Prize money for winning the League Leaders Shield doubled to £100,000. Is it enough?
Prize money for winning the League Leaders Shield doubled to £100,000. Is it enough?
I wonder what the club do with that prize money.
Invest it into the stadium?
Transfer fee for a player?
Shared out amongst the squad as even more of an incentive?
Wouldn't be the first time that the players have been given the prize money.
If I'm not mistaken the awesome Challenge Cup run of 2004, where all games were top class opponents away from home, was the first to work on that basis.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that they have continued to do it ever since
If they wacked it out amongst all the players who featured in the First team squad throughout the season £100,000 wouldn't go very far. A new bike or a cheap second hand car would be extravagant, personally I'd buy a job lot of sour grapes and open a stall on the market at that W---- place over't lump.
On the Back foot looking for the front one.
That's why I asked the question about whether it is enough.
It would mean a lot more to less well paid squad players but I presume such payments are taxable and well paid players would end up paying tax at 40 per cent on any extra payments.
I am proud that Saints won the League Leaders Shield. It is easy to dismiss it as "The Hubcap" but it is a fair measure of performance over the season. IMO anything that improves its status is a good thing. Doubling the prize money is a start.
I guess the question is whether it's an even distribution of the winnings?
It could be distributed on a % of the cap basis. ie a player whose wages equate to 10% of the cap takes home. £10,000
It got me to thinking what would be the repracutions for the payments to players to be in the form of shares in the club they play for a bit like bankers bonuses. If players get paid in shares then capital gains is only at 25% and the shares are valued at the price that someone is willing to pay to buy them which could be almost anything at the point of sale.
Some clubs may pay dividends too in the near future.
I am not sure that £100,000 is enough of an incentive for any team to go for top spot if they believe that another position is better suited to them. The end of season will still involve some jockeying for position but the margin for error is now much smaller.
Presumably the incentive can be passed to the players so that a squad of 25 would each have a win bonus of £4k each - not a massive incentive true.
Another way could be per appearance which would be about £196 per appearance to spread out the money by the amount of contribution a player makes to game day that still would only give a max bonus per player of £5880
Just a few points on this.
Why would a finishing position other than top be beneficial?
Even IF the concept of not finishing top was deemed beneficial, his do you ensure a loss when you have players playing for contract improvements/regular first team slots etc along with (potentially) opposition who have also inexplicably decided to try to lose a game.
My view is that talk of match fixing (engineering a non winning outcome which is deemed beneficial) is a dangerous route for RL fans to go down, and just because some half baked fans claim, 'we lost on purpose' doesn't make that statement remotely true. I do understand that under the previous league system some games could be considered, 'dead rubbers' and lack some of the intensity of a, 'must win game'. Basically INDIVIDUALS only, 'throw' (or attempt to throw) a game when they are being paid to do so by betting syndicates.
Finally -I can absolutely assure you that £4000 EXTRA as a bonus is a very nice sum of money to receive, a supermodel was once quoted as saying she wouldn't get out of bed for less than ten grand - in the real world a business working on a 4% profit margin needs to do 100K of work to earn that
Agreed. Finishing top means a guaranteed home semi, a guaranteed WCC place and a trophy. You could see how much we wanted it by how gutted the team looked at Huddersfield.
For me personally a grand final win is the main aim, after that I hold the minor premiership and challenge cup in equal footing.
On the WCC note, I've decided on what I would like for WCC. Make it a straight knockout, nrl minor prems v sl premiers, nrl premiers v sl minor premiers, winners of those play in the final. If minor premiers and premiers are the same it goes to 2nd in the standings.
Season ticket renewed, fifth year at Saints 2017. Beer at The George time.