This operational number suggests NZR is effectively running precisely where it wants to be at a break-even point after making all its investment commitments to support and grow the grassroots game.
New Zealand Rugby chair David Kirk speaks at the AGM. Photo / SmartFrame
The question is, then, which story should be believed? Is the $700,000 operating figure just an accounting sleight of hand to be dismissed as a numeric game of hide-and-seek, or a fairer assessment of how the finances of the game are being managed?
The answer is that both narratives carry elements of truth. Spending may not be out of control, but it is certainly not as under control as it needs to be.
And while the business may indeed be running at a cash-neutral position, there is a sense that only happened in 2025 because of a major one-off payment from former sponsor Ineos that was likely in the vicinity of $17m.
NZR’s total costs of $311m in 2025, follows the $303m that was spent in 2024 and the $276m in 2023.
In those same three years, total income grew from $268m in 2023, to $285m in 2024, to $304m in 2025.
Black Ferns players celebrate a try by Maama Mo’onia Vaipulu against Canada. Photo / Photosport
The trend is unmissable, that NZR does not have a revenue problem, but a cost-management problem. Revenue is on a consistently upward trajectory, but so too is expenditure, and its trajectory remains steeper.
The growth in revenue in 2025 mostly comes from the compensation payment from Ineos after the petro-chemical company unilaterally pulled the plug on its six-year sponsorship three years early.
NZR took legal action and forced Ineos to pay an undisclosed sum and then the national body won two new replacement sponsors – Toyota and Gallagher – quicker than expected.
The other big cash generator was the test against Ireland in Chicago, which delivered close to $6m and was the most lucrative one-off fixture the All Blacks have ever played.
Revenue grew by $19m in 2025, mostly on the back of a one-off payment and a one-off test, and yet total expenditure in 2025 was $8m higher than it was in 2024.
NZR’s former chief executive Mark Robinson and many former board members have blamed the spiralling expenditure on the number of fixed-cost agreements into which the national union is locked.
There is a legal agreement to pay the players almost 37% of commercially generated revenue, and for the provincial unions to receive almost 17% (although they had to take a lower percentage last year).
In total, 54% of NZR’s income is linked to a fixed cost, with private equity partner Silver Lake also due a $10.5m annual payment to service the $262m it has invested.
The Silver Lake money continues to operate as a loan being paid at 4%, but the US fund manager has the right to convert its investment into a 7.5% equity stake, which would see NZR’s fixed costs jump to 61.5%.
But the alternative, and more compelling argument, is that far from excessively draining NZR’s coffers, the agreements with the players and provincial unions protect the national body by providing certainty of budget.
The players in particular are often criticised for being paid too much and holding the game to ransom, but revenue-share agreements are commonplace in sport as they build a partnership between the athletes and competition owners, and greater buy-in from both parties.
New Zealand Rugby leaders: CEO Steve Lancaster, board chair David Kirk and president Matthew Cooper. Photo / SmartFrame
There is also an element of flexibility in New Zealand’s agreement where the player payment pool will underspend in some years and overspend in others to help with player retention.
The 37% figure comes out as fair and reasonable when globally benchmarked, and certainly it is significantly lower than the payments made in the English Premier League (football), where clubs will next year self-impose a limit of no more than 85% of total income being spent on player wages and agent’s fees.
The source of NZR’s spending issue is not player payments, but the associated logistic costs of running so many teams in black.
The accounts show that spending on teams in black climbed from $83.7m in 2024 to $86.6m in 2025, while total expenditure on competitions rose from $126.5m to $129.2m.
NZR last year had to get the All Blacks to Argentina, the USA and UK; the two respective sevens teams all over the world; the Black Ferns to the USA and the World Cup in the UK; the All Blacks XV to the UK and France; and the Under-20 team to South Africa and Italy.
Whether all these teams have a clearly defined high-performance purpose and effective cost-management oversight remains a question NZR can’t yet answer.
The men’s sevens team has lost its way entirely and doesn’t have a clear role in the wider ecosystem, and while the whole premise of an All Blacks XV makes sense, 12 players who featured in the past two years have left or are leaving New Zealand.