The personal wealth of the average professional rugby player
The personal wealth of rugby players is widely misunderstood.
It would probably shock people to know, most Saracens players could not afford to co-invest and although Israel Folau might have been the ARUs highest-paid player, it’s perfectly reasonable to say a person cannot pay huge legal costs while not earning income. As is often the case, two things can be true at once.
Rugby players are not poorly paid, their earnings far outstrip that of their non-rugby playing piers but they are certainly not rich.
The perception of fit young men, covered in sponsors, playing on TV and in front of 1000s gives many the wrong impression.
An academy player could reasonably expect to earn £18k a year, rising to about 40k once they break into the first team.
When the player becomes a fully-fledged senior squad member the average premiership contract is about £120k a year but they could get substantially more in the right market and with a bit of luck.
At the peak of a Premiership career a good club player might get just short of £200k before their earning start to decrease. One player told me that at 33 he was playing for less money than when he was 21, which gives you a good indication of the drop off in earnings.
There are obviously exceptions, club captains, internationals and marquee players will all get substantially more.
One of the strange quirks of the salary cap is while more money is added to wage bills, it almost all goes to top players. Squads will then add depth using cheaper, younger players from the academy or from overseas.
Saracens’ remaining three England players who have yet to feature this season have all been included in Mark McCall’s XV to face Bath on Friday night. pic.twitter.com/8cC876u3A2
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 28, 2019
The pressure on mid-range players means wages are stagnating and in lots of cases they drop in real terms. To steal a phrase, rugby really does have a squeezed middle.
Even so, earning £150,000 a year for something that you love sounds pretty good, and it is. Conceivably you could earn this amount of money from about age 22 to 30. In other words – £1.2million over eight years sounds great!
Yet all that glitters is not gold – the tax bill will be £60,000 a year. A mixture of higher rate tax and losing the personal allowance means that players might be paying an eye-watering 60 per cent tax on a portion of their income.
Some fans are very unhappy with European rugby's disciplinary hearing punishments
https://t.co/6cFP9DjxBk— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 28, 2019
They might also have reduced limits to what they can put in a pension.
£1.2million soon becomes only £720k.
Interestingly if you earned the same amount over 20 years, £75k a year, hardly a small salary, you would take home £840k in total. In other words, the HMRC loves mid-range rugby players.
This probably goes some way to explain why Steve Young the Quarterback of 49ers fame opted the get paid $40 million in the form of a 43-year annuity when he played in the now defunct USFL for the LA Express.
The LA Express Wide Receives collected their last pass from Young in 1985, Young will collect his last Cheque from the LA Express in 2027, anyway, I digress.
Bath could be set for quite a dunking as Saracens are going full metal jacket in the Premiership on Friday nighthttps://t.co/opQBIivyYb
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 28, 2019
Players’ income is not guaranteed, a normal person’s future is reasonably secure – they could expect to continue work until they decided to move jobs or retire. Players are stuck with the uncertainty of a two or three-year contract, after which who knows what happens.
A player’s future earnings can be dictated by many factors, for example, talent already available on the market, teams available salary cap and the player’s injury history.
A player might also need to decide whether it is worth taking a lower wage to play for a club that qualifies them for a national team. The money from a world cup campaign, if invested properly, can be life-changing but is it worth the risk? It too is a very hard decision for a player to make.
Regarding international payments, if I was to give free advice, it would be: never rely on your international money and never ever spend it (until you retire).
In the event a player never plays for their country but still manages to save half his net pay over eight years (£45k a year), he would run out of money before 40 unless they made substantial changes to their expenditure and further non-rugby employment was found.
As important as income is, it’s always the other side of the coin that is more important: spending.
More than anything else expenditure will dictate someone’s long term financial security. High profile, high earning players often find themselves in all manner of financial predicaments and often attract the wrong kind of attention. This is why it’s so important to control your expenditure if you’re a rugby player.
I will give you a real-life example: I met a car salesman who leased luxury cars to footballers in Manchester.
He explained footballers lease multiple cars at once based on a simple calculation. The calculation? If the average household spends 30 per cent of its income on car payments and therefore so should footballers, for many footballers that means having 5 cars, told you it was simple.
The only thing worse than the salesman’s calculation was that I met him in a bar with a rugby player.
