List Mgmt. Crows Salary Cap and Player Salaries (with actual data)

[Shaz2012]

Hugh Greenwood will be in the $360k category

Maybe even $450-$600k for next year.

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I doubt this. For one thing he is not even in the made up rumours radar. His output doesnt suggest he will definitely be a star. Only that he has the potential. But given his age not many clubs would be taking too big a risk on him. If we got a Kelly for example, he is one player that I could lose for cap reasons and play Hampton instead. Not saying I dont love what he is bringing. I do. But he is currently out second string mid and I dont see that changing.

 

[Shaz2012]

The common theme for 4 of them is that they were players traded in. One of the things about trading is that, in order to get a player to nominate your club, you need to put a decent pay offer in.

If the player doesn't live up to their potential (or gets injuried) a la Seedsman, Hampton and Cheney, you end up carrying a good chunk of salary cap on players that don't add much to your team. Add in a Mackay and suddenly 5 out of 8 players in the 11-18 highest paid players aren't contributing a heck of a lot to your team on the field. On top of that, they normally have a 2-4 year contract, so they can stink up your list for a while.

I guess it shows how important it is to get your trades right as a few bad trades can mess up your salary cap management for a number of years.

But that is wasn't a big problem at the time in terms of our list. We didnt have Lever, Gov and Greenwood playing at their current levels. This is why you give mid level trade ins just 3 years. I would guess that Hampton, Seedsman and Menzel will only have one year left. Douglas and Mackay maybe 1 or 2. We can structure our offer for new contracts of players like Gov and Lever by taking into account that some of these guys can be our mandatory delists and replaced by $100k draftees or offered take or leave offers in the lowest bracket like you suggest for Cheney.

 

[rezagun]

Similar situation to Sydney and Geelong. Lots of star power at the top end, then atrocious depth. Collingwood would have close to 20 players on around $100k, and then a handful of best 22 on low contracts in the $200k range as well.

I feel like sydney and geelong are replicating the nba in where they have a big 3 or 4. In afl its harder to do it because of the list numbers but in theory it can work.
You have enough star power to challenge and gain players via trade or fa that play for unders just so they have a chance to win a flag.
Sydney- franklin, hannebery, kennedy, martin?
Geelong- dangerfield, selwood, hawkins, ablett?
If both these teams get the named players in this year they instantly become stronger and a 'destination team'. Sure you may lose some mid tier talent but your top 3-5 players outweighs that.
Interesting debate.

 

[Samcro24]

The common theme for 4 of them is that they were players traded in. One of the things about trading is that, in order to get a player to nominate your club, you need to put a decent pay offer in.

If the player doesn't live up to their potential (or gets injuried) a la Seedsman, Hampton and Cheney, you end up carrying a good chunk of salary cap on players that don't add much to your team. Add in a Mackay and suddenly 5 out of 8 players in the 11-18 highest paid players aren't contributing a heck of a lot to your team on the field. On top of that, they normally have a 2-4 year contract, so they can stink up your list for a while.

I guess it shows how important it is to get your trades right as a few bad trades can mess up your salary cap management for a number of years.

Weird that we pay a lot for our depth.

But break our necks to not use it.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

I feel like sydney and geelong are replicating the nba in where they have a big 3 or 4. In afl its harder to do it because of the list numbers but in theory it can work.
You have enough star power to challenge and gain players via trade or fa that play for unders just so they have a chance to win a flag.
Sydney- franklin, hannebery, kennedy, martin?
Geelong- dangerfield, selwood, hawkins, ablett?
If both these teams get the named players in this year they instantly become stronger and a 'destination team'. Sure you may lose some mid tier talent but your top 3-5 players outweighs that.
Interesting debate.

The difference with the NBA though is that you can have 3 players play 40+ mpg and that means that 60% of your team is stars.

Even 4 stars in an AFL team all playing 85% game time means that just over 20% of your team is stars. There's a big difference between 20% and 60%.

That said, both Geelong and Sydney have challenged the last few years.

 

[Crowked]

Great OP.

So either these teams offering the huge $ are taking a huge risk on Lever or Gov becoming the players they might be, or they're simply not offering the $ being reported.

