Ah, but that's because you are a true RL fan with a generous disposition. What would the Leeds club do with all that empty trophy cupboard space ?

It wouldn't happen though, we have rich owners, enough for SL. At the very least these owners could be capped at NRL levels, if not i think we are shortly going to see a talent drain.
If the prospect of a move to a sunny, sport conscience country with a higher profile and higher standard and double your money offer comes in how many players can truly refuse that. How's it fair if the likes of Moran could only offer 50% of what an Aussie club could for a player yet be considerably richer?

It's a sad fact that some of the best players will migrate to union and the NRL while our cap is lower, and raising it would lessen that, but a) some of those players will probably go regardless (higher publicity, bigger internationals) and b) those players who go for the money would instead migrate to the teams at the top if we raised the cap. There are a few names on that list who would be able to fight it out for the big names, so they wouldn't all go to the same team, but I also see a few on there that I would not call wealthy. We're already in a position where some clubs can spend to the cap and some can't, and some clubs have the cash to buy out a contract, snapping up players without competition from other clubs who could only afford the wages.

What we need to raise the cap fairly is to bring [imore money[/i into the sport - better marketing, better sponsorship and better negotiation of the TV rights. Some of you will have seen me arguing this point before, but it needs to be done - we get a poor deal compared to other sports for our viewing rights even after you adjust them for viewing figures, which is probably down to RL being seen as a minority sport despite the evidence to the contrary. We get more than 100,000 viewers for most games on Sky, over 200,000 for big games and the start of the season (I'll probably post the GF figures when they come out to back this up), but you probably wouldn't know it was televised at all if you weren't already interested in watching.

We need the RFL to take the figures out there and show other sports channels what they're missing, get some competition going and drive the rights prices up. If we can double the TV rights deal (which would still be less per viewer than union) that's over £1m for each SL club, which should be enough to support the clubs making losses and bring the cap up to maybe £2m or £2.5m

I think the only way we could move to a higher salary cap is by restructuring down to around 10 clubs, and that would be politically very difficult. You would have to fight not only the demoted SL clubs but also the Championship clubs with SL aspirations.

FWIW I certainly agree about the talent drain. And it has been made even worse by these changes to the SL youth set up. Half of our kids at 15 / 16 will be thrown out together with quite a lot of our 20+ age group. How does this square with the RFL policy of encouraging new young talent in the UK.

Yes. Salford would spend money, which feeds money throughout the sport to all levels. Salford would sign Tomkins, Wigan would spend that money on Huddersfield's star, Huddersfield would spend that money on Castelford's star, Cas would spend that money on Featherstone's star, Feath would spend that money on Swinton's star, with that money Swinton can afford a new training ground changing rooms ... Plus we'd still be able to attract Aussies and prevent union from picking up all our talent (which if things stay as they are, they will do freely and frequently in five years time). There would be greater interest in Super League from bigger sponsors and possibly other backers putting money into other clubs. Plus other clubs would want to challenge Salford and emulate their success so would seek for further investment themselves.

I think you have to ask yourself why the Aussie game, which makes lots of money from TV rights and sponsorship still bothers to have a salary cap.

The SC should be driven from the bottom up, not the top. It is all well and good stating a percentage of income, but that doesn't naturally flow to high income streams leading to increased affordabilty of expenditure.

Maybe the solution is to find a way around the cap... oh wait a second ...............

We bust the salary cap anyway, the only reason nobody is talking about that is because Leeds scored a couple of tries late on on Saturday.

If we had won you can be sure that the number one talking point in the rugby league community this week would be how can the Double Winning Warrington put together such a dominant side, with all the players they have, they must be over the cap.

I hadn't thought about it like that. I am starting to feel better about Saturday already.

Forget about it. The salary cap, for all its limitations, at least helps stop too many clubs overspending and going to the wall. You can talk to me all day about 'it didn't prevent the Bulls going bust', true, but without it you would have clubs like Wigan ( and probably Wire, though I'd like to think we'd be more sensible, given that Simon Moran never just threw money at the club ) simply buying all the best talent, inflating wages and making life impossible to the lower-income clubs unless they overspend.

