The Herald Sun have posted the top 100 player salaries in the AFL. Here are the first 50. Not great reading for bomber fans.
It’s little wonder we are struggling three players on the list have added not much on field for a number of years and are on roughly the same as the likes of Hawkins, Blicavs and Dixon.
So to be clear, is this the HS guessing their salaries or for real? And is it this year’s salary or the average over their contract?
I’d also point out the top 100 players in the league represent around 25% of the league’s best 22 players. Every team should have 4-7 players in the list depending on how flat their pay structure is.
Glad I’m not trying to teach remedial Maths to some on here.
But just in case, here goes.
This list is not a ranking of players across the AFL.
All Clubs have to spend, what 95% of their salary cap.
So on any graded pay scale, in every Club, some players are going to be paid around the $500 - $600K mark. Or a bit more. Otherwise you cannot reach the salary cap minimum.
Unless you do one of two things;
Pay Ham, McDonaugh, Cutler etc an extra $100K a year.
Or
Sink almost all of your Cap into a Franklin or Grundy at $1.2 million a year, and underpay the middle of your list. Bearing in mind your costs are pretty much fixed for first & second year players
In other words someone is either paid arguably more than they’re worth, or a lot of players are paid more than they’re worth.
The only thing that Hun List of guesses reveals is the relative payments within each Club. And given two of ours, Hurley & Heppell, are off contract at the end of the year, that relative rating by payment is bound to be different in 2023.