\n Exclusive\n <\/p>\n
\n Bailey Smith’s deal at Geelong will be re-worked after his standout 2025 campaign\n <\/p>\n
Bailey Smith at Geelong photo day ahead of the 2026 season. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
GEELONG is set to reward Bailey Smith for his form since joining the club with a reworked contract and pay rise.<\/p>\n
The superstar Cat, who is one of the game’s biggest names, joined Geelong from the Western Bulldogs at the end of 2024 after missing that season with a knee reconstruction.<\/p>\n
His six-year deal to the end of 2030 is believed to be around the $700,000 a season mark. But it can be revealed that talks between the Cats and Smith’s manager, Robbie D’Orazio from CDG Sports, are close to seeing Smith lock in a pay rise to reflect his standing among the game’s leading midfielders.<\/p>\n
It comes on the back of his career-best year in 2025, when he joined the Cats and became an All-Australian as well as being a joint winner of the AFL Coaches Association’s Champion Player of the Year award, alongside Gold Coast skipper Noah Anderson.<\/p>\n
Whilst the move won’t include an extension past 2030, the upped deal will put him alongside other game-breaking midfielders and comes after he finished second in the Cats’ best and fairest last year behind fellow midfield dynamo Max Holmes.<\/p>\n
Bailey Smith at Geelong photo day ahead of the 2026 season. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
As Smith left the Dogs at the end of his sixth season, his deal with Geelong was essentially his ‘free agency’ type of long-term deal, with the move to lift his pay coming as part of the Cats’ plan to reward his performance.<\/p>\n
Smith’s marketability means he will also have an additional services agreement built into his deal, as per most of the game’s biggest names, with the 25-year-old being the face of the Cats since joining the club.<\/p>\n
He has started 2026 in strong form, including 40 disposals, six clearances and 10 tackles in last week’s win over Adelaide.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive Bailey Smith’s deal at Geelong will be re-worked after his standout 2025 campaign Bailey Smith at Geelong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-576502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576502","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=576502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}