AFL 2025: The players set to cash in on footy’s $35 million marketing fund

There’s a brand spanking new $35 million sitting outside the salary cap up for grabs. Jay Clark looks at the AFL stars that are set to score a huge pay packet — and what it means for the trade market.

The AFL’s biggest names are about to be served an extra $35 million pie.

Two years after the deal was struck by the AFL Players Association, the game’s new marketing fund is only weeks away from hitting the competition in a major shake-up of the way the game’s most high profile stars are rewarded.

And the bigger the players’ brands, the bigger the pay packet.

The $35 million will be distributed across the men’s and women’s competitions over the remainder of 2025 – 2027 and will remunerate superstars of the game like Geelong’s Bailey Smith, Collingwood’s Nick Daicos and Swans’ Chloe Molloy for their work promoting the sport, the clubs and major sponsors.

Bailey Smith. Picture: Getty Images

Crucially, this pot of gold sits outside the AFL salary cap.

But what is about to become clear is the specifics of how it will be distributed, as only three or four players per club (and at least eight AFLW players in total) will get a lick of this lucrative new ice cream.

Until now, the secret sauce in it all has been largely hidden from public view in ongoing talks between the Players’ Association and the league.

While players have clearly been deserving of more cash, significantly, how the $35 million bonus will be carved up will be a new weapon in the recruiting arms race for players such as West Coast’s Harley Reid, Carlton’s Tom De Koning and Gold Coast’s Matt Rowell.

Whereas De Koning may not get a slice of the pie at Carlton if it is capped at three players per club, the ace ruckman would certainly become the number one banana on the marketing front at St Kilda, boosting his salary potentially by hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from 2026.

Inside the cap, it is clear De Koning, Reid and Rowell will receive bumper seven-figure-a-year salaries.

Rowell already met with four clubs last summer – Collingwood, Geelong, Western Bulldogs and Essendon – and had various lunches and dinners with senior coaches and players.

The Suns improved form makes Rowell’s decision fascinating as they hurtle towards Gold Coast’s first finals berth, but clubs all say their information is Rowell is still only 50-50.

Collingwood still looms large, if they can find the two first-round picks they will need to trade for him.

So on-field prospects are one thing, but club culture and financial prosperity is another.

And right now these young stars of the game are making calls that set them up for life.

What is clear is the commercial deals and corporate friendships which come into play outside the cap has become an increasing area of sophistication, and Hawthorn’s presentation to potential recruits which includes personal investment information is believed to be as savvy as any.

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon said the quiet bit out loud in an interview with the Herald Sun in March when he said clubs needed friends with benefits.

“We aspire to be a Geelong with Cotton On partnerships. Families and friends do play a role in independent commercial agreements,” Lyon said.

“They are all legal with the AFL. There is nothing illegal here.

“But we feel like we have got that level of support and we want to provide opportunity within the rules of the game.

“There has been commercial acumen and power that wants to be in.”

Remember when Chris Judd picked Carlton his deal came with a $250,000-a year Visy sponsorship which was initially approved outside the cap but later included as part of a league crackdown on third party payments.

Chris Judd after signing with Carlton.

The new $35 million marketing fund hand-out will all be above board, but which stars get a seat at the table and who misses out will be intriguing.

In the background, managers and players have been quietly building the stars’ personal brands, social media audiences, commercial links and overall marketability in preparation to share in the new $35 million payday which could hit mid-year.

And Smith, who has rocketed to equal second-favourite in the Brownlow Medal and is roaring towards his first all-Australian jacket, is just one player who is about to cash in, following the fresh wave of publicity around some of his cheeky on-field antics and middle-finger gestures.

Harley Reid gesture

The Cats are comfortable with it all, and have laughed off the AFL’s fines system because Smith is as happy as he has been in a long time off the field, and absolutely flying on it.

He has gone from fringe forward at The Kennel to midfield juggernaut at the Cattery, and on Thursday night Smith will meet his old mates from the Dogs in what will be one of the most-watched grudge matches of the season.

They don’t like each other, Bailey and his former teammates, it seems.

But the eyeballs and Instagram posts represent big dollars and right now Smith appears to have hit the jackpot in his new life in the blue and white hoops.

Reid will be weighing up a similar proposition as he considers his future in the west and following a move from fellow number one pick Jason Horne-Francis who bailed from North Melbourne to go back home to Port Adelaide two years ago.

Richmond is best placed to pull off a trade for the ‘Dusty’ clone ahead of a draft which looks lighter for quality than recent years.

Harley Reid. Picture: Getty Images

Richmond has North Melbourne’s pick two and its own pick three to give West Coast for Reid, with maybe something coming back to the Tigers.

It means West Coast could have picks one (its own), pick two (Oscar Allen free agency compensation), pick three (North via Richmond) and pick four (Richmond) in this year’s draft if a deal went through for Reid at season’s end.

West Coast doesn’t want to lose Reid but that sort of draft hand could help set the new foundation for a rebuild which has languished.

The Tigers already have the Dustin Martin template to help shield the Tongala product from the kind of hysteria he has received in the west.

If he leaves, the daily front and back page coverage would be part of the reason to exit and good judges have all said he has looked like an unhappy footballer in Perth this season.

He may still stay at West Coast or wait until next year to make the call.

But already clubs in Victoria are getting their ducks lined up in a row on a potential pitch.

A salary of about $1.3 million -$1.5 million-plus a season, as well as a blockbuster trade including two top-10 picks are a given.

But, perhaps a bit like Smith at Geelong, it’s everything else which goes into his deal and his decision which could make the difference.