The thing is, for it to be a genuine reserve grade comp, every player needs to be training fulltime. At the moment (and this late in the season) some NSW Cup sides only have a handful of fulltime (i.e. NRL contracted) players.
This entails bigger squads and a higher minimum salary (as in, the minimum salary covering every player, not just some arbitrary 'top 25' which doesn't come close to covering the number of players used in a typical season).
But the extra money for all these reserve graders has to come out of the wage budget currently gobbled up by the game's stars. And those greedy merkins want to suck every bit of marrow from any future salary cap increase, which is why they all have percentage-increase-clauses.
I wouldn't agree with that Pou (re: cash).
Those blokes who play NSW or QLD cup are going to play it anyway. By bringing both comps together to 16 teams, you effectively make a stronger comp by keeping the strongest players around.
Wouldn't have to cost anyone any extra cash, except on the travel side of things. Sure, you wouldn't have everyone training full-time, but that's acceptable. NYC don't "train fulltime" either, they're supposed to be off getting some kind of traineeship aren't they?
I also think the stars rightly get paid high %'s of the cap. They're the guys who market the game on the field. Nobody cares if Ben Pomeroy is a decent centre, if you had a team full of those types of blokes you'd win footy games, but nobody would be queuing up to watch it on TV (the big revenue).