Personally, I hope our structure is more even through the top half of our list. I don't see how players can demand $700K+ and expect a team mate to accept less than they're worth and stay. Surely smart elite footballers know the key to them having sustained success is spreading the salary cap more evenly.

I know football life is short but they don't die at 32, they can still make money after football.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Weird that we pay a lot for our depth.

But break our necks to not use it.

We do and we don't use our depth. Pkye seems to like to stick with the same core players, but if you look at the last 2 seasons, our depth does show up a little.

For example, last year Kelly and Otten played no games between them. This year they have played all but a single game each. Meanwhile Cheney and Seedsmen, who both played most of last year, have played 1 game between them this year.

We've also won a lot of games the last 2 seasons. Teams tend not to make as many changes when they are winning.

You are right about paying for players you don't use though. When players are among your 18 highest paid players, but they are spending most of their time in the SANFL it seems like a lot of money wasted.

 

[Jeffcrowe]

As I think Scorpus was saying last night, heres the problem.

8 players on about $360k/year
Paul Seedsman
David Mackay
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Kyle Cheney
Rory Laird
Troy Menzel
Matt Crouch

That is definitely the problem

I don't reckon we have any players in the top bracket and maybe only Sloane just touching the 2nd bracket

Tex and Talia < 720k IMO

 

[Jeffcrowe]

Looking at that mid tier list I'd be looking to trade 2 out of contract eg Cheney / possibly Hampton or someone else getting paid $350k but not playing regular football

 

[Vader]

I also suspect that these mid-tier contracts are what has been holding us back from obtaining top-end talent through trading. I've had a suspicion that we never quite offer the right (high) dollar value to recruits and that's a limitation brought about by having too many depth players. On the other hand, Sydney and Geelong have no issue recruiting top-tier players from other sides, but have rubbish depth. I think we are at one end of the scale and those teams are at the other, and the best structure is naturally in the middle.

I think this is part of the reason why Wright, Kerridge, Lyons, and Grigg were all forced out the door, with CEY likely to follow them this year. Part of the reason... not the whole reason.

I think we had a flat structure in the past, but I think we're moving to a more highly tiered structure since Justin Reid took over. That's the impression I have - it may be right, it may be completely and utterly wrong.

 

[Scorpus]

I think we had a flat structure in the past, but I think we're moving to a more highly tiered structure since Justin Reid took over. That's the impression I have - it may be right, it may be completely and utterly wrong.

Yeah I'd agree. I think the past structure ties in to David Noble's supposed moneyball system, which was about getting high gain in specific areas from low value players. What the moneyball system likely did was instead of paying for stars, we obtained a lot of players on these mid-tier contracts who were thought to bring lots of value for a relatively cheap price. Sometimes it would have paid off, and in other cases it would have restricted us from making plays for genuine stars

 

[Linekers Ears]

I also suspect that these mid-tier contracts are what has been holding us back from obtaining top-end talent through trading. I've had a suspicion that we never quite offer the right (high) dollar value to recruits and that's a limitation brought about by having too many depth players.

On the other hand, Sydney and Geelong have no issue recruiting top-tier players from other sides, but have rubbish depth.

I think we are at one end of the scale and those teams are at the other, and the best structure is naturally in the middle.

This is a key point - in Supercoach terms, Sydney & Geelong are "Guns and Rookies", the Crows are "Midpricers".

Looking at NFL cap management, The Pats have top end talent in Offence & Defence (along with a substantial discount from Brady) but every year manage to get meaningful contributions from rookies and low cost free agents. Pats Free Agent pick ups often leave at the end of the year because they've played themselves onto a larger contract.

NFL is not AFL - list turnover is a lot lower in the AFL and with guaranteed contracts in the AFL you can't flip your salary cap profile as quickly as the NFL does - but clearly we need to get out from under the overpriced midpricers like Mmmmkay and do something about guys on reasonable coin who haven't contributed for whatever reason (Cheney, Menzel, Hampton). Our depth needs to be cat or close to base rate.

Contracts are renegotiable: we could offer to extend some of the overpaid depth players by a year but keep the same total value to reduce the annual rate, or trade some of our depth and replace from the draft or base rate free agents.

Personally I think we need to keep both Lever, Gov and Hugewood and if that means some "man conversations" with the blokes who aren't contributing, then "get the job done" Mr Reid.

