KEY POINTS:
New Zealand sports news reporting is out of date. With the debate raging in the media about Daniel Carter, contracts and the New Zealand Rugby Union's failings, it's perhaps timely to suggest that our sports media have got it all wrong - wrong so far as the age
group actually playing sport is concerned.
The make-up of sports reporters is largely male, white and over 40. And look at most of the sport we get delivered in the media - sport that mattered 20-plus years ago when these people were playing rugby, cricket, golf and, occasionally, a few other sports when they happen to do something amazing like win a world championship.
Yet read the college sports page of any newspaper and check out what matters to the people who are actually playing sport these days - waterpolo, waka ama, surf life saving, mountain biking, kite surfing, surfing, fishing, soccer, netball.
Where are the journalists who have played these sports and represent the demographic that can't tell you who won the last rugby world cup and who certainly didn't watch any of it on television?
More to the point, they weren't born when we won it in 1987 and anyone actually cared.
There was some recent debate over whether rugby is still our number one sport. It might be in terms of (rapidly diminishing) spectator numbers, but no longer is it the number one sport to most Kiwis.
I don't think I know anyone who would answer that rugby is their number one sport - child, parent, teacher. And I am in my 11th year out of of the last 13 years of my life coaching rugby.
What different coverage we would get if the sporting interests of modern Kiwis were represented. Perhaps some Asian, or Indian, or college sports writers or women could change for the better the endless garbage we get served by way of sports reporting.
I and almost everyone I know want to read about the sports our kids are actually playing - not more average rugby.
What are minor sports? Most are not in terms of player numbers, but more so in terms of media coverage and perhaps financial turnover. When the so-called minor sports can get a share of the coverage that reflects their player numbers, perhaps they won't be so minor any more.
And perhaps the make-up of our sports reporters will look a little different too.
* Dr Paul Kayes says he is over-40s white guy, chairman of the Tauranga WaterPolo Club, immediate past president Surf Life Saving BOP and is coaching rugby - again.