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

[TGFC]

Yeah back when I did the original analysis for 2017 I started off by using the AFL averages, but then realized that to figure out roughly how much cap space we have, you really need to slot in players to specific values within the $100k brackets the AFL provides. Because if you have everyone at the top of the bracket, you're well over the cap.

If I did a similar analysis for a team like Geelong or Sydney, as you say, I think these clubs' significant proportion of draftees and depth as well as top end star power would skew things a different way.

I think if my guesses are close to the mark, we have made an error in giving out too many fat mid-tier contracts in favor of an extra star or two. If you look at our list profile it's reflective of this too: we only have a small number of really top-end players, but then pretty reasonable depth down to almost the 30th best player on the list. I'd like to see our depth reduced in favor of better high-end talent.

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.

Looking at the ladder both ends of the spectrum might have merit

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

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?"

You are correct, as some teams could be paying 95% of the cap this year and have 105% available next year. Other teams may have the opposite position.

In addition, some teams could have front loaded their salaries this year, so they are effectively below 95% of their cap this year (as they are paying some 2018 salaries this year due to frontloading). Other teams could have the reverse situation. So it does make it hard.

Ultimately though the salary cap does still limit what teams can pay over a period of time, even if teams shift payments around between years. So at least this gives us a starting point and a ballpark to work within.

 

[GreyCrow]

I think if my guesses are close to the mark, we have made an error in giving out too many fat mid-tier contracts in favor of an extra star or two. If you look at our list profile it's reflective of this too: we only have a small number of really top-end players, but then pretty reasonable depth down to almost the 30th best player on the list. I'd like to see our depth reduced in favor of better high-end talent.

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.

The whole thread has been an interesting read but I wanted to highlight this.

I think most of us have identified this structure as an issue , not only in attracting talent but letting go of depth. We are like hoarders who keep thinking ''one day I'll need a Harry Wigg '' .

 

[aussieviking]

Very interesting. Makes a lot of rumours about trade salaries look very stupid

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[Simmo28]

As I've said, being an AFL list manager would absolutely do my head in. I'm sick and tired of Crows players leaving. BUT if Gov and Lever want to become our highest-paid players and earn twice as much as teammates who produce similar output, frankly they can piss off.

Lever clearly deserves to be in that 600k range. The fact that so many clubs are willing to pay that confirms his value. An elite defender with his skills are hard to come by just like a Sloane or Walker in their roles. The question will be whether we offer him what he wants or if he puts a premiership or two ahead of money. For me, a flag would be worth a lower salary but I guess some players are just after the dollars.


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[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Very interesting. Makes a lot of rumours about trade salaries look very stupid

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The only way to do it is if clubs are following Sydney's guns and rookies approach.

That is a possibility, but it loses you depth in players around the 12-30 bracket of the list.

 

[katmanblue]

Great thread. V. Informative.



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[marty36]

We could be in trouble if we lose gov lever cc we will only be spending 80 % of our cap and lose picks and get fined


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[Dream Daddy]

Without wanting to start a new Thread about salaries; do any other posters feel that the AFC has had a culture of lowballing salary offers?

I say this having read exerts of Hodges' recent book. As much as we all loathe Port, Hodges was no doubt the star of the local competition around 1990 and Kerley's offer was by all reports insulting. Jarman, Bradley and Sticks are other players we couldn't attract back.

With Gov and Lever apparently out the door, Tippett, Gunston, Bock, Davis, Knights etc all leaving surely this points to a history of failure to negotiate properly at the trade table. I refuse to blame club culture - AFC has one of the strongest cultures imo. But in terms of salary negotiations, I feel we have continually failed since day dot.

Thoughts of others?

 

[Crowked]

Without wanting to start a new Thread about salaries; do any other posters feel that the AFC has had a culture of lowballing salary offers?

I say this having read exerts of Hodges' recent book. As much as we all loathe Port, Hodges was no doubt the star of the local competition around 1990 and Kerley's offer was by all reports insulting. Jarman, Bradley and Sticks are other players we couldn't attract back.

With Gov and Lever apparently out the door, Tippett, Gunston, Bock, Davis, Knights etc all leaving surely this points to a history of failure to negotiate properly at the trade table. I refuse to blame club culture - AFC has one of the strongest cultures imo. But in terms of salary negotiations, I feel we have continually failed since day dot.

Thoughts of others?

The reason we couldn't bring back many stars at the start was because the big Victorian clubs were cheating the salary cap with under the counter brown paper bags.

 

[Dream Daddy]

The reason we couldn't bring back many stars at the start was because the big Victorian clubs were cheating the salary cap with under the counter brown paper bags.

True at Carlton, although Jarman was a far different story. He basically told Kerls to bugger off

 

[NikkiNoo]

True at Carlton, although Jarman was a far different story. He basically told Kerls to bugger off

And yet he did come and play at the Crows later and we won our two premierships then. Would we have won them if he hadn't of had his experiences at Hawthorn? Swings and roundabouts.

On the others you listed above -
Knights - there was a family situation back in Victoria so we assisted in getting him back 'home'
Bock and Davis - HUGE offers no club could counter because of the extra salary allowed for GC and GWS at the time.
Gunston - he had agreed to a contract and then ran out on it because he hated playing at Elizabeth. That's not on the club.
Tippett - his father is a piece of work and we were happy to pay him very well at the time. In hindsight there was a decent offer from Brisbane the year earlier that we should have taken

Not one of those players had an apparent 'low ball offer' being put to them. The only recent one is Lyons and that is because he didn't want to leave the club, but he wasn't fitting in with the way we wanted to go forward.

