My girlfriend is away at the moment, so I was watching On The Couch on Monday night on the big TV. I made myself a chilli and fennel squid dish with a few veggies after the gym and was generally loving life.
The A segment of the show this week was about Sam Fisher, presumably because Nick Riewoldt wanted to talk about it. For those that missed it, Fisher was arrested over the weekend for trafficking large quantities of illicit drugs across state borders last week. He is faced with a prison sentence of up to 25 years if the court decides to throw the book at him.
It was pretty obvious that Riewoldt had an agenda and he had some talking points to hit. As well he should. He was the captain of the St Kilda during a period of unprecedented success for the generally unsuccessful club, but that also had a bit of a behavioural/cultural cloud hanging over it (consider: the school girl scandal, the little person scandal, the Milne and Montagna sexual assault allegations, and now Sam Fisher). They were almost a budget, bayside West Coast Eagles, right down to having a squeaky-clean captain presiding over a playing group that does not share his ultra-professionalism (Chris Judd for the Eagles).
Riewoldt spoke passionately and eloquently about many issues on On The Couch and I found myself nodding in agreement regularly. He was particularly powerful in his characterisation of AFL players having relatively easy access to recreational drugs, both financially and as far as the time constraints elite football puts on a person. I think that it is something of an unspoken reality that using drugs like cocaine is preferable for an AFL footballer who has skinfold and performance standards to hit than it is to consume a calorically dense alcohol like beer. Cocaine is an appetite suppressant that does not have any calories. Beer is incredibly calorically dense and usually when someone has been drinking heavily, they get hungry. I would be surprised if this was actively discussed in the AFL environment like it is allegedly (but also really – to quote the great Norm Macdonald) in the high-end modelling world. I would not, however, be surprised if this was at least part of what the AFL player thinks about when going out of an evening.
The other issue that Riewoldt spoke passionately and convincingly about is the pathways after football for footballers, or lack thereof. For high end players like Riewoldt and Jonathon Brown who was sitting next to Riewoldt, it’s an easy stroll into media. For the rank and file, however, it is a different conversation. He is right that athletes across all sports globally struggle significantly over their first 5 years out of the game. These athletes really never leave a school environment, it’s just that they go from one usually private school to another, and when they go to the second one, they are paid to make the trip.
It was around this point that Riewoldt lost me.
He said that the way to fix it is to pour money into helping AFL footballers after football, providing real pathways for life after footy and acting as effectively a trustee for a portion of their finances during their careers.
He’s still got me here.
He even admonished the AFLPA for not doing enough to help people like Sam who were well-known in football whisper circles as being, at least adjacent to, the illicit drugs scene. Nor did they do enough to help the people that did have the wherewithal to try and help Fisher.
Still got me.
He then said that the way to fix it is for the modern player to give up his piece of the AFL’s revenue pie to be able to free up some extra cash to pour into those pathways after football. That is the definition of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
He’s lost me there.
The most recent CBA, which is up this year, has players earning 28% of the AFL’s total industry revenue, with exclusions for donations, government grants, club gaming revenue, non-football revenue (like food and drink concessions) and the ETIHAD stadium loan repayments. Players are also entitled to 28% of whatever the AFL gets over their projection of just over $6.574 billion. Obviously that number was not achieved because of COVID. Finally, the last portion of the player’s revenue is 11.2% of any additional club revenue, which is capped at $10 million but floored at $5 million.
Obviously the salary cap is tied to league revenue and there is money set aside, in the order of $15 million per annum, set aside for past players. Almost a pension for past AFL players with first retirees receiving just over $10,000 and players in their 10th of retirement or past it receiving a maximum of just over $21,000.
There are a few non-financial concessions for players as well in the form of $13 million committed to player development – what Riewoldt was talking about. Also critically there is a lifetime Health Care program for players who need joint and/or dental procedures.
There were just over $6bn projected. At this point in the CBA, we’ve barely even put a dent in that figure with the couple of million strewn around for a hodgepodge of various initiatives.
Now let’s compare the AFL to the NBA’s most recent CBA. Then after that we’ll do the NFL, a league that is actively contemptuous to its players on a regular basis.
We are only here going to talk about the league revenue splits. Obviously, the raw numbers are significantly different, but the material figure is the revenue split.
The NBA is not a fixed revenue split but the stated goal in the most recent NBA CBA was that players and owners share revenue equally. The split must be between 49-51 either way depending on various factors.
In the NFL the revenue split is roughly the same with players receiving 48% of league revenue in the 2021 season and roughly 49% when the league adds another game onto the season, starting in 2022.
In sum, it’s about even.
So where is the money that AFL players should be getting going?
I understand that the AFL is a socialised competition in many ways and the clubs are not privately owned like NBA and NFL teams. On the strength of that, you could make the argument that the AFL itself needs more money to run.
Fine.
AFL players receiving just over one quarter of AFL revenue is absurd regardless. The players are the product and should be treated as such. They should get, at the very least, 35% or 40% of AFL revenue.
Additionally, there should be far more money set aside for past players to get themselves set up for life after football, probably through the promotion of either tertiary education or simply picking up a trade. All that I am saying is find the money somewhere other than the pocket of the modern footballer. And there is much more money coming.
The other pertinent fact is that the new CBA will be negotiated with a mind to the new TV rights deal that will come into play in 2025. The fact is that international broadcasters like Paramount and Amazon will, at the very least, be in play to secure the rights to AFL coverage. This fact alone will be enough to drive the cost of broadcasting Australia’s most popular sport way up if Foxtel and the Murdoch family want to keep the game on their channels.
What needs to be understood is that the modern player is getting robbed during their playing days and is being inadequately looked after when their playing days are over. 28% is much closer to the usual UFC revenue split with the fighters of about 16%-18% of an event’s revenue than it is to far more analogous competitions in the NFL and the NBA.
I am not asking for sympathy for the modern player, I am just asking for them to paid in a manner that is at relatively commensurate with their closest contemporaries around the world.
So, I ask again, where is the money going?
I suspect that the money is being set aside for the inevitable string of concussion lawsuits that are coming down the pipeline because of, at the very least AFL malpractice, if not negligence. Though that will be for the courts to decide.
I suspect that if the AFL is unable to settle one of the many class-actions that are inevitably coming, one known one being headed by John Platten, and other AFL greats of yesteryear hobble up the courtroom steps and struggle to string their thoughts together in the courtroom, the AFL will look to smear these players.
It wasn’t football that destroyed your brain, was it? No. It was the drugs you used while you were playing. The alcohol you consumed while you were playing. How can we possibly parse the massive head trauma that you did while under our watch, usually forcing you to go back out there after getting hit in the head, from what you did to yourself after games?
But it won’t get there, and the AFL won’t do that in public, particularly for a game so reverential to its long history.
The AFL will settle these lawsuits. I would not at all be surprised if some have been settled already and were gagged on settlement, both in terms of figures and the happenings settlements themselves.
The AFL will take the money that it should be playing to current players and past players, and pay it to players who are suing the AFL for its own malpractice.
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