What Wha happens in aa worldw where ABs are no longer the bbest
For years New Zealand Rugby has successfully hidden a number of big problems with this simplest of comebacks. As a coping strategy, it was pretty bloody effective.
A provincial championship that has become nothing more than a cost centre.
“But . . . the All Blacks.”
A Super Rugby series that changes every few years because it doesn’t work (and probably never will). “But . . . the All Blacks.” Ever-decreasing participation numbers for teenage boys.
“But . . . the All Blacks.” Increasing apathy towards rugby in the country’s only metropolis. “But . . . the All Blacks.”
The near abandonment of the game by important demographics (or, to ditch euphemism, White Flight). “But . . . the All Blacks.”
The ethical quagmire bordering on outright disgrace that schoolboy rugby has become.
“But . . . the All Blacks.”
It wasn’t a bad comeback, either. The All Blacks have been brilliant. Because they’ve been brilliant they’ve become a commercial wonderland.
This is not, as NZ Rugby would love you to believe, because of the jersey or their history, but primarily because they have spent the best part of a decade being the undisputed best in the world.
They’ve attracted, in no particular order, spruikers of insurance, beers, breakfast cereals, sportswear, deodorant, cars, finance, infant formula, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, high-sugar electrolyte drinks, seafood, watches, underpants and potato chips.
But wait, there’s more. They’ve attracted authors who have gone searching for nebulous concepts like legacies and mystique.
They’ve convinced a local pay TV operator to stake its entire future on their ongoing ability to attract the nation’s eyeballs.
For a team from a smallish country playing a relatively niche sport the All Blacks are truly remarkable. But . . . but . . . there’s also this. The All Blacks are the clothes and rugby is the body. It doesn’t matter how many boils and cysts the body has if you can cover them up with nice black threads.
When the All Blacks are no longer the best, those clothes start to look like the Emperor’s. Suddenly those imperfections are not just exposed, but magnified.
No one thought the All Blacks were going to keep winning World Cups forever but now the streak has been so rudely interrupted the new power structure led by CEO-elect Mark Robinson is going to have to try to lance some of those boils.
It won’t be easy. NZ Rugby has recently made some largely superficial changes to keep influential sponsors happy, like getting the rainbow tick and realising that women have a place in the boardroom.
Although admirable, that was the easy part. Now comes the real work.
There has been a significant disconnect between the grassroots and the game and this has filtered up the chain to the point where, anecdotally at least, a big chunk of the population’s only connection with rugby is through watching the All Blacks.
If you talk to enough people who love the game the problem only gets bigger because the decoupling is happening at various points on the chain and in myriad ways.
It could be parents encouraging their kids into “safer” activities.
It can be the kids themselves losing interest when they don’t make rep teams.
It can be schools (and there are too many to count) who throw all their resources at the 1st XV at the cost of everything else below.
It can be the club player who no longer wants to fight traffic twice a week to get to practice.
It can be the rural clubs in depopulated areas who can no longer field teams.
It can be the old married couple who longer go to watch their NPC teams because too many games are on silly nights at silly times in a splitdivision format they don’t get.
It can be most of Auckland who have been given no reason to watch the Blues for more than a decade.
Every link in that chain has been weakened in the past decade but it’s never really mattered because, well
. . . the All Blacks.
It’s why all you’ll hear over the next couple of weeks and months is, “Who shall the next All Black coach be?” This will be accompanied by a multitude of theories and rhetorical solutions as to how to restore the team to its mantle.
It’s important, yes, but it cannot be Robinson and the NZR board’s only consideration. It shouldn’t even be their primary consideration.
Being world champions cannot be the only disinfectant.
■ In fairness to rugby and its mostly hard-working administrators, they are not the only traditional sport facing engagement issues. Their issues are in part magnified because they are the national sport and the way the layers of the sport knit together are quite complex in comparison with smaller NSOs.
(In fact, traditional team sports are struggling with engagement across most western democracies, including Britain and the US. This is not geographic circumstances but rather a popular culture phenomenon.)
Cricket has also been wrestling with its place in modern New Zealand society and have employed former chief executive Martin Snedden in a project leader capacity to try to draft a strategy that will keep Kiwis engaged with the summer game.
As it happened, a key part of their future was determined in the unlikeliest of matches. Last summer’s Black Clash that pitted a team of rugby players against a team of cricketers was screened live on freeto-air and scored an average live audience of 500,000.
By comparison, using the same metric the biggest audience the Black Caps accrued during the high-profile Indian series was 170,000.
It was this more than anything else that convinced NZC to change direction in their broadcasting strategy.
It was why, also, a well-placed insider told the Herald they were staggered when Netball New Zealand took a “low-ball” offer from Sky to stay on the pay TV broadcaster.
It is understood NNZ had a counter free-to-air offer but chose to stay loyal to Sky, despite their audience numbers being a fraction of what they used to be when the national competition was on TVNZ.
For a team from a smallish country playing a relatively niche sport the All Blacks are truly remarkable.