The earnings of professional rugby players in New Zealand are dwarfed by their counterparts in other sports - no surprise there - but compare favourably with averages in English and French rugby, writes Gregor Paul.
KEY POINTS:
In the next few weeks, someone is going to have their bones rattled by Jerry Collins and find themselves prostrate on the turf wondering if they get paid enough to endure this professional rugby lark.
In comparison with New Zealand's average salary of $40,000, top rugby players seem to have it pretty good.
An estimated $32 million was pumped into the professional game last year and the best estimates are that the average salary of a Super 14 player in New Zealand is slightly more than $200,000 a year.
But compare that $200,000 a year with major sporting codes around the world and the package doesn't look so tempting.
The average take-home pay of Major League Baseball players in America is US$2.7 million ($3.4million) a year.
The NHL pays its players onaverage $1.9 million to chase a puck around ice rinks, while American football's NFL reported its average salary in 2007 as $1.8 million.
In England, Premier League footballers can expect an average salary of £656,000 ($1.51 million) but even that is dwarfed by the colossal $6.6 million which is the average salary paid to professional basketballers in America's NBA.
Rugby is very much the poor relation when it comes to professional sport. Not only is the actual cash on offer substantially less than that available to other codes but every cent is earned.
For the past three months, every Super 14 player in New Zealand has been put through a conditioning programme that would break the spirit and body of many an NBA basketballer.
For the next three months, they will be physically pummelled every weekend, with a fair bit of damage also inflicted during training runs.
For the very best players, once they have got through that, the really tough stuff begins with the All Blacks, where the intensity and impact noticeably increases.
By the season's end, the best players will have racked up as many as 13 test matches, the same number of Super 14 games and maybe a couple of provincial clashes.
That might not seem like much until the scale of preparation for each game is understood as well as the physical and mental toll inflicted by hammering into other oversized men for 80 minutes.
The players will be given a month off in December before starting the whole cycle again in January 2009.
Seen in that light, $200,000 a season feels a little light when a chain-smoking, portly type can stand still, swing a bat and head home with 13 times that money.
Probably, though, to most followers of the game, the fact American sports stars and English based footballers get paid bucket loads more cash than New Zealand rugby players is little surprise.
They are backed by far bigger corporate markets with access to bigger television audiences. And the deal with modern sport is that TV broadcast rights pay for everything from the flagposts, to the jerseys and the German-engineered cars the big names drive from mock Tudor mansion to training ground.
Rob Nichol, head of the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association, believes comparisons across sports played in different countries shouldn't be used to determine whether players are getting fair value in their respective markets.
He said: "Just as it is a hard thing to compare rugby today with rugby 30 years ago, it is hard to compare rugby in New Zealand with rugby played elsewhere and other professional sports played in other countries. How do you compare professional sports in America with those in Australia and New Zealand?
"There are so many factors to be considered in comparing how much athletes are paid."
Major League Baseball sold six-year broadcast rights last year for US$3 billion ($3.8 billion), the NFL sold a seven-year package for US$3.7 billion ($4.7 billion) in 2006 and the English Premier League picked up £1.6 billion ($4 billion).
That compares with the US$323 million ($407 million) Sanzar sold Super 14 and Tri Nations broadcast rights for in 2004. Not only was that deal worth barely a tenth of the Major League Baseball, NFL and English Premier League deals, it has to be split between three nations.
It follows, then, that if rugby in New Zealand generates only about one-tenth of the revenue sports such as football and baseball enjoy, then the players will be paid only about one-tenth.
What might surprise, however, is how competitive New Zealand salaries are when compared with other rugby markets.
Given the number of players who left to play overseas last year, there appeared to be a widening gulf on what players could earn in Europe compared with the money available in New Zealand.
But the average salary of $200,000 in New Zealand is in line with other major nations.
According to the Australian Rugby Players' Association, the annual salary of a Super 14 player in Australia last year was A$202,000 ($230,000). In France, the average wage of professional players is ¬12,000 per month, which is ¬144,000 a year or $266,000.
In 2004, the average salary paid out in the English Premiership was £60,000 ($150,000), which is estimated to have increased to £70,000 ($175,000) in 2007.
Averages can be misleading, though. The top English clubs are prepared to pay £180,000 ($450,000) to £250,000 ($625,000) for recognised All Blacks, with the French offering the equivalent in euros.
Those numbers are about in line with the total packages senior All Blacks take home in New Zealand. However, if the New Zealand dollar weakens in line with expectation, the European packages will be worth significantly more.
Those figures in Europe are also guaranteed, whereas top players here need to pick up All Black assembly fees of $7500 a week to push their packages to a comparative level.
It is understood that the average guaranteed retainer of a Super 14 player in New Zealand is around $170,000, so if a current All Black begins to fear his international days might be over, he knows he will be paid substantially more for doing the same job in Europe.
Analysis of the numbers provokes the conclusion that while the average salary paid to players in New Zealand is in line with those paid in France and England, the big names here can earn considerably more in Europe and they can earn it without being dependant on factors such as form and selection politics.
For lesser profile players, New Zealand offers a remuneration and lifestyle package that is highly competitive.
And while it might be of little relief to those playing the game professionally, the New Zealand Rugby Union and the majority of French and English clubs run their business along more sustainable lines than most of the major football clubs in Europe.
For much of the last decade, several top clubs have been paying out more than 70 per cent of their total revenue on player wages.
Accountants Deloitte & Touche, which has a specialist arm with expertise in valuing sports brands, has warned that anything over 50 per cent runs the danger of pushing a club into serious financial trouble.
The NZRU has kept its total expenditure on player costs at around 30 per cent of revenue.
