Dylan Cleaver: Hype up the drama, sell the rights

Rugby could rival NBA's global turn-on, pumping our own 'State of Origin' on a big sports network. Photo / Getty Images

Lesson One: The New Zealand Rugby Union continues to fluff a golden opportunity to replicate Antipodean sport's greatest passion play - the State of Origin.

Game two in Sydney on Wednesday night was another smash-mouth piece of sporting theatre, the Blues' win ensuring that the hullabaloo before the July 6 game three in Brisbane, Darren Lockyer's valedictory, will be unparalleled.

State of Origin occasionally disappoints, but it never goes stale.

Yes, the hype can be excruciating. Phil Gould's monologues can be grating, though Wednesday night was a return to form, but the old "mate against mate" subtext still grips you where it matters.

So why is there still no Island of Origin in the rugby calendar?

Based on which island the athletes first played 1st XV rugby in (so that Mils Muliaina's Southland Boys' High heritage would rule his Kelston connection), the concept would have, in a rugby-mad country, limitless appeal.

All Black trials became farcical once the panel manipulated them beyond recognition, so make the Island of Origin an independent entity with separate coaching staffs.

If the All Black panel doesn't like that, too bad. It could be a commercial sensation and it's not as if the NZRU couldn't do with the cash.

Sell the broadcasting rights outside the existing Sanzar bundle. Why not ESPN? It's on the Sky platform and could be used as a vehicle to push the game into new markets.

Lesson Two: Sports bosses here ignore those four letters - E, S, P and N - at their peril. The dominant player in American sports media, its tentacles stretch far. It has a small stake in Sky and has been a constant here since the network started gaining traction in the early 1990s. But it was only this week that its creeping influence hit home.

The sports water-cooler topic was not Graham Henry's State of the Nation address or the transtasman netball. Instead it was Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks trumping the Miami Heat and its trio of hyper-hyped stars - LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh - in the NBA finals.

Seriously, there hadn't been that much interest in Dallas since we were left wondering about who had shot JR.

James, the most talented player of his generation, has become a pantomime villain after leaving his home state Cleveland Cavaliers for Miami to try to win a championship.

In capitalism's spiritual home it seems that cornerstone of free agency was unacceptable when its message was delivered live and in high definition on James and ESPN's folly, The Decision.

So Dallas became the people's champions despite being owned by billionaire Mark Cuban who flies to games in his Gulfstream V, has amassed close to $2 million in fines from the NBA for crass behaviour and, ironically, tried to "buy" James when his contract with the Cavaliers expired.

"It's a great day for the NBA," a friend texted, about the time Cuban was paying $100,000 for a bottle of Armand de Brignac in a Miami nightclub.

That's a debatable premise, but it was definitely another great day for ESPN.

Said Anchorman Ron Burgundy in 1979, when auditioning for ESPN's original SportsCentre newscasting role: "This thing is going to be a financial and cultural disaster."

For "disaster" read "phenomenon".