The Seven AFL clubs sitting on massive war chests as salary cap increase changes the game
The new AFL salary cap will have massive implications on the way AFL clubs and players do business, and seven sides who read the tea leaves are sitting on mammoth war chests. Who are they?
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The football traditionalists shocked at Ben McKay’s $800,000 a season deal might as well look away now.
Footy’s new era of prosperity is about to make plenty of players outrageously rich.
And while few would argue footy’s mega-stars deserve to be million dollar men, the new AFL pay deal is about to see vast amounts thrown at players well short of future Hall of Fame status.
In 2024, $700,000 a year is the new $500,000, especially for free agents.
And as a result free agents and out-of-contract players who didn’t even finish top 10 in their club’s best-and-fairests are about to get the payday of their lives.
It is the result of a salary cap which skyrockets next year to $17.7 million and of clubs which retained plenty of last year’s 10 per cent pay rise under the new collective agreement.
The salary cap immediately went up 10 per cent in 2023 and five per cent for 2024 but perhaps only half of players had clauses in their contracts which immediately handed on those pay rises.
So many of those clubs now have vast war chests - think Hawthorn, St Kilda, North Melbourne, Essendon, Fremantle, West Coast and Adelaide .
Those same clubs can now lock away first-round picks on mandatory three-year deals - a nice saving - and will continue to offer rock-bottom deals to fringe players despite the cap going up 27 per cent from 2023 to 2025.
So with the free agency market fairly modest, the bidding war for largely unproven players is about to go through the roof.
Clubs are now calculating that by 2026, when the salary cap hits $18.3 million, they can afford to have four players earning $1 million on their list.
Dustin Martin’s $1.3 million a year deal was seen as the contract that would financially ruin Richmond, but this year they will comfortably fit Martin, Shai Bolton and Tom Lynch in on seven figures.
At Gold Coast Ben King’s new two-year deal is imminent, and you can be certain he will be handed over $1 million a season given clubs pay for key forwards, star mids and intercept defenders.
The Suns are increasingly confident free agency half forward Ben Ainsworth is keen to stay under Damien Hardwick.
He is a goal-a-game half forward who wins 18 touches a game (elite for his position) but across seven seasons has never kicked more than 25 goals in any given year.
On form he’s about a $500,000 a year player but as a free agent in an inflated market with wages up more than 25 per cent someone could easily offer $750,000.
Even though he only finished tenth in last year’s best-and-fairest.
Ditto Conor Nash, a former Category B rookie signed in late 2016 by the Hawks and who since midway through the 2022 season has turned himself into an elite mid.
He will likely stay but clubs are already queuing up to get in front of him and at 198cm as a midfield tackling machine who wins a heap of midfield footy, he can expect an astronomical price rise.
Tim English might not be worth $1 million a year to the Dogs - as Mark Robinson persuasively stated this week - but 63 players in 2023 earned at least $800,000.
Apply the 27 per cent pay rise to that figure and at least 63 players will be on $1 million by 2025, and All Australian English is definitely in footy’s top 63 players.
Some one will pay him top dollar.
Other restricted free agents who could cash in include North Melbourne’s Cam Zurhaar, St Kilda’s Josh Battle, Richmond’s Jack Graham, with Geelong’s Tyson Stengle an unrestricted free agent.
Adelaide tried to get ahead of the trend by offering Harrison Petty $800,000 a year - with as much as $1.2 million front-ended into 2024 - as they sniffed the breeze.
You can be sure they will come again this off-season and if Petty can fire as a key forward that offer might look modest 12 months later.
Welcome to footy’s new financial reality.
Salary cap space is a weapon, and with certainty finally here on the total player payments to 2027 plenty of clubs are locked and loaded.
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