"[I]t is a very strange type of professionalism that Super Rugby has created in New Zealand...
"What makes sports meaningful is the contest involved: what it means to the supporters and players, and the quality of the players on view.
"Super Rugby may have some quality players, but most of the games are increasingly meaningless to most supporters....
"For all the apparent centrality of rugby to New Zealand, most of the time it occurs as a peripheral activity and drama for most – especially Super Rugby. The problem is Super Rugby, its format and length of season, its lack of drama and increasingly, its lack of meaning.
"Fans of the game are increasingly alienated by the way the game is being organised and marketed. For we all know, deep down, that Super Rugby is a failed competition that struggles to hold our interest across a year....
"[R]ugby on TV [has] become a low-quality meaningless extended blur. And yet ... the ritual of coming to the rugby, to live rugby ... [is also] losing its allure.
"What complicates matters is the way that Super Rugby is not really professional in being an open market. To play for the All Blacks you must play in New Zealand and so our professional rugby teams are effectively a closed shop of players – and increasingly, a closed and limited shop of talent. The NZRFU is really the grand patriotic collectivist corporation and the Super franchises are the shop-fronts for the collectivist brand and product.
"Speaking sociologically, we are facing disenchantment...."~ Mike Grimshaw from his post 'Stupor Rugby?'
Thursday, 11 May 2023
"It is a very strange type of professionalism that Super Rugby has created in New Zealand..."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I stopped watching Super Rugby and even the All Blacks about twenty years ago. Cut the SkyNews cord (the cost made the decision easier), and the reason was that I realised I just didn't care about the games anymore. I couldn't remember the scores or even much about the game even a week later - unless it was a particularly outstanding one.
Exceptions:
- The All Black World Cup final in 2015. Wanted to see them hit the trifecta of doing overseas, back-to-back and being the first to get it three times (like Brazil in the Soccer World Cup in 1970).
- When the Hurricanes finally won it all.
- When the Highlanders finally won it all.
But that's it. If there is one specific game that made me realise what had changed it was All Blacks-Springboks in 2001 at the old Carisbrook stadium. Mid-winter tests there had never been fun, thanks to usually appallingly wet, cold conditions - and now it was being played at night, so even colder. The Boks had a poor backline that year so between that and the temps I wasn't expecting a lot of tries. And so it proved to be. Yet with the All Blacks leading by only 9 points and about 20 minutes to go I switched off the TV and headed for bed.
If you had told 14 year old me that I would do that in an All Black-Springbok test I'd have said you were nuts.
Post a Comment