It's been at £1.65M for some time now.
My view is that a modest increase is justified - to say £1.8M.

Keeping the cap at £1.65M has encouraged clubs to develop home grown talent which is definately a good thing, but a slight increase wouldn't give cause for concern.

I always understood that the salary cap was to make the competition more competitive by stopping a massive gap opening up between the richer & poorer SL clubs. Talking about marketing, the RFL really does need to buck its ideas up & start acting like a business instead of an organisation with a working men's club like committee...we all know what happened to them.

What i would like to see though is Sky putting the game on freeview outside the normal RL viewing areas to try and bring the game to a wider audience & give others a chance to embrace the game as something they could enjoy. It shouldn't cost Sky anything to do this as it comes as part of a package that is paid for anyway.3 or better still 5 years on freeview could do wonders for RL ,even encouraging new supporters to attend live games throughout the season , maybe even a full to capacity Wembley.

Simon Moran should start lobbying the regulators like the banks do.

He could threaten that if the RFL doesn't raise the salary cap he could simply take his wealth elsewhere and buy an NRL club where he could spend a higher amount on players.

If you regulate wealth creators offshore then nobody gains.

There's a decent argument for bringing the cap down unless most of the clubs can spend up to it. The Bulls spent at the cap, or close to it, for many years and their business model was flawed. Word on the street is that other clubs are about to hit the wall. If the sport can't manage a cap of £1.65 million then it needs to come down. If that means players leave then so be it. It doesn't matter if Sam Tomkins goes to Rugby Union. What matters is that Wigan don't get into financial meltdown - they don't have any family silver to flog any more. Similarly with us - we have a valuable asset in our stadium that has lots of equity in it. The day we start using that equity to pay the bills is the day we're on our way down.

I recall the whining from Brynn Hargreaves when he quit RL. He basically said "I was treated like crap by the Administrator at Bradford" and "There's not stability in RL, I can get more financial security elsewhere". No argument with the first bit. As for the second bit - so what? Good for you. I also recall ex player and all round complete **** Bobbie Goulding trying to make a massive issue of it on Twitter and saying "the sport needs more money". Ditto the normally sensible Mathers and the less sane Stankevitch. How? Where? Who?

It really is dead simple....

- The sport as a whole can generate X income through crowds, TV and other sponsorship.
- Clubs need to be able to manage existing debt, their current expenditure and compete on their share of X.
- If they cannot, if they say, spend 10% more than X, then on a long enough time line, the sport will collapse.

We have two options - increase the money that comes in, or reduce the outgoings. Unless we increase the money that comes in, as a sport we must spend less. That might mean the cap goes down. IF the sport is awash with money then by all means increase the cap. Doubt it will raise standards - just means that average players will drive slightly better cars and retire with £6,000 saved up rather than £2,000.

Sports finance works to the same principles as individual. We all have jobs and the people from St Helens know people who do. If we spent more than our salary every month, then on a long enough time line, we'd lose everthing. Again, if the sport can stomach it then great. But it can't.

Very interesting debate though.

Sensible post again from Mr Redux. Existing clubs desperate to get the players to compete are currently spending up to the cap and going bust because they don't have the income.

So the directors of HKR get fed up of putting their hand in there pockets and get rid of their players, Salford and Cas ( who were not even up to the cap I believe ) have to sell players, and London - well, London is a joke business model. So the only way you could really raise the cap is by getting down to a league of 10. I would guess that would reduce to a group of 4-5 teams over time as the remaining clubs overspent, or their backers disappeared.

As Ian and a previous poster says, clubs need to be self sustaining, they must generate the income to pay for their players. The only alternative is for a wealthy backer to constantly sub the club, and that is a dangerous position to be in, it's not 'sustainable' .

My views on this are quite simple. The two most frustrated sets of supporters in rugby league at the moment are the supporters of Wigan and Warrington. The reason is that both sets probably feel their team should have won the last two Grand Finals but didn't.

