The terms of the new Collective Agreement between the New Zealand Rugby Union and the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association were released last night, with the most eye-catching feature the move, from 2011, to two divisions of seven teams.
The plan, revealed by The New Zealand Herald last week, will result in the status quo remaining next year before the teams are split in half, with the top seven entering the Premiership and bottom seven the Championship.
From 2012, the competition will work in a 12-week window featuring four weekends of inter-divisional rugby, which will carry full competition points.
Both divisions will have semifinals and finals.
In 2011, because New Zealand hosts the World Cup, the competition will be restricted to eight weeks, with three midweek games and no semifinals.
The winning team in the Championship will be promoted, and will replace the bottom team in the Premiership.
Just last Friday, the NZRU maintained a 10-team, six-team split was still the preferred option but the players, and several unions, were adamant a six-team second tier would not, and could not, work.
However, yesterday, the fraught nature of the previous weeks was put aside.
"Among our key goals for this year were to provide certainty around of competitions both at the domestic level and within Sanzar and complete a new collective agreement," NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said.
"The settlement terms represent a significant step forward for our professional rugby in this country."
The settlement also represents a significant pay rise for the country's best players.
They have negotiated an increase in the Player Payment Pool (PPP) from 32.4% to 36% of NZRU player-generated revenue, which includes broadcast cash, sponsorship and match-day receipts.
More significantly, the PPP has access to 36% of franchise revenue above $24 million (across the five franchises).
This works hand in glove with a new contracting model, where franchises directly contract players, rather than provincial unions conducting deals for Super rugby.
Franchises will now be able to contract 28 players directly and draft up to four more.
Squads will be no greater than 32 and no fewer than 30 players.
"The best thing we have done is align the contracting behaviour with the competitions the teams compete in," Rob Nichol, head of the New Zealand Rugby Players Association, said.
He stopped short of calling it a pay rise for the players, referring to it instead as a "market correction".
"The players' wages will improve as the game grows commercially," Nichol said.
"Ultimately, our interests are now fully aligned with the NZRU. If we can help grow the game and make it more attractive to the public it will benefit everyone."
Nichol said the player drain, the hot-button issue of the past decade, had been arrested in the past couple of years but the expansion of Super rugby and the certainty around the competitions and contracting models would make it even more attractive for players to stay in New Zealand, and for those overseas to return.
The news is a boon for the four unions facing the cull - Northland, Counties Manukau, Manawatu and Tasman - even if the form book suggests most will slip into the Championship in 2011.
A reduced salary cap for provincial unions ($1.35 million down from $2.2 million, or 36% of a province's commercial revenue) and franchise contracting should help ease some of their financial burdens.
"I congratulate the NZRU and players association in presenting a model that means certainty for unions," Northland chairman Andrew Golightly said.
"The competition has real excitement to it and I believe will deliver for Northland and other unions."
The negotiating team, which included Canterbury's Hamish Riach, Wellington's Greg Peters and Mike Bishop from Hawkes Bay, worked with player representatives around the clock for three days until agreement was reached last Friday morning.
The collective is a binding agreement from 2010 through 2012.
