worth around a million dollars coming off contract this year who would be willing to leave there clubs

 

[Boxhead_31]

They are already.

Free agents that have left Melbourne: Jared Rivers, Col Sylvia, Brent Moloney. (Plus Scully if you want to include expansion losses)
Free agents for Melbourne in 2014: James Frawley
Unrestricted free agents brought into Melbourne: Shannon Byrnes

Every other acquisition Melbourne has made has been a delisted FA (Rodan, Cross, Riley) or a trade (Tyson, Vince, Dawes, Clark, Pedersen, Michie). Players are going to Melbourne out of their own desperation or for the big bucks, not because they're a 'prime' destination.

So how would lowering the salary cap change that?

 

[Riccardo11]

Pathetic cheap shot mate

He is merely pointing out that blokes on that list like Watts, Trengove, Grimes, Jamar etc who have underperformed for years are in at least one case earning more than some very good players at other clubs

One of those blokes is probably making between 400-700 this year purely to help fill our cap

With free agency the need for a minimum salary cap makes no sense to me, if we underpay all of our players to save money they will just piss off somewhere else

Surely the minimum could be dropped back to 85%

The AFL didn't force you to offer those players more money than they were/are worth. The rest of the competition doesn't deserve to pay for your clubs mismanagement.

If Melbourne can't manage it's list, maybe that's Melbourne fault, and not the result of free agency, the AFL, the expansion teams, the salary cap or anything else.

 

[TedDougChris]

The AFL didn't force you to offer those players more money than they were/are worth. The rest of the competition doesn't deserve to pay for your clubs mismanagement.

If Melbourne can't manage it's list, maybe that's Melbourne fault, and not the result of free agency, the AFL, the expansion teams, the salary cap or anything else.

There are problems that Melbourne (and others have) that have been caused by the list you mention above, but not all of Melbourne's problems are caused by others - I agree. The state of their list is a combination item.

 

[IanW]

A big part of Port's recovery was overpaying Boak so he stayed at the club.

If Melbourne has spare cap room, just give it to Mr Nathan Jones.

The club might also reconsider what they are paying some of the spuds, and frontload and shorten their contracts, effectively buying them out of 2015-16 years with 2014 cap room.

 

[Topkent]

with all due respect, the way high draft picks have turned out is as much about the development and coach as it is the recruiting. what is Melbourne just unlucky every year their high draft picks are crap? or maybe they draft them and expect them to carry the team straight away without any type of leadership or development? hell our captain marc murphy is in his 8th season and he wasn't ready to captain our team last year. imagine dumping that on young trengove! even players like toumpas, gysberts didn't come along they way other players in that draft did. if the club structures aren't in place every draft will continue to yield the same results.

Mate the last thing im doing is defending our drafting or development just pointing out the judd hypothetical I was responding to was stupid

The AFL didn't force you to offer those players more money than they were/are worth. The rest of the competition doesn't deserve to pay for your clubs mismanagement.

If Melbourne can't manage it's list, maybe that's Melbourne fault, and not the result of free agency, the AFL, the expansion teams, the salary cap or anything else.

What?

1.How does lowering the cap make 'Your' club pay? You can still choose to pay 100%
2. Yes the AFL does force us to pay more than they are worth, that is the whole point of the thread
3. There is only a set number of recycled players we can bring into to fill up the cap

 

[WinmarToLockett]

Your a ******* idiot... completely missed the point... We would have overpaid to get Dawes anyway thats how you get players from the other clubs you moron

Settle down princess. Also, if you're going to call someone an idiot (or a moron)... perhaps you should learn how to spell? It's "you're" as in "you are". Come on man. It's pretty easy.

Anyway, I think it is you that has missed the point. The question posed was why are Melbourne overpaying their players. And the answer is obvious- if we didn't overpay them, they'd play elsewhere. This post sums it up nicely:

The risk is that Melbourne reduce wages, lose players, become less competitive and no player wants to go there. This then spirals out of control as they become unattractive, uncompetitive and unprofitable - so they then slash wages again...

(only thing I'd like to point out is we've already become unattractive and uncompetitive. And we haven't been profitable for ages. Otherwise... spot on)

Okay let's say there was no minimum cap, Melbourne then get a reputation as being a club that skimps on its players much like the LA Clippers through the 90's and 00's where the only FA they could attract were guys at the end of their careers, players they drafted left as soon as their rookie contracts were up.

Is that what you want Melbourne to become, a feeder club to the rest of the competition?

According to a couple of Melbourne supporters here... yes. I'm assuming they are the type of supporters that cheered Melbourne when they were tanking.

 

[WinmarToLockett]

Mate the last thing im doing is defending our drafting or development just pointing out the judd hypothetical I was responding to was stupid

Read the post again. I specifically said that the Judd comment was off topic.

Also have a xanax or something, the game was two days ago. Get over it already!

 

[le dominateur]

OP has made a fair point, no way should Melbourne's list be getting anything close to the salary payments of Hawthorn.

 

[telsor]

1) Make the lower limit 'soft' (average at least 95% over 3 years) to increase flexibility.
2) To keep the AFLPA happy, cut payments to clubs that are below the cap so no club does so for financial advantage (rather than list management). So, If you're 500K short of the cap, the AFL dividend is cut by 500K.

 

[Slax]

A big part of Port's recovery was overpaying Boak so he stayed at the club.

If Melbourne has spare cap room, just give it to Mr Nathan Jones.

The club might also reconsider what they are paying some of the spuds, and frontload and shorten their contracts, effectively buying them out of 2015-16 years with 2014 cap room.

Overpaying Boak, you are kidding me and coming from a GWS man where they have the $6m dollar man doing nothing. Boak has been worth the investment by Port, he is an excellent captain and shown he is giving much better value for money than some of the so called big recruits your lot made.

Having seen the damage done by overpaying players at my own club, it helps reinforce my opinion that there needs to be a football department cap not a salary cap. This means that for a Melbourne they can go and recruit top coaches to help build up skills, a better game plan and take the club forward. On the flip side a Hawthorn or Sydney would have to take on more junior assistant coaches or offload some coaching staff to keep spending down.

 

[Dont be a lemon]

If Melbourne supporters want flexibility they should advocate for greater free agency. That would make it easier to recruit established players and easier to ditch ordinary ones.

The salary cap floor is in there so players at poor clubs don't get systematically paid less than players at 'rich' clubs. Lower the floor and that's what will happen.

 

[Crawb]

Chris Dawes is believed to be on $500,000 per year.

wut.

 

[Periphery]

 

[boncer34]

What would paying the same crap list less achieve? more footy dept. spending?

Player salaries as a whole are a reflection of the AFL's popularity as a sport, not their performance. If they are generating that much money in entertainment value then that's how much they deserve to get paid. Obviously Melbourne doesn't entertain much, but you have to be consistent across the league.

More money to attract quality FA's?