Analysis Why Bont’s deal could provide the blueprint for stars

IMAGINE you have just put your house on the market.

“Now, imagine saying you’re going to try and sell that house your way without meeting the market valuation,” one veteran list manager continues the story. “Good luck trying to sell that house.”

It’s how clubs, at the very least, see the evolution of the long-term contract. In an era when bids for rival players are becoming bigger and longer, clubs are now shelling out deals of equal length and terms to keep their talent locked away. But when, and why, did that era start?

The answer, most in the AFL industry believe, is an unintentional consequence of the delayed collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations that rumbled on throughout the 2023 season. The talks, and the ramifications of those talks dragging on, has been the butterfly effect that has resulted in 30 players extending out their deals beyond 2030 ever since.

Last week, when Andrew Brayshaw inked a fresh six-year deal through to 2031, he became player No.30 to join what AFL.com.au has previously coined ‘Club 2030‘. He will certainly not be the last to join that exclusive group in the coming months.

His teammate, Hayden Young, is currently in possession of the AFL’s longest deal that runs through to 2033, though Gold Coast’s young star Mac Andrew, should he activate a series of contract triggers, could have a deal to 2034.

Connor Rozee, Max King, Aaron Naughton, Noah Balta, Sam Taylor and Connor Idun are among another crop now contracted until 2032, while free agents Tom De Koning and Luke Davies-Uniacke – having both been offered seven-year deals to stay at Carlton and North Melbourne respectively – could soon join them.

So, how can the dots of those deals be connected back to the 2023 CBA, the negotiations of which were finalised in September of 2023 but which covered the entire 2023 season? The answer is complex, but crucial to understanding why both players and clubs now covet longer deals.

Clubs, in realising that the 2023 CBA negotiations were being hashed out a year in arrears, were hesitant to aggressively splash their cash over the course of that season with little knowledge of what the market would soon move to.

To prove such a point, in 2022 – the year before – first-round picks were dished out in trades for stars of the competition like Jason Horne-Francis, Tim Taranto, Izak Rankine, Josh Dunkley, Luke Jackson, Jacob Hopper and many more. A year later, with clubs cautious to assertively target rival talent, the only first-round pick that swapped hands in a trade for a player was the pick Collingwood gave up for Lachie Schultz.

The stagnation of money being spent led to clubs like St Kilda, Essendon and North Melbourne – among others – being in possession of ‘war chests’ to rival what Tasmania could soon offer to its potential foundation players.

It’s why figures that would have previously seemed outlandish sums of money brandished for potential wantaway stars like De Koning, Davies-Uniacke and Finn Callaghan now seem like the new norm. And that’s before Tasmania adds yet another competitor for the signatures of rival players.

Only, clubs now believe that such money could outlast even Tasmania’s impending flurry of trade and free agency activity. Given teams can carry underspend within a salary cap for as long as four years, the limit to existing clubs’ bids on rival players could surpass even the Devils’ entry into the competition.

So, not only has there been an increase in clubs attempting to sign up their best talent beyond Tasmania’s arrival in 2028, but there has also been a lingering wariness of having to prevent rival raids from existing clubs even further into the future than that due to the repercussions of the delayed 2023 CBA negotiations.

But if that’s the recent origins of the long-term deal, the benefits – both club list managers and player agents unanimously agree – outweigh the potential pitfalls of their talent and clients signing numerous years in advance.

• BENEFITS OF THE LONG-TERM CONTRACT
  • Security for players by ensuring their future.
  • Setting the floor for their market value.
  • Locking a player down for their best years.
  • Gives clubs the flexibility to move money around.
  • Can help attract and retain AFL stars.
  • Provides clubs with leverage if the player leaves.
  • Less reliance on players to hit incentives and triggers.
  • TPP (salary cap) uplifts can be built into long-term contracts.

