There will be a pay raise for Super Rugby players and more players per team, but the rugby pay deal to be announced on Wednesday "will carry over only until the end of the broadcast deal" in '20 because of "uncertainty over what form the competition will take in the future," according to Wayne Smith of THE AUSTRALIAN. The collective bargaining agreement, negotiated between Rugby Australia, the four Super Rugby franchises and the Rugby Union Players Association, is "only the fifth signed in the 22-year history of Australian professional rugby," and unlike the one agreed in '03, which had a nine-year term and a six-year rollover, it has an expiration date of December 31, 2020. Whether Super Rugby "evolves" at that point into a trans-Tasman competition or some sort of merger with Andrew Forrest’s Indo-Pacific Rugby Championship, the "general belief is that the present iteration of southern hemisphere professional rugby is unsustainable." The average Super Rugby player will receive A$225,000 ($175,986) in '18, an approximate pay raise of 10%. Players will also "receive an extra week’s vacation and, importantly, it must be taken as a block rather than parcelled out on a day-by-day basis as many of the franchises currently do." Super Rugby franchises will also be permitted to sign between 36 and 40 players. This is an increase of "at least five players on present numbers." Now that there is one less franchise, the "overall base of professional players involved in Super Rugby has shrunk" from 175 to 160. Gender equity -- at least at the entry level -- has been achieved with the women’s and men’s sevens teams "being brought up to the level of a Super Rugby wider training squad contract." Players brought into the sevens program on a full-time basis will earn an annual salary of A$44,200 ($34,571). Players who are "brought in on a less-than-full-time basis" will be paid A$850 ($665) a week (THE AUSTRALIAN, 1/10).
