Rugby: Status quo in NPC a lifeline to doomed four

Photo / Brett Phibbs

Kiss goodbye to a 10-team national provincial championship - welcome in a seven-team Premiership and Championship.

The terms of the new Collective Agreement between the New Zealand Rugby Union and the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association were released last night, with the most eye-catching feature the move, from 2011, to two divisions of seven teams.

The plan, revealed by the Herald last week, will see the status quo remain next year before the teams are split in half, with the top seven entering the Premiership and bottom seven the Championship.

From 2012, the competition will work in a 12-week window featuring four weekends of inter-divisional rugby, which will carry full competition points. Both divisions will have semis and finals.

The winner of the Championship will be promoted, replacing the bottom team in the Premiership.

Just last Friday, the NZRU maintained a 10-team, six-team split was still the preferred option but the players and several unions, were adamant that a six-team second tier would not, and could not, work.

Yesterday, however, the fraught nature of the previous weeks was put aside.

"Among our key goals for this year were to provide certainty around of competitions both at the domestic level and within Sanzar and complete a new collective agreement," said NZRU chief executive Steve Tew.

"The settlement terms represent a significant step forward for our professional rugby in this country."

The settlement also represents a significant pay rise for the country's best players. They have negotiated an increase in the Player Payment Pool (PPP) from 32.4 per cent to 36 per cent of NZRU player-generated revenue, which includes broadcast cash, sponsorship and match-day receipts.

More significantly, the PPP has access to 36 per cent of franchise revenue above $24 million (across the five franchises).

This works hand in glove with a new contracting model, where franchises directly contract players, rather than provincial unions conducting deals for Super rugby.

Franchises will now be able to contract 28 players directly and draft up to four more. Squads will be no greater than 32 and no fewer than 30 players.

"The best thing we have done is align the contracting behaviour with the competitions the teams compete in," said Rob Nichol, head of the Players' Association.

He stopped short of calling it a pay rise for the players, referring to it instead as a "market correction".

"The players' wages will improve as the game grows commercially," Nichol said. "Ultimately, our interests are now fully aligned with the NZRU. If we can help grow the game and make it more attractive to the public it will benefit everyone."

Nichol said the player drain, the hot-button issue of the past decade, had been arrested in the past couple of years but the expansion of Super rugby and the certainty around the competitions and contracting models would make it even more attractive for players to stay in New Zealand, and for those overseas to return.

The news is a boon for the four unions facing the cull - Northland, Counties Manukau, Manawatu and Tasman - even if the form book suggests most will slip into the Championship in 2011.

A reduced salary cap for provincial unions ($1.35 million down from $2.2 million, or 36 per cent of a province's commercial revenue) and franchise contracting should help ease some of their financial burdens.

"I congratulate the NZRU and Players' Association in presenting a model that means certainty for unions," said Northland chairman Andrew Golightly. "The competition has real excitement to it and I believe will deliver for Northland and other unions."

The negotiating team, which included Canterbury's Hamish Riach, Wellington's Greg Peters and Mike Bishop from Hawke's Bay, worked with player representatives around the clock for three days until agreement was reached last Friday morning.

The collective is a binding agreement from 2010 through 2012.

AGREEMENT

COMPETITION STRUCTURES
* Status quo NPC next year.
* Two seven-team divisions from 2011 based on 2010 placings. Four inter-divisional games determined by draft.
* Contracted competition in 2011.
* From 2012 NPC to commence two weeks after expanded Super rugby (mid-August).

SALARY CAP
* Set at the lesser of $1.35 million (down from $2.2 million) or 36 per cent of a province's commercial revenue based on prior years.
* Maximum salary of $60,000 per player, except:
* Two marquee players per province can be paid up to $90,000.

REVENUE SHARING
* 36 per cent of player-generated NZRU revenue to go to Player Payment Pool (PPP).
* From 2011 36 per cent of franchise revenue (above $24 million revenue level across five franchises) to be added to PPP.

FRANCHISE CONTRACTING
* From 2011 franchises will be able to contract 28 players on New Zealand Rugby Contracts and draft up to four others for a total squad of 30-32 players.
* Maximum salary yet to be agreed.