The Black Ferns have solidified their place as Aotearoa’s most successful national sports team, claiming a record sixth World Cup title.

The only team that coming close to this level of success would be the Silver Ferns, who themselves could claim a sixth World Cup title next year.

Despite the persistent narrative that audiences aren’t interested in Women’s sports, the Rugby World Cup saw stadiums filled during the tournament and more than 1.2 million viewers tuned in to watch the final live on Three.

Newstalk ZB reporter Kate Wells tells The Front Page podcast that these numbers reiterated that New Zealanders do care about women’s sport and that there is a huge audience of people hungry more.

“It’s taken people a while to get on the bandwagon,” says Wells.

“You also need to consider that the World Cup final was free to air, which is different from the financial burden that you have with subscriptions to streaming services these days.”

Wells says there is simply no better way to promote the women’s game than by having these big games on free-to-air television to encourage more fans to support the team.

Despite the rapid growth in the women’s game in recent years, the financial side is yet to catch up.

Players in the women’s game were only offered professional contracts in 2018 – and the money being offered is hardly enough to do the job fulltime.

“I can’t fathom why it’s taken so long to get behind women’s rugby,” says Wells.

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“The thing is that we need investment. If you invest in the people and game, it’s going to have big benefits. We saw that with England, which was the first team to go pro. It became very difficult to compete with them.”

So exactly how much do the Black Ferns earn?

Listen to The Front Page podcast for Wells’ explanation of it’s determined how much our top athletes earn.

• The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. • You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.