Black Ferns get $25,000 bonus for winning Rugby World Cup
The Black Ferns will each get a $25,000 bonus payment for their Rugby World Cup victory, Stuff can reveal, with players receiving confirmation letters yesterday.
The bonus payments have been a hot topic since the Black Ferns’ win against England in Auckland last Saturday, with former Black Fern Honey Hireme-Smiler on Thursday calling for New Zealand Rugby to reward the players for their efforts during the Rugby World Cup.
It’s understood the players were notified of the amount yesterday morning, and NZ Rugby later confirmed the details to Stuff.
‘‘New Zealand Rugby, with generous contributions from key partners Sky, adidas and ASB, have created a bonus pool of almost $1 million to acknowledge the incredible success of the Black Ferns team and management at the Rugby World Cup,’’ NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said in a statement.
‘‘Each member of the Rugby World Cup-winning Black Ferns squad will receive a bonus payment of $25,000.
‘‘While bonuses were not built into Black Ferns contracts, NZR considers that they are appropriate given the scale of the Black Ferns’ RWC campaign. Accordingly, as we have done previously in respect of All Blacks’ RWC bonus payments, we have worked with commercial partners to create a pool that rewards the players for their historic and special performance.’’
The Black Ferns drew an audience of 1.3 million for the Rugby World Cup final on free-to-air broadcaster Three and streaming partner Spark Sport. That big number reflected the brand of rugby they played but also showed they could be an important part of NZ Rugby’s commercial package.
The $25,000 bonus, therefore, will be compared unfavourably to the bonuses of $150,000 each for All Blacks players if they had won the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019.
Under the terms of that incentive plan, each All Black would have been paid $35,000 for making the Rugby World Cup final in 2019, and a further $115,000 if they won it.
However, the All Blacks’ payments have historically been linked to key sponsors adidas, and do not come out of the NZ Rugby coffers, as outlined in the NZRPA players’ collective for 2019-2020.
‘‘Such payment does not form part of the Player Payment Pool and it is agreed that the bonus payable to the NZRU by adidas in the event of the All Blacks winning the Rugby World
Cup 2019 will not be treated as NZRU Player Generated Revenue,’’ the collective reads.
The broader issue of pay for women’s players was put on the agenda by a report from the UK media that England’s players were in line to pocket $30,000 each by winning the Rugby World Cup.
NZRPA chief executive Rob Nichol said big strides had been made in New Zealand on women’s pay – putting them at the top of the ladder – but the debate is likely to roll on in the wake of the Rugby World Cup.