Tassie big guns make the grade
Howe, Brown rank high on paid players list
IN 1966, Richmond lured then Clarence young gun Royce Hart across Bass Strait with a payment of a suit and six shirts.
Now, a fellow Tasmanian star from the Eastern Shore earns as much as $700,000 as a high-flying defender.
It is a long way from having a kick with his mates at Dodges Ferry for Jeremy Howe, now one of the AFL’s top 100 paid players.
Howe, 29, comes in at No.68 on the News Corp Australia’s AFL top 100 paid player list but – like every other player – his $650,000 to $700,000 salary from Collingwood is about to take a big hit, likely to be reduced to $468,000 to $504,000.
The star defender signed a three-year deal in 2018 that expires at the end of next year.
His knee surgery could hardly have come at a worse time given he could have earned more than $700,000 with marketing money and incentives if he had dominated this year.
Howe went from Melbourne to the club he supported as a kid and is a brilliant role model and exceptional on-field talent as well as the greatest high-flyer footy has seen.
In the US, his high-flying marks would earn him a stack from merchandise – and he would earn more if not robbed of mark of the year status for his grab over Tom McDonald.
North Melbourne full forward Ben Brown is the other Tasmanian in the 51-100 rich list at No.53.
The 27-year-old earns $675,000-$725,000, reduced to $486,000-$522,000 after the COVID-19 hit.
Brown is one of his club’s highest-paid players as he and the Kangaroos await the AFL’s green light to restart contract renewals.
The soon-to-be out of contract Brown had been in line for a new two or three-year deal – reportedly on $800,000 a season – before negotiations were put on hold in March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before this season, Brown had been a model of consistency, kicking 63, 61 and 64 goals in his past three seasons.
But, like his club, he has desperately struggled for form in 2020.
He had a year to run on his previous contract when North Melbourne handed him a two-year extension in October 2017, just weeks after he finished third in the Coleman Medal race.
Each year the AFL releases a list of pay bands that reveal how many players are millionaires and how many fall into each pay bracket.
And yet for all the focus on wages, some of the speculation is wildly off target.
Take Gold Coast Tasmanian winger Lachie Weller, an ex-Fremantle player who crossed to the Suns at the end of 2017 on an annual salary the industry has widely speculated is $800,000.
In reality, his base salary is about $400,000, with incentives that can get him to $500,000 – nowhere near the AFL’s top 100 earners.