I was surprised by Watters openly stating that. Clearly the "everyone's equal" at the money front theory has been decided. Goddard needs to see buddy, rioli, selwood, kelly, bartel, etc who take less than market value to keep a team together. If not, I wish him all the best at his new club (whichever it is, blues, pies, oranges).
You do realise that Buddy is reportedly on approx $1mil a year now, don't you? It is also estimated that Luke Hodge is on around $800K. So if those estimates are close to correct, it will blow this theory that you can't pay anyone a heap of money and win a premiership out of the water.
Wayne Carey was also on more than $1mil way back in the 90's, when everyone else was on bugger-all and they made what, something like 7 prelims in a row, from memory?
We also had Riewoldt on around $1mil (or certainly more than this magical number of $600K) for much of the recent years and we also made the finals in 8 of 9 years and were within a bees dick of winning two flags.
It's like gameplans. One club does something that works
for them and then pretty much everyone else follows them, convinced that the way they have gone about things is the only way to do things from now on, but a year or two down the track, another club, that have thought for themselves, and not followed the herd, will come up with something new and successful and then most will start to follow them. Rinse and repeat.
You also don't seriously think that Goddard is expecting us to pay what he is being offered by other clubs, do you?

I can pretty much guarantee you that he is very willing to stay for considerably less then he would get at another club, but everyone has their price. Just like the price the club have that they're not prepared to go over.
If it's OK for the club to set a number that they won't go over, it's similarly OK for BJ to set a number that he won't go under. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.