Expectations on players are massive, even a player on 18k in the academy earns far more than his student friends, so guess who is always first to the bar, or good for some cash at the weekend?
There are also inter-club dynamics, the competitive nature of sportspeople often means players spend up to the highest spender rather than take the sensible option.
In the space of eight years, a player might go from spending only beer money and living at home with parents, to getting married, paying for a house deposit, funding two cars and supporting a young family. Throw in some trips to Dubai and a couple of weekly dinners out, a player can easily spend £75,000 a year.
The situation for players from the Pacific Nations can be even more complex, as their strong family ties and a remittance culture can lead to players supporting many households back home.
By the time a player starts to understand the importance of investing and saving it’s often far too late to accumulate the assets needed to sustain their lifestyle. Young men, for the most part, lack the wisdom to deal with the huge jump in income.
A professional with a comparative salary like a headteacher or a hospital consultant will earn in the region of what an average player earns but only after a long incremental pay rise.
In a guest opinion piece, @Jbeardmore of the @RugbyPodcast comes to the defence of @Saracens chairman Nigel Wray.https://t.co/1rkA9isQgf
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 11, 2019
A CEO will have a whole lifetime of managing budgets, negotiating pay and all manner of other things that means that are more able to handle their higher salaries. In short they learn the value of money.
Even players saving a couple of thousand pounds a month into an investment would only end up with £165k.
Without a new job and significant cuts in spending that money would last less than three years.
It’s strange that with all the ‘awareness’ around mental health the subject of money never comes up, even though so many players struggle moving away from the game.
The stats bear this out. According to a 2009 Sports Illustrated article, 35 per cent of National Football League (NFL) players are either bankrupt or are under financial stress within two years of retirement and an estimated 60 per cent of National Basketball Association (NBA) players go bankrupt within five years after leaving their sport. A quick google for bankrupt Premier League footballers also bears this out.
Why did only ‘stars’ co-invest at Saracens?
My hunch is it was probably beyond the means of most squad players, rather than been some elitist selection process for the haves and have nots. The dull answer might simply be that London property prices are too high, even for “well off” rugby players.
Investments in ISAs would represent far better value. Boring but almost certainly true.
Could Israel Folau afford his own legal bills? Maybe but we have no idea what his outgoing are or how many mouths he is feeding.
Lastly I will end with a conversation I had with a recently retired player. After showing him all manner of cash flow charts and player income projections he concluded, with a bit of embarrassment, that after over a decade as a full time professional in the Premiership he had underachieved.
Yet, his lack of a big contract meant he was never addicted to the income, he was able to retire on his own terms and his families’ transition from rugby was much easier for them then it is for a lot of other players and their dependents.
He did however, enjoy the amazing experience of playing professional rugby for over a decade with all the intangible benefits that come with it. From that angle I think he might have been one of the lucky ones and on reflection I think he probably agrees too.
Comments on RugbyPass
I hope Leinster’s proud of themselves fielding a poor team. They should decide if they’re all in or not.
1 Go to commentsJordie is looking at 16 games maximum if Leinster reach both the URC and champions cup finals. Thats not guaranteed. Some of those home URC fixtures will be cakewalks as well for Leinster and there is not much doing during the 6 nations in Feb and March so he can probably get a decent rest then. He will have to really put in it for maybe 7 or 8 games max. It should be a good move for both.
13 Go to commentsThe game was a quarter final, not a semi final. Barrett will be here for 6 months, he is no one's replacement at 13. That mantle will most likely ultimately go to Jamie Osborne, though Garry Ringrose has at least 4 more years in him. The long term problem position (in the next 3 years) for Leinster is tighthead prop, though there are a couple of prospects at schools level.
25 Go to commentsSo much for all that hype surrounding the ‘revival’ of Aussie rugby. The Blues were without the likes of regular starters Perofeta, Sullivan, Christie etc… This was a capitulation of the highest order by Australia’s finest. Joe Schmidt definitely has his work cut out for him.
2 Go to commentsYes they can ignore Sotutu. Like Akira Ioane plays OK at Super level but gets lost in tests. Too many chances too many failures.
2 Go to commentsA wallaby front-row of Bell, Blake and Tupou…now that would be hefty
1 Go to comments“But with an exceptional pass accuracy rating “ Which apart from Roigard is not a feature of any of the other 9s in NZ. Kind of basic for a Black 9 dont.you. think? Yet we keep seeing FC and TJ being rated ahead of him? Weird if it’s seen as vital to get our backline beating in your face defences.
