Singing the Blues
Like many Aucklanders, Dana Johannsen was never a Blues fan. So she decided to put that right by spending an entire season following New Zealand’s most dysfunctional Super Rugby team.
It was guilt that drove me to do it. Each morning I step out of my front door to see the jaunty curves and perspex frame of Eden Park rising above me.
I have New Zealand’s most famous sporting venue in my backyard, yet I don’t really make the most of it. To me, Eden Park had become more an oversized roundabout I negotiated daily.
The solution was staring me in the face as I waited for the bus. Three smiling figures in sponsored jerseys stared down at me from the billboard above. ‘‘Join the Blues crew,’’ it read. ‘‘It’ll be great.’’
Well, it didn’t actually say that last bit, but it was implied by Jerome Kaino’s confident posture and self-assured smile.
I’ve never really ‘‘got’’ the Blues. Despite living in Auckland for 15 years, they’re still not a team I feel a connection or affinity with.
I decided it was time to make the Blues ‘‘my team’’, thus setting in motion a season-long spiritual journey.
A bronze membership was $179 for eight home games – a modest investment, I reasoned, for 640 minutes of rugby and access to stadium food of varying shades of beige that you wouldn’t go near in any other setting.
Others did not share my view. ‘‘You could not pay me $179 to join,’’ said Leonie, who has a cold breeze blowing through her rugby heart.
Others were confused by what I even meant by the Blues. ‘‘What, like a jazz club?’’ asked Natalie.
Finally, I managed to persuade a couple of friends, who we’ll call Kylie, because that is her actual name, and Juju, because Julia wants to experiment with a new moniker, to buy a season pass with me.
Kylie, a die-hard Cantabrian, was a tough sell. She loves her rugby, hates the Blues.
‘‘It’s going to be hard for me. When you are brought up from a child that Auckland rugby is s..., it’s hard to get past that. I’m going in with a mostly closed mind.’’
And with that rallying cry, we officially signed up to the Blues supporters club.
Engaging the fans
My journey to connect with the Blues comes as the sport is facing a battle to get new fans through the turnstiles.
Once considered the ‘‘lifeblood’’ of New Zealand society, rugby’s relevance is fading. There remains strong interest and attendance for the All Blacks, but crowd numbers for ITM and Super Rugby games are trending down.
This is especially true in Auckland, where, due to shifting demographics and an upsurge in the popularity of non-sports activities, the decline has been much steeper.
To try to arrest this decline, NZ Rugby commissioned the sports marketing insights company Gemba to put together a comprehensive picture of what motivates and impedes fans from going to games.
Robyn Rowley, the Blues brand and community manager, believes a lot of the club’s struggles come down to the challenges of ‘‘big city living’’.
‘‘We don’t see as many children at our games, so we have been really trying to focus on that family market. We know we need to onboard more fans for the future.’’
The franchise has done a lot of work to make Blues games more affordable for families. Kids’ tickets are only $9, while integrated ticketing allows rugby-goers to travel free on buses and trains with a matchday pass. But hurdles remain.
‘‘Friends of mine with 8 or
9-year-olds say, ‘By the time you get home, it’s a really late night,’’ says Rowley. ‘‘We see great numbers when it is the earlier
[5.15pm] kickoff, because that suits families a bit more.’’
The scheduling of matches is one area over which the Blues have little control. It is Sky, which shells out millions for broadcast rights every year, that dictates the schedule, putting the needs of TV audiences ahead of pay-at-the-gate fans.
‘‘In a perfect world we’d have more 5.15pm kickoffs, and more Saturday games. That would give us more marketing opportunities,’’ says Rowley.
‘‘In saying that, I don’t think that has as much influence as having a winning team. If we could unlock that consistency, I think we’d see old fans come back, and bring along new fans as well.’’
Questionable life choices
There was an undeniable spring in our step as we bowled up to Eden Park on a clear, balmy March evening for the Blues’ first home game of the season.
We make our way into the supporters’ lounge, situated, controversially as it turns out, in the bowels of the ASB Stand, and are genuinely surprised to find it full. It dawns on us we have never met a real-life Blues fan; now we’re suddenly nestled in among them. It was like we had wandered into a stable full of unicorns.
Our revelry is interrupted by Kylie’s panicked realisation that her parents are angry. Not just disappointed. Angry.
She’s just sent her parents in Christchurch a photo of her freshly acquired Blues season pass. For Gary and Maureen, it is the ultimate betrayal.
Kylie spends most of the first half trying to explain her life choices to her parents. She spends the second half supporting the Chiefs to try to appease them.
Among the Blues faithful in the western stand, I find myself taking my cues from them on how to react over what is playing out right in front of me. I get out of my seat along with them as Augustine Pulu and Akira Ioane cross for first-half tries, and remonstrate along with them as the Chiefs strike back, but it just feels like I am trying to manufacture a connection.
For the second half I just watch. Sitting end-on to the field gives an interesting view of the backline set-ups and gaps in the field. The Chiefs can see the gaps too. They score 17 points in as many minutes to take control of the game, before Bryn Gatland steams through to set up a grandstand finish.
In the frantic final few minutes the Blues have a castiron opportunity to pull off a win, but a crooked lineout throw brings the proceedings to an end.
The Blues blew it. I feel nothing, except a mild tingling in the nostrils after over mustarding my Fritz’s wiener.
Culture club
It takes barely a month before the ‘‘What’s wrong with the Blues?’’ articles start to appear.
At the centre of all these pieces is the enduring question: how does New Zealand’s largest and most fertile rugby province continue to churn out awful Super Rugby teams?
Rugby commentator and columnist Scotty Stevenson has an alternative theory to the simplistic ‘‘36 guys who can’t play rugby’’ proposition. In a column for ,he argues Auckland’s sprawling mass is a literal roadblock to creating a connected culture in the team.
He says his theory was ‘‘roundly poo-pooed’’ by readers at the time, but for a lot of senior players who have experienced different rugby environments, it rings true.
‘‘There’s a lot of guys that have left Auckland to go to other franchises and turned out to be pretty handy players,’’ Stevenson says. ‘‘So I started thinking about what do the other four teams have that the Blues can’t muster?
‘‘The other sides are based in smaller centres and the players come from all over the place to play there, and they coalesce around a common purpose. That kind of manufactured brotherhood that is predicated on one singular culture is hard to replicate at the Blues because of the realities of day-to-day life in a big city like Auckland.
‘‘I’m not saying the Blues don’t have a good culture, I’m just saying they don’t have an environment conducive to the team staying connected outside of match day and touring.’’
I return to Eden Park to see the Blues take on the Highlanders – a side many believe they would have beaten in the opening round clash in Dunedin, but for a pesky yellow card.
Perhaps a local derby will fire up the Blues and get their season back on track. Or, at least, close to the track.
Juju is particularly enjoying soaking up the game-day