What’s wrong with a little harmless fun?

By the time they reach adulthood, most people have been exposed to advertising. Burgers, steak knives, toothpaste; you name it, you’ve seen it. Dissatisfied with life? Look how happy these people are since they bought this car, cleaning product or kitchen appliance.

Do you take it with a grain of salt or are you convinced that the body you always dreamed of can be attainable in just 10 easy payments?

I write about sport for a living. That means when I watch it, it’s work. Others make their money from it too and the more games and tournaments you watch, the more money these folk get.

You’re encouraged to attend or tune into these events via something called advertising.

‘‘I love the whole tournament – all 16 clubs in our home city is awesome! I love the colour and passion of the fans who come out to support us. The noise from our Warriors fans in the stadium when we run onto the field is nothing I’ve experienced before!’’

That’s a quote attributed to rugby league player Shaun Johnson on the homepage of the NRL Nines, held in Auckland last weekend. Johnson is an ambassador for the tournament, but didn’t play.

He and fellow ambassador Johnathan Thurston later said the event should be taken away from Auckland, due to the lack of crowd support.

When you’re exposed to as much sport – or hype around sport – as sports writers are, you can become cynical about people and their motives and accustomed to events not living up to their billing.

For reasons that aren’t automatically clear, people appear let down by events such as the nines.

The Wellington Sevens rugby tournament again attracted poor crowds, the nines seem destined for greener pastures in Australia and this weekend’s inaugural Brisbane Global Tens are being staged under an advertising-related cloud.

Star fullback Billy Slater has been a regular feature of the promotional material for the nines, but assistant coach for the Melbourne Storm in 2016 is the closest he’s come to playing. Duco promote the nines and tens and used All Blacks Israel Dagg, Jerome Kaino and Damian Mckenzie to advertise the Brisbane event.

The Wellington Sevens weren’t a great event but the actual rugby was fine. Even quite good, when teams such as South Africa and Fiji were playing.

You can find fault with the nines’ ‘‘singles zone’’ or lament Johnson’s absence but, again, the standard of football was entirely adequate and you assume the same will be true of the tens.

These are harmless, relatively inoffensive pre-season products that even the promoters don’t pretend are here to replace test rugby or the State of Origin series.

No-one’s making you watch them.