@ said:
Why do you feel that it doesn't allow players to negotiate the best deal for themselves? not arguing just interested in your point of view. I feel that as there is no limit on what you can pay a player graded at a 5 for example that it will drive wages higher.
I'm actually not a fan of a nominal system as I do not believe that it creates an equal spread of talent as the richer clubs will get the elite players as there is not enough of those players to go around. Also there is no way a player like Ponga signs with the knights under a nominal system as the knights paid him on potential and under a nominal system the Cowboys could match that offer as he would have had a low nominal and not stretched their nominal cap.
I don't know of any competition that uses a points based system but interestingly the NFL set standard wages for rookie players based on the round they were drafted which I find interesting.
The primary flaw for a points system, as I see it, is that points can only be applied prospectively for 1 season, based on recent history. You couldn't really be giving a player a points rating for Season 2019 before Season 2018 has even kicked off.
So clubs would be negotiating with players based on single-season ratings, and I expect it would drive a strong demand for short-term contracts, because clubs could not afford to overspend (with points) on players who fluctuated over the duration of a longer contract. Short term contracts are potentially detrimental to player earning capacity, because there is no security. There would be annual revisions to cost-effectiveness (salary vs player rating vs actual performance) and as far as I can predict, it would end up like fantasy football, where players are traded back and forward and all values reset every season.
Take your example Ponga. Assume clubs would leave themselves a little breathing space in the points cap for future changes in player ratings. You could not leave too much space because it would mean a relatively poorer roster, so there would be some target point where you maximised total roster rating but allowed for some players to improve during the duration of their contract. Or, ideally, you had only single-season contracts so you could shuffle people around as soon as their ratings changed and became inconvenient to your cap.
So Ponga comes to grade and NRL says they think he is worth 3, because he's a kid. Cowboys have space for a 3 and happily pay him whatever. Happy days for the kid, at least for that first season where people think he can perform better than 3\. But everyone agrees Ponga is probably going to become a 6 or 7 officially in a year or two, and Cowboys know they don't have that kind of space long-term due to already high-value players like Thurston and Taumololo. So they contract Ponga short and reassess the next season.
Knights on the other hand, they have less money overall to spend but have 10 points space in their cap, because their roster isn't as strong overall. So Knights are trying to make up the points cap with lower-value players, this either means more players at lower points, or just generally speaking the lower-earning players of equivalent points value. Because I agree with you, clubs like Broncos, Roosters etc., if salary is uncapped, would always be able to afford the "Best 10s", "Best 9s", "Best 8s" etc. They couldn't hoard all the talent due to the points cap, but they'd outbid every poor club in negotiations for equal-points players.
But that financial domination being put aside for the moment, Ponga's earnings in 2019 would be directly influenced by his rating. If he was rated low but his output was better, it would likely drive up his salary for a short period. Conversely, if he was rated high but output was low, it would drive down his demand/salary, all over the course of individual seasons. I cannot predict exactly where the economy would settle, it may be the odd elite player plus a load of middle-tier players is the best way to spend a points cap, but it would mean that the points cap has some significant influence on a player's earnings over their career, and I believe quite firmly that would end up in a seasonal ebb and flow, such that if you did not perform at your best (or got injured) year after year, you would be in jeopardy of being discarded by your current club due to lack of output for the points the club spent on you.
Ultimately my guess is players would end up with short-term contracts, quite volatile, with values more or less tied to the central authority ratings system. You might earn top dollar over short term, but any gap between your rating and your actual performance would have real-world consequences.
That isn't how the system currently works. Whilst we have a salary cap, clubs can built their caps over multiple seasons and can have guarantees on what they are spending over time. Clearly clubs get this wrong all the time, but at least players can play well, negotiate a contract and then hold the club to that contract for X years. Under a points system, the NRL would interfere, they'd tell clubs what someone was worth and drive a new type of economy where apparent values had influence.
And you are right, as I said, that even ignores the potentially very negative influence of letting rich clubs outspend the others in all negotiations for same-value players. We would end up with some kind of salary system tied to player ratings, so you couldn't truly go out and negotiate your best salary with your employer, because the NRL would be involved as a 3rd-party, telling clubs where they can and cannot spend their points.