 

[Rotayjay]

Yep, if someone like a Josh Kelly signs a long term deal and then gets injured or doesn't live up to the hype he could ruin a club's chances of challenging for a flag for 5+ years.

Moreover, IMO part of the broad shift away from club culture and towards individualistic, American/EPL/European prima donna mercenary culture. I keep crapping on about this but I firmly believe it has the potential to rot the Australian game to the core.

 

[StonesThrow]

Moreover, IMO part of the broad shift away from club culture and towards individualistic, American/EPL/European prima donna mercenary culture. I keep crapping on about this but I firmly believe it has the potential to rot the Australian game to the core.

When you say rot, are you comparing it to where the EPL etc are?

 

[ShadeyP]

Weird that we pay a lot for our depth.

But break our necks to not use it.

And overpay for our constant underperformers

 

[SydCrow]

You can see why clubs would pay some salary to offload players.

 

[Peter Doherty]

Yep, if someone like a Josh Kelly signs a long term deal and then gets injured or doesn't live up to the hype he could ruin a club's chances of challenging for a flag for 5+ years.

Nathan Brown was on BIG money when he wrecked his leg at Richmond.

 

[CrowsB4hoes]

As I think Scorpus was saying last night, heres the problem.

8 players on about $360k/year
Paul Seedsman
David Mackay
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Kyle Cheney
Rory Laird
Troy Menzel
Matt Crouch

Cheney wouldn't be on that much. You have to look at the player they was when they signed the contract. Cheney was a journeyman on his last chance after not cracking it at Demons or Hawks.

Even Mrouch would be barely in that group. He signed his contract in 2015, and he wasn't a first 22 then. Got dropped a couple times. Might be 300.

 

[The Smith Revolution]

OK, just had a contemplation break. Two things, we have a serious imbalance at work. We are factually the club that plays the lowest amount of players. (Article on the AFL website several weeks ago). We have elite rehab, injury prevention blah blah. But we spread the wealth. Are we not the prime club to do the Brad Scott thing and pay less players more money for above facts? Seems to be at odds there.

Secondly, in the MLB, cheap controllable assets is huge for clubs where there is a soft cap of sorts. Why doesn't a club back it's recruitment team and give young players longer contracts for less coin. So the McGoverns/Greenwoods of this world (won't use Lever here cos he'd back himself and not sign) but also say Caleb Daniel another example, get signed up for four/five years straight off at say $250/$300k (just under league average). Bang, there is your value right there when they perform in years three four and five. Yes, yes risk involved, but here we are in a comp that is getting more even every year if you haven't noticed. Advantages are more important than ever. And don't suggest we risk alienating them cos there f**king off pretty frequently at the moment as I see it.

 

[MattyB_76]

Is it worth considering match day payments and how that affects these prices too.

I thought I read that 1st year players get a base of about 70k plus about 3700 a game.

Let's say that every player gets 4k a game. That means a player like Cheney got 80k more last year than this year. And Kelly the opposite.

It also accounts for about 2.2 mill of the salary cap.

 

[chazwazza]

This could go in the Lever ot McGovern threads....or a couple of other for that matter.
It's frustrating to go through this shit every year and yes, I think the media to prey on the "Adelaide can't keep players" angle.
But let's look at it this way, we've been poached, had players walk out and players ask to be traded but we've done well in rebuilding and replacing those players through good trading, recruitment and drafting.
Take a positive angle on it and see it as a massive compliment to our recruiters and talent spotters that we find good players, develop them well and are wanted by other clubs.
Maybe we have to get better in keeping them, negotiations and in trading with other clubs when players want to leave, but it's sure as hell better than having shit players that we and others don't rate.

 

[Stiffy_18]

This chart doesn't have Reilly O'Brien, who I since added but then didn't bother updating the screenshot

Based on estimates, I have slightly different figures. I think we're a club that has a lot of mid-tier contracts with some very low contracts at the bottom and not as many massive contracts at the top.

I have the following breakdown:
700k: 2
450-600k: 10
360k: 10
240k or less: 17

My thinking is we have less players at the top end of the $600k bracket in favor of more around the $400k mark, which then falls away massively to our long-term depth players (CEY, Kelly, Otten) and draftees (fixed contracts).

