BuffaloRules said:
I believe that if an NRL club coaxes a big name Union player ( Wallaby, All Black, ), then this players salary should not count towards the salary cap of that club for say the first two years..( or a sliding scale percentage like 20% first year, 40% next year etc...)
This will mean that the clubs with excess cash can spend it, whilst maintaining an overall salary cap, and at the very least, forcing up the amount that the ARU has to pay their star players, the same way that Union forces up the prices of NRL stars..
We shouldn't be panicked into dumping the salary cap though... the Union know that we have a very evenly balanced competition, and if we got rid of the cap, this would be playing into their hands...
I agree, i think the salary cap is important and should be here to stay, but IMO it does need big changes.
I dont think banning players or any of those ideas are healthy, they are a negative way of approaching the problem which in the end wont solve anything in the long term.
What we need IMO is a system which allows us to compete. The idea ive been tossing around recently has been introducing a "soft" NBA style cap.
The idea is simple, there is a salary cap but you are allowed to break it, but any dollar over the cap costs the club double, that is they pay that ammount to the NBA. The NBA (NRL) can then use all the cash to farm into junior development etc, with the rich clubs funding most of it.
The current system seems un-enforcable and oft broken, and with all this talk about possibly losing players to union i think such a cap system could be the answer as it allows the NRL to be competitive, whilst still evening the playing field.
The NRL should at least take a long hard look at some of the salary cap models in US sport, cap models qhich are quite different to our own, with an eye to stealing some of the better ideas.