The Rookie Draft Thread

[DST]

If you're talking about all football-related costs, then that figure would be easy to calculate: take the number of players on a club's list and divide it into the total non-salary costs of the club's footballing dep't. That's prone to be misleading in the context of a debate about 'how much do 3 more cost?', though: the bolded costs above are more or less fixed costs (you're already paying coaches and team doctors, already maintaining a gym and running an exercise program) where the incremental additional cost of having 3 more bodies who are accessing the resources, is very small. None (or little) of that money will be saved by leaving the spots vacant. And when you look at the balance of the headings: saving on a few team track-suits, jumpers and boots, a few more snags at the team barbie and another spot on the bus to Canberra, hardly seems a compelling financial reason to leave the spots vacant.

Well according to the Bulldogs it adds about another $50,000 in costs per rookie as that is what they asked a bunch of supporters to chip in so they could take one, as they didn't have the cash.

I understand your arguement above about how some of those costs are fixed so adding rookies does not affect all costs, but the more players you have the less time medical staff, fitness, development coaches spend with them one on one.

Hell, I have heard that strapping alone for training and playing per player is around $2,000!

The club needed to cut costs and it probably saved close to $200,000 alone by not taking the three NSW rookies.

DST

[SimonH]

I can understand the various arguments you're making, but your basic premise can't be right.

If the incremental cost of rookies was as trivial as you claim there would be no need for the AFL to limit list sizes, and every team would take 20, 30, 40 rookies just in case there was a James Hird in the mix somewhere. If the variable cost of each extra rookie is significant (maybe not $120,000, but certainly much more than the basic wage) then your whole argument is specious. I suspect that, in reality, saving three rookie spots will go a long way towards covering the $300,000 loss made by the Swans.

I can understand other counter-arguments to my points, but can't really understand what you're saying here.

The limit on rookie list sizes is a rule imposed by the AFL, in just the same way that senior list sizes are limited. The reason for the limitation is not that the AFL is worried that clubs are going to bankrupt themselves. The reason is to maintain a reasonable level of equity in the competition; equity that would be diminished if better-heeled clubs were allowed to stockpile absurd numbers of youth for as long as they felt like it.

The base wage for rookies in 2008 is $32,100. My last post was in answer to a post about the cost to clubs of rookies other than salary costs. Even if I'm right and the on-costs beyond that are relatively minimal (DST's figure of a grand total of $50,000 inc salary sounds in the ballpark), across 30 or 40 rookies those wages would add up very substantially. Hence poorer clubs would have few, and rich clubs many, and the equality of the comp would be undermined.

I don't disagree that a grand total saving of $200,000 from going 3 rookies short, would be a fair guess.

[BSA5]

I can understand other counter-arguments to my points, but can't really understand what you're saying here.

The limit on rookie list sizes is a rule imposed by the AFL, in just the same way that senior list sizes are limited. The reason for the limitation is not that the AFL is worried that clubs are going to bankrupt themselves. The reason is to maintain a reasonable level of equity in the competition; equity that would be diminished if better-heeled clubs were allowed to stockpile absurd numbers of youth for as long as they felt like it.

The base wage for rookies in 2008 is $32,100. My last post was in answer to a post about the cost to clubs of rookies other than salary costs. Even if I'm right and the on-costs beyond that are relatively minimal (DST's figure of a grand total of $50,000 inc salary sounds in the ballpark), across 30 or 40 rookies those wages would add up very substantially. Hence poorer clubs would have few, and rich clubs many, and the equality of the comp would be undermined.

I don't disagree that a grand total saving of $200,000 from going 3 rookies short, would be a fair guess.

Isn't the point that if rookies were so cheap, then every club could afford to keep them, so there would be no need for a limit? Whereas because they are quite expensive, only the richest clubs would be able to maintain ridiculously large rookie lists, leaving the poorer clubs behind. Hence the cap on rookie list size.