The first – and most obvious – advantage is security. For players, a long-term deal not only guarantees their future, but sets the floor for their market price. For clubs, it locks a player down for the best years of their career, while it also provides leverage in potential trade negotiations if that player does opt to depart mid-contract.

But the subtle benefits are perhaps more important. For clubs, signing your own talent long-term provides the option to move their money around at any given point of that contract. A player might sign a six-year deal worth $6 million, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be paid $1 million per year.

While a free agent who moves clubs must be locked into the terms of their contract from the outset, keeping your drafted talent gives list managers the ability to alter financial terms of that deal at any point. That provides clubs with flexibility to pay money forward, or delay payment, to attract and retain talent further down the line.

Long-term contracts are also often associated with big money deals, but – to the frustration of list managers – that is not necessarily always the case. For example, in purely financial terms, a five-year deal worth $6 million is not as beneficial to clubs as a six-year deal worth $5 million and, subsequently, should be assessed differently.

While there are cautionary tales within long-term contracts, clubs are also held to checks and balances within the AFL’s new Deemed High Risk (DHR) protocols, which were introduced last season as part of the League’s competitive balance review.

The DHR protocols now ensure any contract worth six years or longer must have sign off from various departments, alongside the club’s board and the League itself, while guaranteeing cash flow projections are in order, before the contract is approved. That, both clubs and the AFL believe, is a lot of people with a lot of knowledge ticking off any such contracts.

The prospect of ‘getting comfortable’ is also raised by long-term contract detractors as a primary reason to avoid such a deal. But clubs believe for as many players who ‘get comfortable’, there are more who see their long-term future at the one workplace and as such strive to make it the best environment possible for success.

Player agents believe that, more often than not, clubs are the ones pushing for the longer-term contracts, rather than the players themselves. The train of thought from that perspective is that, in an era where more players are leaving in-contract than ever before, clubs are seeing the bargaining power of longer deals in the potential trade talks that occur down the line.

Not that players don’t want them, though. A longer deal guarantees more money, ensures less reliance on match payments and game incentives, and relieves any stress by reassuring a player of their future. It even helps things like securing bank loans. A player on a one-year deal will often find it difficult to get approved for a home loan.

Players, and their agents, will often build in Total Player Payment (TPP) uplifts into contracts that extend beyond CBA deals. For example, contracts that progress beyond 2027 will often ensure a player’s salary rises relative to the salary cap increasing whenever the next CBA is signed.

There are also benefits, and security measures, for agents. If a player signs long-term, it guarantees that agent’s commission for the entirety of that contract, regardless of whether the player opts to change management groups midway through the extent of that deal.

But, while contracts are getting longer – Andrew’s deal at Gold Coast could ultimately prove to be a nine-year agreement by the time it expires – that’s not to say they will continue to inflate. In fact, clubs are watching one particular contract negotiation this season closely to assess the outcome.

That is the negotiation involving the Western Bulldogs and their captain Marcus Bontempelli. Where free agents like De Koning and Davies-Uniacke are now being offered seven-year deals to stay, Bontempelli’s first four-year free agency contract from back in 2021 now seems like a relic of years gone by.

However, will he buck the trend by ‘double dipping’? That is, getting one huge payday four years ago, and another in the coming months given his continued status as one of the game’s best players?

In turn, will his next contract surpass any TPP uplifts he would have gotten had he instead signed a seven or eight-year extension four seasons ago and not come out of contract for another three or four years? And could that lead to the very next evolution of free agency contracts being handed out, and perhaps a reversion to players backing themselves in by signing shorter deals?

Could it prove the next frontier in contract negotiations for the League’s very best players? Could the next Bontempelli deal provide the blueprint for 2026 free agents like Zak Butters, Sam Walsh and Ben King? Will they covet the new ‘double dip’ deal, as opposed to the mega long-term extension?

After all, the market is often set as a result of unintentional consequences. Just see the delayed 2023 CBA negotiations as an example of how one outcome can dictate the blueprint for a complete revolution of the modern AFL contract.