By Andrew Wu
A leading player agent predicts it will be harder for rivals to prise marquee players out of their clubs amid the explosion of mega long-term contracts.
In a week when Clayton Oliver’s future was up in the air despite a deal tying him to Melbourne until 2030, the Western Bulldogs fended off at least four suitors for Aaron Naughton, locking him in on an eight-year contract keeping him at Whitten Oval until the end of the 2032 season.
Aaron Naughton has signed an eight-year deal keeping him at the Western Bulldogs until 2032.Credit: Getty Images
A decade after Sydney and Lance Franklin stunned the world with a blockbuster nine-year offer, similar length contracts are no longer uncommon for the very best players and even those not widely considered among the elite.
This year Sydney young gun Nick Blakey signed a seven-year deal keeping him in the red and the white until 2031, while Fremantle backman Brennan Cox, who has not won a best and fairest or been named All-Australian, pledged his future in the purple to 2030.
There are at least 20 players with contracts until at least 2029, including Carlton’s Coleman medallists Charlie Curnow (six years to 2029) and Harry McKay (seven to 2030), Christian Petracca (Melbourne seven to 2029) and Callum Mills (Sydney, six to 2029). You can scroll through them in the graphic below.
Lengthy contracts went out of vogue in the 2000s after five-year deals for Anthony Koutoufides (Carlton), Mark Mercuri (Essendon), Aaron Hamill (St Kilda) and a four-year term for Nick Holland (Hawthorn) did not work out well for their clubs due to loss of form and injuries by the player.
They returned after the introduction of free agency and the entries of Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney into the league but have exploded in recent seasons.
There was a time when long-term offers were needed to lure a player to a club. Logically, they are now required to retain talent.
Naughton knocked back a 10-year offer from Sydney to stay with the Dogs, while West Coast, Collingwood, Geelong and a few other clubs also circled, a source familiar with the issue said.
One agent said it would now be more difficult to get the elite players out.
“Yep, probably, if they’re going all right, we’ve just seen that with Naughton,” the agent said, speaking on the condition of anonymity so he could be more candid. “Players predominantly are very, very loyal.”
The agent also had a playful dig at Port Adelaide premiership star turned pundit Kane Cornes, a vocal critic of lengthy contracts.
“I love Kane Cornes, but he can never be a list manager because he’d lose a million players,” the agent said. “You won’t keep Aaron Naughton because you won’t give him those years, and he’ll go to Sydney.”
The attraction of such deals for player and club is they offer security and a degree of certainty. Players have money in the bank to invest and plan for their futures, while clubs have the flexibility in their salary cap to shuffle cash from year to year.
“When you have big contacts like that you can easily move some money,” one list manager said on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.
“You might have to move one year to fit something else in. You might move 200 [thousand] back or spread it elsewhere. When you have two-year contracts, you can’t do it. You move it from one year, and it hits you the next.”
Cornes said history, except for Lance Franklin and Dustin Martin, showed long-term deals do not work, pointing to the success Hawthorn and Geelong had after Franklin and Gary Ablett left.
Greater Western Sydney also bounced, rising from 16th to the preliminary final after losing Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper – whose exits enabled midfield bulls Tom Green and Stephen Coniglio to spend more time in the centre square, and netted a suite of picks which allowed the Giants to acquire the No.1 pick on Aaron Cadman.
“Players get way too comfortable regardless of how well they play, their bodies, and preparation, there’s no incentive which gives a false sense of security,” Cornes said.
“Then there’s the obvious one of the club can’t get out of it [the contract], and when you do, it devalues what the player is worth, and you never get market rate for them.
“I can’t think of many positive reasons as to why you would do it.”
But he said Nick Daicos and Jason Horne-Francis, who have both finished their second seasons, were the exceptions given their age and considerable talent.
While the prospect of clubs footing part of the salary to get a player out – as in Brodie Grundy’s situation with Collingwood – was not ideal, the agent said it was “the cost of doing business”.
“If you’ve never made a mistake, you’ve never had a crack,” the agent said.
The list manager said it was a risk clubs were prepared to take to retain a gun player.
“Generally, you might have to pay a bit of money but you have to weigh up the damage of losing him next year,” the list manager said. “You have to live in the now as well.
“The competition is very even. You’re not that far away. Every year you wait and don’t do anything your better players are a year older, and you’re a year further away from getting closer to winning. You’ve got to be acutely aware of where your list is as well.
“Is there some risk? Yes, but there’s risk with everything.”
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