My estimate has us with $500k of cap space when re-signing McGovern and Lever to large contracts.

As you'll see, some players like Matt Crouch, Laird, Cameron and so forth are on smaller than what you'd expect. I've made those estimates based on when those players were contracted. Blokes like Matt Crouch were performing significantly worse than where they are now, but signed contracts upwards of 3 years ago. They will be up for $200k+ rises to their contracts moving into 2019.

The way I see our list management, we can be successful if we do a few things:

1. We can retain Lever and McGovern on good contracts, so long as we don't massively overpay them. I think somewhere in the $1.1 to $1.2 million range collectively can be achieved, though anything around or under $1.0m would be fantastic.
2. If we retain Lever/McGovern on those figures, we have some cap space for bringing in a player, but not a lot. $500k in 2018 is not massive. However, I think we will be freeing up extra space by pushing contracts into 2017, where I see us having $1.6m of free cap space or thereabouts. Through front-loading players like Jenkins, I can see us turning that $1.6m of space in 2017 to an extra $400k of space per year over four years, thereby raising our free space to $900k over four years.
3. We can then retain players coming out of contract in 2018 by moving on mid-tier contracts who are not best 22. We most likely have Hampton, Seedsman and Menzel on mid-tier contracts when none are playing consistent AFL football. If you're on AFL average money or thereabouts ($370k), you really should be in the best 22, and funnily enough if all three were on contracts reflective of their time in the SANFL (aka $240k or under contracts) my analysis would fit much closer to the 21-8-7-3 split. If we move on two of those players, we can gain $500k per year (factoring in draftees to replace them) which can go to extensions for M. Crouch and Laird. I would also anticipate if we are to retain Mackay and Douglas, they would be on lower money or be moved on.

Alex Keath?!

I think a few of those "mid-tier" players are on more than you banked.

 

[Rotayjay]

When you say rot, are you comparing it to where the EPL etc are?

I couldn't tell you where the EPL and the other big leagues are at, as I personally don't care much for them or take any interest. Financially, I'm sure they're very lucrative. But I would hate, absolutely hate, our league to become all about the money, glitzy and gimmicky - complete with players diving (Dangerfield's getting ahead of the curve there). I think the team-first culture and 'Australianness' of our sport is being displaced by excessive commercialisation. I say excessive because some commercialisation is good. But the LED strips that jump around and distract from goalkicking, the fawning over individuals and young players demanding huge contracts based on potential, etc ... yeah nah. Putting profits before people and individual players before teams is un-Australian.

 

[StonesThrow]

I couldn't tell you where the EPL and the other big leagues are at, as I personally don't care much for them or take any interest. Financially, I'm sure they're very lucrative. But I would hate, absolutely hate, our league to become all about the money, glitzy and gimmicky - complete with players diving (Dangerfield's getting ahead of the curve there). I think the team-first culture and 'Australianness' of our sport is being displaced by excessive commercialisation. I say excessive because some commercialisation is good. But the LED strips that jump around and distract from goalkicking, the fawning over individuals and young players demanding huge contracts based on potential, etc ... yeah nah. Putting profits before people and individual players before teams is un-Australian.

I agree on the commercialisation. Unfortunately it's a race for clubs to be the best funded and provide the best facilities/resources. I hate the game day (non match) experience. You can't escape advertising. It's in your face.

I guess what I was getting at was that let's say we do move to a league like the EPL, where players move all the time for huge money, it hasn't stopped people loving the game like your would think it would. I hate the way the AFL is going on many ways yet I probably like watching football more than ever.

Even if we do move to a certain way in the future that everyone can agree is negative, we tend to just follow it regardless.

 

[John Who]

In the Lever and McGovern discussion threads there has been a lot of potential contract offers floated about. i.e. Melbourne are supposedly offering Lever $850k/year.

So I thought I'd provide a bit of actual data around what teams pay their players to give some context around what clubs can afford to pay players, while still remaining within the salary cap.

Despite what the media say, the salary cap means that not many players in the competition are on $800k+/year. For example, in 2016 there were only 14 players in the entire competition earning $800k or more.

In addition, breaking down the data shows that paying a couple of players big money will mean that the average salary for the remaining players on your list is a lot lower, which may cause you to lose a few mid-range players to other clubs.

