"A past financial incentive to play for Australia has also diminished. Less than a decade ago, the Kangaroos match fee was $20,000; it is now $3000, just 10 per cent of an Origin match payment, which top Pasifika players who are eligible for NSW and Queensland can still get.
Nine Newspapers reported that these Kangaroos players would get $13,000 for the Ashes tour; several weeks in England and three Tests. Yes: they used to get more for a single Test than they will for this entire tour, off the back of a gruelling NRL season."
I guess playing for Aus just isn't worth much these days...or the tournaments themselves might not generate fuck all income, so not much to share.
Either way, ain't no-one doing this for the money. Matto makes more $$$ watching a cup game
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Money shouldn't be too much of a factor to represent your country.
If the league was making good money from the event then yes as a player involved you should get a fair share of the revenue but I doubt international matches make too much money, they probably cost more to run than they make.
Yeah, but $20000 to $3000 is one helluva drop....if the games revenue dropped by the same factor it is deadman walking
The collective bargaining agreement back in about 2022 changed how representative payments were made. All players agreed via the agreement with the players association.
From memory. It was for a number of reasons.
To help the game recover from the covid impact at the time.
To throw more money at the women's game
To increase the minimum wage for those on minimum coin
To increase the squad depth at NRL level with development contracts and the like
To encourage players to represent Tonga, Fiji, Cook and Samoa to help the international game instead of taking the $$ representing Australia etc
My understanding is that tier 1 internationals with Australia is actually $10'000 per player
tier 2 matches and PM 13 teams etc are at the $3'000 mark.
Happy to be shown wrong, just my understanding.
$10k seems proper, but the whole point of this article is to refute this