NRL Legend lives off $300 per-week

When you think of the NRL, you think of the big money which attracts our young stars down under.

Super League doesn’t quite have the same money in the game as the NRL. Plenty of world class players have been handed $1 million contracts down under. Jonathan Thurston was one of the first to be handed such a huge deal.

The definition of an NRL legend, he immortalised himself with the winning drop goal in North Queensland’s first ever Premiership triumph in 2015 and that was just the peak of his brilliant career which saw him play in three NRL Grand Finals, win State of Origin after State of Origin and even win a World Cup in 2013.

With his superb legacy, you’d expect him to be spending thousands of dollars a week especially when you consider his role as a pundit in NRL coverage today. Yet that is not the case. But the question is why?

In The Sunday Telegraph, it was revealed he lived off $400 a week since the beginning of his well-documented rags to riches story. According to the report, his player agent Sam Ayoub put him on this weekly budget when he joined North Queensland on his first big money deal in 2005. He even stuck to this budget when he was earning $1.24 million per year later in his career when he was considered the world’s greatest player.

In fact, he even lowered his weekly allowance down to $300 allowing him to funnel the rest of his money into his wide-ranging and successful investments. He has a multimillion-dollar share portfolio including a stake in transport company Skytrans.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with his story after all he travelled to Sydney in pursuit of a dream as a 17-year-old kid with no money in his pocket and yet went on to be one of the highest earners the game has ever seen whilst being one of the best players in our great game’s long history.