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Consider for a moment you are Geelong. You have Tom Hawkins out of contract at the end of next year. He is a free agent when his contract expires and you want to avoid all that messiness and get things going on a new deal now.
Where do you start? A week ago, you might have known where to start. A week ago, Hawkins and his manager might have known where to start. Not now. Not since the Western Bulldogs committed to paying Tom Boyd millions for what they hope he will do and not for what he has done.
If Boyd after nine games and eight goals can be paid between $6 million and $7 million, then what is Hawkins worth? What is the right price to pay for a player who has won two premierships, been All-Australian, won the club's best and fairest and has three times been its leading goalkicker? What do you pay the player who led the competition for contested marks last season? How much for the man who, at 26, is in his prime after 147 games and 286 goals?
Is it three times Boyd's contract? Four times? Half? Nothing seems quite fair or appropriate any more, not when set against Boyd's contract.
The Bulldogs had their reasons for chasing Boyd as hard as they did and they were understandable. There was the determination to land a big-name player for what such a move would say about the broader club. There was the determination to land a key forward for what it would say and do for a young and emerging list. There was the determination to land (an emerging) big-name key forward because they had failed so often in the past.
This determination demanded a radical plan to do what had evaded them in the past ... and if it is nothing else, this is clearly a radical plan.
What the Boyd contract has done - despite having been crafted in apparently unique and, for Boyd, serendipitous circumstances - is corrupt the existing pay scales to distort or reshape assumptions of player value.
One question with the Boyd contract, which is unanswerable at this point, is whether this was a rogue contract derived from unique circumstances or is it the new normal?
As sports journalist Jake Niall noted, the Buddy Franklin contract last year was the real game changer in redefining what were accepted as normal terms or appropriate remuneration. But while the Franklin contract was alarming, the player at least had proven bona fides. Boyd's credentials are against juniors.
It is wrong to think the Boyd situation was a product of free agency, as he was seven years away from that freedom. But it is also wrong to think it was irrelevant. If the smaller club could not attract a free agent the way the bigger clubs did, then it had to be innovative and to pay over the odds to compete. Free agency has emboldened players and clubs alike to believe everything is possible now.
The Bulldogs will have their own challenges when their other young players come out of contract and ask for new terms, but right now it is a question being asked at other clubs and by other player managers. Post-Boyd, post-Buddy, they are not only asking what it will take to re-sign their own players but what it will take to noodle a player out of another club.
So how much now is a Tomahawk worth? And how much a Bontempelli?
Where do you start? A week ago, you might have known where to start. A week ago, Hawkins and his manager might have known where to start. Not now. Not since the Western Bulldogs committed to paying Tom Boyd millions for what they hope he will do and not for what he has done.
If Boyd after nine games and eight goals can be paid between $6 million and $7 million, then what is Hawkins worth? What is the right price to pay for a player who has won two premierships, been All-Australian, won the club's best and fairest and has three times been its leading goalkicker? What do you pay the player who led the competition for contested marks last season? How much for the man who, at 26, is in his prime after 147 games and 286 goals?
Is it three times Boyd's contract? Four times? Half? Nothing seems quite fair or appropriate any more, not when set against Boyd's contract.
The Bulldogs had their reasons for chasing Boyd as hard as they did and they were understandable. There was the determination to land a big-name player for what such a move would say about the broader club. There was the determination to land a key forward for what it would say and do for a young and emerging list. There was the determination to land (an emerging) big-name key forward because they had failed so often in the past.
This determination demanded a radical plan to do what had evaded them in the past ... and if it is nothing else, this is clearly a radical plan.
What the Boyd contract has done - despite having been crafted in apparently unique and, for Boyd, serendipitous circumstances - is corrupt the existing pay scales to distort or reshape assumptions of player value.
One question with the Boyd contract, which is unanswerable at this point, is whether this was a rogue contract derived from unique circumstances or is it the new normal?
As sports journalist Jake Niall noted, the Buddy Franklin contract last year was the real game changer in redefining what were accepted as normal terms or appropriate remuneration. But while the Franklin contract was alarming, the player at least had proven bona fides. Boyd's credentials are against juniors.
It is wrong to think the Boyd situation was a product of free agency, as he was seven years away from that freedom. But it is also wrong to think it was irrelevant. If the smaller club could not attract a free agent the way the bigger clubs did, then it had to be innovative and to pay over the odds to compete. Free agency has emboldened players and clubs alike to believe everything is possible now.
The Bulldogs will have their own challenges when their other young players come out of contract and ask for new terms, but right now it is a question being asked at other clubs and by other player managers. Post-Boyd, post-Buddy, they are not only asking what it will take to re-sign their own players but what it will take to noodle a player out of another club.
So how much now is a Tomahawk worth? And how much a Bontempelli?
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