Dylan Cleaver: Nothing sells like a hot sex scandal

Ticket sales are down at the Hamilton 400. Interest, we hear, is down.

If the organisers would just get a little bit creative, there's an easy solution - just contrive a sex scandal.

Not an actual, bona fide scandal, the sort that prop up most NRL off-seasons - step forward Brett Stewart - and which often feature grainy CCTV footage of boof-heads acting boof-headedly.

They're grubby stories with no winners and genuine victims. They're nightmares for po-faced administrators, such as David Gallop, who have to front the cameras and apologise "on behalf of the great game of rugby league" again.

But a peccadillo, by contrast, can get great mileage without destroying lives. Just look at the advance coverage two events received this year - the test cricket series between New Zealand and Australia, and the US Masters.

Neither of these events is rare and, for one reason or another, neither is particularly interesting unless you're a fan of test cricket or golf.

Take the cricket. Everybody suspected what the result of the series was going to be before a coin was tossed, but the build-up to the first test in Wellington hit fever pitch.

New Zealand Cricket would not have been so crass to admit it but, in the dark recesses that make up the commercial and marketing departments, they must have been rubbing their hands together and worshipping at the shapely altar of Lara Bingle.

You might remember: the malevolent AFL star and the semi-naked shower scene; the celebrity agent; the Australian vice-captain's mercy dash to Bondi; the $200,000 engagement ring; the plumbers called to extract said ring from a u-bend; the end of the engagement; the return of the vice-captain.

Every hour, seemingly, there was more. The story was a sensation. Not since the days following a certain delivery of lower-than-usual trajectory was a transtasman cricket match so eagerly anticipated.

Michael Clarke played his role perfectly, scoring a brilliant century on cue, but in terms of publicity, he'd done his best work earlier.

Fast forward to the Masters, a stuffy old tournament played on the same course at the same time every year.

For golf aficionados, this might be the week that spins the wheels, but the rest of us look on with a detached indifference.

Until Tiger hit a fire hydrant in the early hours, pursued, possibly, by a five-iron wielding wife.

Approximately 19 kiss-and-tell revelations later, we arrived at the point where he would make his comeback at Augusta National, which got chairman Billy Payne so worked up he made a speech with all the relevance of a cassette recorder and with themes as fashionable as plus-fours.

Deep down, Payne knew Tiger's return was a godsend for the media and the Masters. Ratings skyrocketed, interest surged and we saw the depths to which Nike will plumb to sell product. Some were even calling it the greatest Masters, based solely, it seemed, because his biggest rival, Phil Mickelson (good), hit a nice shot from behind a tree and Tiger (evil) didn't.

The Clarke-Woods soap operas might not have proved that the public has an insatiable appetite for the private lives of athletes, but it certainly made a lie of the belief that people don't really care what goes on behind the closed doors of sportsmen.

So, sadly, there is a blueprint for all you struggling sports promoters.

It might be too late to do anything about the Hamilton 400 - but there's always Bathurst.