{"id":567024,"date":"2026-03-27T04:05:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567024\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T04:05:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:05:28","slug":"prem-rugby-salary-floor-to-be-introduced-from-next-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567024\/","title":{"rendered":"Prem Rugby: Salary floor to be introduced from next season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prem clubs have agreed to introduce a ‘salary floor’ – a minimum amount each team must spend on players’ wages – from next season in an attempt to keep the top flight as closely fought as possible.<\/p>\n

Each club will be obliged to spend \u00a35.4m a season on talent.<\/p>\n

The salary cap – a \u00a36.4m limit on squad spending, albeit with ‘credits’ on offer for home-grown talent and other factors which stretch the restriction to \u00a37.8m – will remain the same.<\/p>\n

Failure to spend up to the salary floor will be punished by a fine equivalent to the difference between a club’s squad spend and the lower limit, incentivising clubs to invest in their squads.<\/p>\n

Several clubs are likely to need to pay more to meet the new lower figure.<\/p>\n

Last season, Bristol boss Pat Lam estimated that eventual champions and the Bears’ semi-final conquerors Bath spent “close to \u00a33m more than we have on our squad”., external<\/a><\/p>\n

While bottom side Newcastle have brought in a raft of new players since energy drink giant Red Bull took over in August, they are still thought to be well short of a \u00a35.4m wage bill.<\/p>\n

While such prescriptions over squad spending are rare in UK sport, they are more common overseas.<\/p>\n

The NRL, Australia’s elite rugby league competition, requires its clubs to spend at least 95% of its salary cap figure. In American Football’s NFL, it is set at 90%.<\/p>\n

Prem Rugby hopes that, with relegation to be formally scrapped next season, <\/a>greater payroll parity will improve the competitive balance of the top flight.<\/p>\n

A divide has opened up in the table this season with four teams – Newcastle Red Bulls, Harlequins, Gloucester and Sale – cut adrift of the play-off race with seven rounds of the season to go.<\/p>\n

Sixth-placed Saracens, who are eight points off the top four, could have their hopes of extending their campaign all but ended this weekend if they lose to leaders Northampton.<\/p>\n

Introducing a salary floor is reflective of renewed confidence in the league’s future, with billionaire industrialist James Dyson having become co-owner of Bath this month and further investment in Prem clubs believed to be in the pipeline.<\/p>\n

The league intends to add two teams to its current 10 in the 2029-30 season if a wrangle with the second-tier Champ can be smoothed out.<\/p>\n

While it has been agreed that any new entrants to the Prem must complete a campaign in the Champ first, it is yet to be agreed how high a team would have to finish to demonstrate their on-field credentials, with Prem Rugby chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor believing a top-six finish and qualification for the Champ play-offs “would be the natural thing”.<\/p>\n

Massie-Taylor is keen to build on this weekend’s ‘big game’ concept, with Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium earmarked as a possible host for neutral-venue Prem semi-finals from 2029.<\/p>\n

Saracens are staging Saturday’s match against Saints at the 63,000-capacity Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, while Gloucester are hosting Leicester at Villa Park and Bristol will take their match against Harlequins to Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on the same day.<\/p>\n

Harlequins put on two of their regular-season fixtures at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, which also hosts June’s Prem final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prem clubs have agreed to introduce a ‘salary floor’ – a minimum amount each team must spend on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-567024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}