Good sports set to take it off again

The Sportscafe presenters really like to chop wood.

Marc Ellis is a menace, says his boss Ric Salizzo, who produces and presents Sportscafe.

Ellis, a former rugby and rugby league player, and avid nudist, is an "annoying little bugger" - but Salizzo is the first to admit that he's the star of the show.

The live sport-cum-variety show celebrates its 10th year on air when the new series starts tonight.

Ellis is back - as are co-hosts Lana Cockroft, Graeme Hill, Eva the Bulgarian, and roving reporter "That Guy" - and ready to bring us more madcap stunts, pranks and, no doubt, nudity, all in the name of sport.

Ellis wields a lot of influence on Sportscafe, and also, it seems, over the nation. He's even managed to inspire complete strangers to come up to Salizzo and call him "fatty".

"Marc had this thing where he was calling me an elephant seal and he's always going on about my weight," Salizzo says. "And yesterday I had two workmen yelling out calling me elephant seal as I walked past their building site.

"I've had so many people come up to me over summer. People just feel that they can come up and go, 'Oh, you're not that fat', or 'Hey, fatty'.

"That's how much influence he's got. He's an annoying little bugger sometimes."

But hold on, isn't Sportscafe about sport?

"We call it sports theatre," says Salizzo.

Fair enough. Remember Ellis' fetish for nudity gaining national significance with the introduction of Nude Day?

"Nude Day came from the fact rugby players spend a lot of time in the showers, so you get used to being naked."

And remember during the first America's Cup defence when the Sportscafe crew broke into the compound of America True at 2am just for a bit of a laugh?

"We got into quite a bit of trouble then. They were quite irate, some happy threats were thrown around that gave us the giggles, and we did a full public apology in Bulgarian."

In tribute, no doubt, to Sportscafe's resident starlet, Eva the Bulgarian, who wears little and talks less. So, yes, nudity and sabotage are strongly linked to sport.

But there is a serious sport side to the show. Sportscafe started in 1996 in the same year as rugby became professional, and Salizzo says sport in general was changing and becoming more corporate.

"So in the same way as political satire is important for keeping politicians on their toes, we're more like sports satire. But what's more important is that you can't take the piss if you don't look at things seriously sometimes and have some credibility."

Plus, the service Sportscafe does for lesser known sports is huge. Take woodchopping - when do you get to see it?

Salizzo explains: "Everyone on the show has short attention spans - especially Marc. So if we just talked about footy all the time we would get bored. We're fascinated by woodchopping and we've even done sports that we never knew existed.

"When I'm putting the guest list together I think to myself, 'Would that keep Marc's interest?' So he's a really important gauge in terms of how the audience might react."

This year the show will be held at the larger St James venue in central Auckland. Sportscafe also hits the road again this year with a third show broadcast from Mt Maunganui, on February 23, and other dates around the country scheduled.

Ellis also plans to run a NZ Idol-type competition to find someone to replace Salizzo.

"He reckons it's the easiest job in the world and 10 years is long enough. He's convinced there must be someone better out there than me. That's the sort of support I get from my colleagues."

* Sportscafe, TV2, 9.25pm