1 Go to commentsThanks BeeMc! Looks like many teams need extra time to settle from the quadrennial northern migration. I think generally the quality of the Rugby has held up. Fiji has been fantastic and fun to watch
13 Go to commentsLets compare apples with apples. Lyon sent weak team the week before, but nobody raised an eyebrow. Give the South African teams a few years to build their depth, then you will be moaning that the teams are too strong.
41 Go to commentsDid footballs agents also perform the scout role at some time? I’m surprised more high profile players haven’t taken up the occupation, great way to remain in the game and use all that experience without really requiring a lot of specific expertise?
1 Go to commentsSuper rugby is struggling but that has little to do with sabbaticals. 1. Too many teams from Aust and NZ - should be 3 and 4 respectively, add in 2 from Japan, 1 possibly 2 from Argentina. 2. Inconsistent and poor refereeing, admittedly not restricted to Super rugby. Only one team was reffed at the breakdown in Reds v H’Landers match. Scrum penalty awarded in Canes v Drua when No 8 had the ball in the open with little defence nearby - ideal opportunity to play advantage. Coming back to Reds match - same scrum situation but ref played advantage - Landers made 10 yards and were penalised at the breakdown when the ref should have returned to scrum penalty. 3. Marketing is weak and losing ground to AFL and NRL. Playing 2 days compared with 4. 4. Scheduling is unattractive to family attendance. Have any franchises heard of Sundays 2pm?
13 Go to commentsAbsolutely..all they need is a chance in yhe playoffs and I bet all the other teams will be nervous…THEY KNOW HOW TO WIN IM THE PLAYOFFS..
2 Go to commentsI really hope he comes back and helps out with some coaching.
1 Go to commentsI think we are all just hoping that the Olympic 7s doesn’t suffer the same sad fate as the last RWC with the officials ruining the spectacle.
1 Go to commentsPersonally, I’ve lost the will to even be bothered about the RFU, the structure, the participants. It’s all a sham. I now simply enjoy getting a group of friends together to go and watch a few games a year in different locations (including Europe, the championship, etc). I feel extremely sorry for the real fans of these clubs who are constantly ignored by the RFU and other administrators. I feel especially sorry for the fans of clubs in the Championship who have had considerable central funding stripped away and are then expected to just take whatever the RFU put to them. Its all a sham, especially if the failed clubs are allowed to return.
10 Go to commentsI’m guessing Carl Hayman would have preferred to have stayed in NZ with benefit of hindsight. Up north there is the expectation to play twice as many games with far less ‘player management’ protocols that Paul is now criticising. Less playing through concussions means longer, healthier, careers. Carter used as the eg here by Paul, his sabbatical allowed him to play until age 37. OK its not an exact science but there is far more expectations on players who sign for Top 14 or Engl Prem clubs to get value for the huge salaries. NZR get alot wrong but keeping their best players in NZ rugby is not one of them. SA clubs are virtually devoid of their top players now, no thanks. They cant threaten the big teams in the Champions Cup, the squads have little depth. Cant see Canes/Chiefs struggling. Super has been great this year, fantastic high skill matches. Drua a fantastic addition and Jaguares will add another quality team eventually. Aus teams performing strongly and no doubt will benefit with the incentive of a Lions tour and a home RWC. Let Jordie enjoy his time with Leinster, it will allow the opportunity for another player to emerge at Canes in his absence.
13 Go to commentsLove that man, his way to despise angry little men is so funny ! 😂
6 Go to comments“South African franchises would be powerhouses if we had all our overseas based players back in situ. We would have the same unbeatable aura the Toulouses, Leinsters or Saracens of this world have had over the last decade or so.” Proof that Jake white does not understand the economics of the game in SA. Players earning abroad are not going to simply come back and represent the bulls. But they might if they have a springbok contract.
25 Go to commentsA lot of fans just joined in for the fun of it! We all admire O'Gara and what he has done for La Rochelle
6 Go to commentsThe RFU will find a way to mess this up as usual. My bet is there will be no promotion into the the Premiership, only relegation into National League One. Hopefully they won’t parachute failed clubs into the league at the expense of clubs who have battled for promotion.
10 Go to comments