The data below is from this article - http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-03-16/afl-millionaires-club-swells-to-six-players

It is what players were paid in 2016, but I still think it is relevant now. Obviously the number of players in each category would have changed now, but a rough way to update it to 2018 salaries is to just add 20% to each number (as the 2018 salary cap is about 20% higher than the 2016 salary cap).

So a $400k salary in 2016 is equivalent to a $480k salary in 2018. A $500k salary in 2016 is equivalent to a $600k salary in 2018, etc.

The data says that in 2016 there were:

- 89 AFL players that earned $401k-$500k, or about 4.9 players per club (on average).
- 40 AFL players that earned $501k-$600k, or about 2.2 players per club (on average).
- 23 AFL players that earned $601k-$700k, or about 1.3 players per club (on average).
- 18 AFL players that earned $701k-$800k, or about 1 players per club (on average).
- 5 AFL players that earned $801k-$900k, or about 0.28 players per club (on average).
- 3 AFL players that earned $901k-$1m, or about 0.17 players per club (on average).
- 6 AFL players that earned $1m+ (2 that earned $1m-$1.1m, 2 that earned $1.1m-$1.2m and 2 that earned $1.2m+)

If a player earns $400k+ in 2016 dollars (or $480k+ in 2018 dollars) he is almost certain to be one of the top 10 highest paid players at that club. If they are getting more than $500k in 2016 dollars ($600k in 2018 dollars) they will be a top 5 paid player. If they're on $600k+ in 2016 dollars ($720k in 2018 dollars) they are generally one of the 3 highest paid players at their club.

Now the above data is based on the entire competition. Some clubs may have a flatter pay scale, with no players earning more than $700k+/year, but more players earning $500k+/year. Others (such as Sydney), may have multiple players earning $800k+/year and a heap of players on or around $100k/year.

However, on average across the AFL, the top 10 paid players on a list would look like this in 2018 dollars:

1 & 2 - $840k+
3 - $720k+
4 & 5 - $600k+
6-10 - $480k+
11-19 - $360k+

This means the salary cap is heavily skewed towards the top end. In a list of 40 players it is roughly split as follows:

- The 21 lowest paid players (earning $240k/year or less in 2018 dollars) take up about 25% of the salary cap
- The next 8 players (earning about $360k/year in 2018 dollars) take up about 25% of the salary cap
- The next 7 players (earning about $450k-600k/year in 2018 dollars) take up 30% of the salary cap
- The 3 highest paid players (earning $720k+/year in 2018 dollars) take up 20% of the salary cap

Below is the list of current Crows players (excluding rookies). Just for fun, using the above 21-8-7-3 split, let’s see some posters try and re-create the current Crows salary scale based on the start of this season.

If you’re really interested, recreate it for next year, while trying to include Greenwood, Keath and potentially a free agent midfielder, as well as pay rises for players like Lever, McGovern and Milera, who re-signed mid-season.

It’s definitely not an easy task to do and shows just how hard a task the list managers have.

Current Crows main list:
Brad Crouch
Riley Knight
Josh Jenkins
Scott Thompson
Jake Lever
Jordan Gallucci
Jake Kelly
Rory Sloane
Harrison Wigg
Paul Seedsman
Daniel Talia
Taylor Walker
David Mackay
Kyle Hartigan
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Eddie Betts
Rory Atkins
Andy Otten
Charlie Cameron
Sam Jacobs
Kyle Cheney
Richard Douglas
Tom Lynch
Cam Ellis-Yolmen
Rory Laird
Wayne Milera
Myles Poholke
Troy Menzel
Brodie Smith
Elliott Himmelberg
Matthew Signorello
Dean Gore
Harry Dear
Tom Doedee
Ben Davis
Mitch McGovern
Reilly O'Brien
Matt Crouch

Thanks for the efforts on the data presentation. This keeps thing in perspective as opposed to everyone giving their opinions and going off on tangents in the other threads, regarding salary capping.
But the main thing I want to add is that some teams will have more money available than others to pay higher offers for mid-tier players. So even if we know the basic data, it doesn't give us exact details of how much free salary is available for each club. Nowadays, we can't just view it us what player is worth what compared with his ability and valuability to the club, but it is more "what is the player worth, when compared with all clubs that is interested in said player?"