Wigan fans are already seeing quality replaced with not quite as good for next season, and have by far the most wanted man in the game in their team and they're worried about losing him in the near future too. Warrington fans are seeing quality players age and are fearing they won't be replaced by the same standard in a year or two's time.

Both know their club has a bit of dough and could afford to spend above the cap IF their owners and board were prepared to, so feel held back.

That's fair enough, but eight Challenge Cups and seven league titles in a row tells it's own story about what happens when one club is allowed to freely outspend the rest. No one wants a return to those days - except very biased Wigan fans maybe!

Money is not necessarily the only factor in players moving anyway. Yes, the NRL salary cap increasing means less high calibre Aussies will be tempted over here, but for years people have complained about too many overseas players anyway. Forcing clubs to focus on youth development is not a bad progression. As for holding on to our own stars, well the fact is the NRL and RFU do have more to offer than we do, like it or not. Going to Australia gives players the chance to experience a different way of life, in better weather, in a part of the world where rugby league enjoys a far higher profile than it does here. Rugby union gives players the opportunity to try something new knowing that if they succeed they could be playing for England in front of over 70,000 people regularly, citing national hero Jason Robinson and current golden boy Chris Ashton as their inspiration.

That's before money even comes into it. Those opportunities will always appeal.

I don't like all the "rugby league will die unless..." scaremongering. In 117 years rugby league has never managed to get a real foothold outside the north, but it's still alive. For it to continue we need to give more clubs opportunity rather than marginalise them as the big get bigger by outspending. We need to stop Bradford type collapses happening again. If that means players go elsewhere for money or any other reason so be it, some will anyway. If Sky pulled the plug and the game went part time again though it will not die as long as there are still tens of thousands of people who want to play and watch it. Which there is. Primarily in the north, yes, but I don't see that as a major problem. So relax.

Aren't London moving back to Kent again next season & how come it didn't take off last time ?

Notice my title is change the salary cap though not scrap it, we need a means of making a club who can afford to spend a bit more being able to?

What about this for an idea, any club who spends x amount over the cap also has to but the same amount in to a kitty that's shared amongst clubs who can't.

So say if Wigan or Wire wanted to spend 1 million over, they'd also have to find another 1 million to put into a pot that's shared out amongst the likes of Salford and Cas.
This way rich clubs don't go flying out in front and the wealth is shared.

Last I heard they had changed their minds again and were staying put. Perhaps it was a threat to get a better deal on the ground rent.

I really havent the faintest why they don't get decent crowds, even when they were higher up the table they never really pulled in the punters. Perhaps the only way to get a club going down here is via a home grown club such as the Skolars or Stags at Hemel.

London are just badly organised in every way you can think of, playing games at the same time as a lot of the amateur clubs doesn't exactly help with crowd numbers either.

What happens to all the "rich" clubs when their wealthy benefactors pull out? It's not sustainable.

This is an interesting idea, forcing clubs to help support other clubs if they can afford to spend over the cap. It's pretty biased towards us though as a financially successful club - any opinions from elsewhere on this?

I don't know if this is a Stevo idea, or whether he has borrowed it from elsewhere but I quite like the idea of each club having one, or maybe two (one UK, one overseas) marquee players which are exempt from the cap. So if Wigan want to keep Tomkins they include him as their UK marquee player and pay him as much as they want and can afford. If we could persude Billy Slater to up sticks and freeze his nuts off for 3 years then he could be our marquee player and we pay him as much as he wants. The rest of the squad is still subject to current cap restrictions.

We would be able to keep the very best players we have in our sport, and there is possibley the opportunty to see the very best from down under playing SL too. Could even incorporate the other idea about paying an equal amount to other clubs - if we signed Slater for £1m a year, then we have to pay another £1m a year into a fund which is shared between clubs that do not have/cannot afford a marquee player

There are 9 clubs that can spend to cap and over (possibly 10 don't know anything about Bulls new owners) which means sharing out between either 4 or 5 clubs that's potential revenue greater than winning SL itself, imagine if say these 9 clubs did spend just 250k over, that's 2.25 million that's £562,000 between 4 or £450,000 between 5 clubs. It's a perfect solution for sharing wealth.