The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership

by Sam Walker

There was one national team in Tier One to which player salaries mattered immensely, however—the 2011–15 New Zealand All Blacks. Because the rules forbid players from competing for the national team if they signed with a professional rugby club in another country, the New Zealand Rugby Union, which oversees the All Blacks, had to find a way to keep its top athletes at home by paying them market-competitive salaries. To that end, the NZRU began a campaign to sell sponsorships and broadcast rights that ultimately netted a team record ninety-three million U.S. dollars in revenue in 2015. This fundraising effort surely helped the All Blacks maintain a competitive team, but in the end it seems unlikely that money alone was the catalyst. The NZRU’s revenue was a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly three hundred million dollars England’s Rugby Football Union earned in the same year.