AFL Rich 100: The highest-paid players in football

The AFL Rich 100 for 2024 is here. There are new faces, a few big surprises and, of course, some eye-catching contracts for all the wrong reasons. See the full list and have your say.

“Price is what you pay; value is what you get”.

US billionaire investor Warren Buffett was referencing the tumultuous nature of the Wall Street stock market when he made this crisp observation on the value of buying and selling.

The same sentiment could be applied to the rollercoaster world of AFL football, where the 18 AFL clubs balance the wins and losses not just on the field, but, significantly, off it as well.

Managing the balance sheets for a collective 800-plus players is no easy task in an ever-changing set of circumstances.

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE FULL RICH 100 LIST FOR 2024

Bulldogs skipper Marcus Bontempelli comes in at No. 7 in the Rich 100. Picture: Mark Stewart

Trying to forecast forward a year on contracts can be hard enough in professional sport; trying to forecast the ticks and crosses on contracts that sometimes stretch late into the decade or early in the 2030s is fraught with uncertainty and more than a hint of fiscal danger.

The addition of complex incentives and triggers on many contracts, as well as the recent trend of some AFL players trying to get out of long-term deals to move elsewhere, makes it more difficult.

So, too, does the fact that success for a team normally equates to salary cap issues several years later, as evidenced by the fact that we have three Richmond players in the top five this season.

Then, there is the challenge of front-ended and back-ended contracts, moved about to suit a team’s list profile.

The AFL releases the yearly pay breakdown of players and the updated free agency lists to its own media arm each pre-season, looking back on the previous year’s figures.

But it does not publicise the players’ actual pay rates.

The AFL Rich 100 attempts to put those high-end salaries into perspective and to provide context around the most talked-about, speculated deals. It’s not an easy task.

There are a myriad of complications in terms of AFL salary certainty.

Given the season for six clubs is still alive in 2024 after this weekend, and that we are in the midst of awards season, we don’t yet know the full extent of incentive clauses for many of those players.

That’s part of the reason why the Rich 100 list is presented in $100,000 bands, reflecting the fact that many of the players’ end-of-year salaries are bumped up by performance or award bonuses.

Compiling the AFL Rich 100 list required countless calls from our team of reporters across Australia to leading industry figures and those “in the know”, as well as weeks of tireless research, cross-checking, assessment and reassessment.

Last year’s new collective bargaining agreement made for a more lucrative uptick for recently re-signed players, which has seen a big increase of ‘millionaires’ compared to 2023.

Players remain acutely sensitive about their pay rates – and remain reluctant to make them public – but as this year’s list shows, many of the game’s elite still earn considerably less money than most footy fans would believe.

And just as Warren Buffett said, ‘value’ is so often the key to success as clubs such as Geelong will attest.

Originally published as AFL Rich 100: The highest-paid players in football