NRL youngsters’ salaries could be capped to limit player market blowout in post-COVID-19 world

The days of the mega rookie deal for the next Kalyn Ponga or Payne Haas could be numbered while there also could be a player market shake-up with off-contract players to enter an annual free agent draft.

Payne Haas had a contract worth millions when he had played only a handful of NRL matches.

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A rookie pay scale to stop the proliferation of big-money deals is just one proposal that clubs are making to the NRL as the game looks to reshape its junior pathways.

Also on the table is the introduction of an internal player draft and a change to the age groups at the junior elite level.

Clubs have been making proposals to a working group of veteran recruitment gurus convened by the NRL to look at setting up a rookie system that caps earnings and eliminates what one senior club executive described as ‘The Payne Haas’ effect.

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Payne Haas had a contract worth millions when he had played only a handful of matches.

Brisbane lured the then 16-year old boom forward away from the Gold Coast Titans in 2016 and in 2018, after just three NRL games, signed him on a rich six-year deal worth $3 million.

Before Haas, Kalyn Ponga signed with Newcastle on a four-year deal believed to be worth $600,000 per season after playing only nine games for North Queensland.

While Haas is proving his worth, clubs are growing increasingly worried that such contracts are inflating the value of rookie players and providing a disincentive for young players to remain at the clubs which developed them.

The view among clubs is that it has created “an unsustainable trend”.

“The development system has become uneconomic because clubs are going around picking off 16-year-olds and offering $100,000 and $200,000 a year contracts in future years,” the CEO of one Sydney NRL club said.

“So those kids would then get on a NRL roster already earning more than other more established players.

Kalyn Ponga is on big money at Newcastle.

“What’s happened since the Haas deal is every up-and-coming player has doubled in value because they’ve all looked at Haas and think ‘I’m worth the same’.

“Clubs with strong junior pathways might be able to afford to not get into a bidding war because of their ability to unearth more talent but clubs with weaker pathways are forced to offer monster contracts to the Haases and Kalyn Pongas.

“Everyone thinks the top end of the top 30 roster is what creates the inflation but the top end is regulated by the market but the biggest increase in the value of contracts has occurred at the bottom end, with rookie players.”

It’s an issue that has been amplified since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the need to rethink cost structures at both an NRL and club level.

A figure for what the maximum contract should look like in the first two years of a player making their NRL debut is yet to be determined.

It’s understood the AFL’s current pay scale is being used as a possible reference guide for the NRL’s rookie pay structure.

Players drafted into the AFL under their current CBA have a base salary of around $105,000 in their first year.

“We are one of the only elite sports where there isn’t a base price for the first and second year players. The reason you have the set price is to ensure inflation doesn’t occur during the junior pathways system,” another senior club executive said.

The working group has also been tasked with the job of deciding if the current junior age groups of under-16s Harold Matthews, under-18s SG Ball and under-20s Jersey Flegg will each be elevated by one year from 2021 and beyond.

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All three junior competitions were cancelled this season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a view that increasing the age group will help ensure players aren’t disadvantaged when the competition returns in 2021.

Though still in very preliminary stages of discussion, clubs are advocating for an internal player or free agency draft to potentially replace the current player market system.

The movement of off-contract players between clubs would occur in an annual draft.

Clubs would also be able to nominate contracted players to the draft rather than release them from their contract.

Originally published as NRL youngsters’ salaries could be capped to limit player market blowout in post-COVID-19 world