Rugby World Cup final 2015 New Zealand v Australia: How much will each player be paid for a win?
Money is unlikely to be much of a motivating factor for players in a Rugby World Cup final – and that’s just as well for Australians because it’s the New Zealand players who have most to gain in financial terms from their performance at Twickenham.
As well as the opportunity to write their names in history, both Wallabies and All Blacks players can earn large monetary rewards with a World Cup win.
The Australia squad will each receive a bonus worth around £47,000 should they go on to lift the Webb Ellis Cup yet their antipodean rivals New Zealand will each earn a £66,000 bonus for a win.
Read more: Rugby's 10 highest-paid players
The men in black also have the softener of a £15,400 bonus just for reaching the final – a reward not on offer to the Wallabies.
However, the Wallabies players have, on average, earned more than their opponents on Saturday so far in the tournament.
Players named in Michael Cheika’s 23 man matchday squad during the World Cup have been paid around £4,727 per match by the Australian Rugby Union.
In contrast, New Zealand Rugby is committed to paying their players the equivalent of £3,300 every time they’re selected in the matchday squad.
That means in theory if New Zealand won the World Cup and a player had been in named in every matchday squad he would stand to earn around £89,100 from the tournament while an Australia player could theoretically earn £80,089.
The bonuses and match fees were agreed between the two nations’ player’s associations and their respective rugby unions.
In order to offset the potential bill of a World Cup win, the Australian Rugby Union took a £141,891 hedge – with returns of £1.4m – that their team would win the tournament.
A World Cup win would cost them a total of £2.2m in payments while New Zealand Rugby’s governing body would have to fork out £2.6m.
New Zealand and Australia are ranked first and second respectively in rugby’s world rankings and have been deemed by many to be the two most impressive teams at this year’s tournament.
Yet although Dan Carter and Matt Giteau, legends for New Zealand and Australia respectively, are the two highest-paid rugby players in the world no other player present on Saturday can be counted among the world’s top 10 highest paid rugby players such is the financial dominance of the northern hemisphere.