Like I said, I can't make sense of the figure they came up with for the Steelers. There's now way to get to that.

As the average wage in the A-League is around $115,000 - suggesting that the average starting wage is a bit higher than that - you would expect to see a few A-League teams at the bottom of that list if the A-League had been included. Not a bad achievement considering the low salary cap.



Exactly - there's always going to be players in the squad who aren't 'starting' players. All of which proves the survey's point.

Edited by Benjamin: 11/1/2013 08:40:55 PM

Edited by Benjamin: 11/1/2013 08:42:24 PM

Would love to see the average of the top 100 clubs in each sport.
Football would be a MILE ahead of the sport in second place.

That'd put Steelers' average salary at 4m, not 2.9m.

An NFL "first team" wouldn't be too hard to figure out. Probably something like:
* QB
* 3 WR
* TE
* 2 FB/RB.
* Centre
* Long Snapper
* 2 Guards
* 2 Offensive Tackles
* Kicker
* Punter
* Kick Returner
* 2 Defensive Tackles
* 2 Defensive Ends
* 3 Linebackers
* 2 Corners
* 2 Safeties

That's the way they have qualified it, but I don't know precisely what it means for each and every sport.

In the AFL example, I take it to mean the top 18 or 22 players.

This might explain why Gold Coast ended up with the highest average salaries, because they have excluded up to 22 rookies who would have been on low first year salaries (I'm guessing).

Essentially they're accounting for 40 of the 53 man squad and given that there are only 11 men on the field at any given time, even if they account for the 33 starters from the Offence, Defence and Specials they're still wrong.

There's no such thing as 'first team pay' in the NFL. Because you've got the offensive, defensive and special teams players that all do their bit they have a 53 man Roster and if a guy who isn't a 'starter' for the O or D will probably be heavily involved in the specials team.

They qualify it as average "first team pay".

I'm guessing that they either pick and average out the top paid blokes, or they pick a typical team and average that out.

So with a soccer or cricket team, they are either picking out the top 11 earners, or picking a typical starting line-up, and averaging out the pay of those blokes.

That might help explain your query.

The survey is wrong anyway. Pittsburgh Steelers had 3.7m cap room at the start of the season, the salary cap was 120.6m. So an average of 2.205m USD per player, not 2.9m like the survey says.

As does the MLS, but point taken.

The survey remains of interest at the top end of town though.

This survey is pointless given that AFL has a salary cap.

Soccer fans and sports fans generally might be interested in this survey of the average salaries of the teams from the biggest sporting competitions in the world:

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/05/01/revealed-the-worlds-best-paid-teams-man-city-close-in-on-barca-and-real-madrid-010501/

The 17 AFL clubs (from 2011) are near the bottom of the pile, between nos 231 and 250.

Embarassingly we sit alongside the SPL! (excluding Celtic and Rangers who are miles ahead)

The good news for all Australian football fans is that at least we are ahead of the CFL and MLS, in fact, the best paid MLS team, Chivas, is an average $18,000 below the worst paid AFL team, the bulldogs.

The best paid AFL team, Gold Coast, is an average $155,000 below the worst paid La Liga team, Gijon.