What about all those players who did stay? What about players from interstate we have traded in? If you consider Gunston going out, what about Lynch and JJ coming in to the club? This thread shows that you can't just cherry pick one or two and think there is a pattern. The whole club and list have to be considered and I for one would never want to be a list manager.

 

[Dream Daddy]

And yet he did come and play at the Crows later and we won our two premierships then. Would we have won them if he hadn't of had his experiences at Hawthorn? Swings and roundabouts.

On the others you listed above -
Knights - there was a family situation back in Victoria so we assisted in getting him back 'home'
Bock and Davis - HUGE offers no club could counter because of the extra salary allowed for GC and GWS at the time.
Gunston - he had agreed to a contract and then ran out on it because he hated playing at Elizabeth. That's not on the club.
Tippett - his father is a piece of work and we were happy to pay him very well at the time. In hindsight there was a decent offer from Brisbane the year earlier that we should have taken

Not one of those players had an apparent 'low ball offer' being put to them. The only recent one is Lyons and that is because he didn't want to leave the club, but he wasn't fitting in with the way we wanted to go forward.

What about all those players who did stay? What about players from interstate we have traded in? If you consider Gunston going out, what about Lynch and JJ coming in to the club? This thread shows that you can't just cherry pick one or two and think there is a pattern. The whole club and list have to be considered and I for one would never want to be a list manager.

I'd argue we would've won 1993 with Jarman so potentially it cost us.

Granted many players have stayed but we're kidding ourselves if we can't acknowledge top end player retention isn't a problem.

 

[JP Sauce]

The reason we couldn't bring back many stars at the start was because the big Victorian clubs were cheating the salary cap with under the counter brown paper bags.

This absolutely still happens.

 

[ad victoriam]

We could be in trouble if we lose gov lever cc we will only be spending 80 % of our cap and lose picks and get fined


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if we look like being under the requirement some of the top tier players next year will get front loaded, ie Sloane, M Crouch, Liard

 

[Dream Daddy]

This absolutely still happens.

We were guilty of it ourselves only 5 years ago

 

[Vhaluus]

if we look like being under the requirement some of the top tier players next year will get front loaded, ie Sloane, M Crouch, Liard

You're delusional if you think we have that much space in our cap.

 

[ad victoriam]

You're delusional if you think we have that much space in our cap.

Please read the post that I was answering before going off half cocked.

Just to Help you I will quote it
"We could be in trouble if we lose gov lever cc we will only be spending 80 % of our cap and lose picks and get fined"
from marty36 my comment in reply was predominantly about the bolded part and is correct, not delusional.
"if we look like being under the requirement some of the top tier players next year will get front loaded, ie Sloane, M Crouch, Liard"

 

[pirate bob]

We could be in trouble if we lose gov lever cc we will only be spending 80 % of our cap and lose picks and get fined


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You don't get fined and you don't lose draft picks for under spending on TPP

 

[marty36]

You don't get fined and you don't lose draft picks for under spending on TPP

What is the penalty the AFL has stipulated you must use 95% if there was no penalty it wouldn't be stipulated


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[marty36]

Please read the post that I was answering before going off half cocked.

Just to Help you I will quote it
"We could be in trouble if we lose gov lever cc we will only be spending 80 % of our cap and lose picks and get fined"
from marty36 my comment in reply was predominantly about the bolded part and is correct, not delusional.
"if we look like being under the requirement some of the top tier players next year will get front loaded, ie Sloane, M Crouch, Liard"

We just got given 2 mill extra if we lose Thommo gov Lever and Cc there's another 1 million plus

Who's taking all that coin


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[pirate bob]

What is the penalty the AFL has stipulated you must use 95% if there was no penalty it wouldn't be stipulated


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The clubs release final spend figures to the AFL for review. In the case of a shortfall, the club transfers the shortfall back to the AFL. The AFL contact the AFLPA. The AFLPA then organise and meet with the entire player list. Together they negotiate with the players how to distribute the excess monies.

 

[pirate bob]

We just got given 2 mill extra if we lose Thommo gov Lever and Cc there's another 1 million plus

Who's taking all that coin


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The 20% rise just agreed to in CBA has to be spent this year. You can roll over 5% to next year. I would hope that the club has been front ending some of the bigger contracts.

Bearing in mind that 5% next year is around $620K, that could well come in handy.

 

[Sanders]

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

i don't know why you keep posting this graffiti over the board all the time. it is not fascinating new information and I've even seen it 3 or 4 times even in the same thread sometimes.

without distribution and timing, average values provide little knowledge and usefulness. particularly relative to how other teams manage their identical cap.

its not that people don't understand it, its not that relevant.

 

[Shaz2012]

I dont like our mix of how our current salary scale currently looks. I think we have too many of our fringe 22 players on mid range salaries. By the end of next season we will have Cheney, Mackay, Douglas, Seedsman, Hampton and Menzel on mid level wages. They might average somewhere between $350k to $400k.

By season 2019 we should have guys like Milera, Doedee, Knight, Atkins, Gallucci, Poholke, Himmelberg and possibly our first/second rounders in 2017 and first rounder in 2018 that have gone ahead of some if not all of those mid wages guys.

This gives us a huge amount of flexibility in our planning right now. We can plan with the idea that we would trade/delist these mid wages guys or keep them on drastically reduced wages if they have no prospects elsewhere.

We might still have problems keeping players like Poholke or Himmelberg down the line but at least it defers that problem from now, until then. At that time our window will be closing quickly anyway.