OPINION
Chris Rattue lists the winners and losers from the sporting weekend.
LOSER: Rugby (and all of our sports)
I don’t know what planet New Zealand Rugby (NZR) CEO Mark Robinson is on.
Then again, I do.
Why NZ Rugby boss Mark Robinson is dead wrong about Super Rugby Pacific - Chris Rattue’s winners and losers
NZ Rugby CEO Mark Robinson. Photo / Photosport
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He runs a corporation, comes across as a mid-level corporate type of guy, and as such, he talks in corporate-speak.
“Engagement around Super Rugby as it relates to broadcast is incredibly positive,” he claimed in recent days, although I didn’t note the publication of any numbers to back this claim up.
What else can he say? But the impression he is trying to create is wrong, dead wrong.
Engagement around Super Rugby Pacific as it relates to people I know has actually gone beyond negative and reached a point of total disinterest.
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One rugby-loving friend recently described the game as boring. He now enthuses about English Premier League football.
Another previewed last weekend’s sporting action by saying “there’s not much on” at a time of the year when rugby should be enthralling the masses.
The rugby bosses aren’t totally to blame for this state of affairs.
We are a sparsely populated country with first-world sporting aspirations and ability, supported by an economy you could pop into Elon Musk’s change jar.
Rugby isn’t the only New Zealand sport that has crashed on the domestic scene. Basically, in terms of profile, they all have.
It’s hard to know whether NZR has got its head in the sand, or believes it can spin its way free.
There are many ways to gauge real fan engagement, and I presume Robinson chose the “relates to broadcast” category because it was the most favourable one at his disposal.
Next trick, they will gather up some focus groups and flash the word rugby in front of them, and ask if they recognise it. Then they’ll announce that rugby has a high recognition factor.
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Why? Because that is what corporate types tend to do.
As for rugby fever, there is only one game left in town and that is the All Blacks. In terms of really being excited about something, most sports fans are simply hanging on for them.
WINNER... BUT: Manchester City
A memorable week in which they dismantled Real Madrid in one of the great Champions League semifinal performances, and won (yet another) English Premier League title. Victory over Inter Milan in next month’s Champions League final will blast the accolades for the team and manager Pep Guardiola into the stratosphere.
The end to the EPL season was a little flat though, with Arsenal’s defeat at Nottingham Forest handing City the title with two games to play.
WINNER: Golf and LIV
The game is on a high with lots of outstanding players from around the world competing for the big titles.
There was amazing fan “engagement” at Oak Hill in New York, where Brooks Koepka won the PGA Championship, his fifth major. He is now in golf’s top 20 of all-time major winners.
Koepka loves hunting the big titles and has a big-match temperament. He is on limited time when it comes to climbing further up the major leaderboard though.
The Florida-raised golfer has overcome a gruesomely wrecked knee, but has said he will need a full replacement in the next few years.
His victory also puts a hole in the theory that players on the Saudi LIV tour aren’t well-placed to win majors. His popularity and this victory are a big image boost for the breakaway tour.
So, a punch in the eye for the PGA, and Koepka did have a decent reason to grab the LIV money, given his career span may be short.
WINNER (maybe): The French Open
Hobbling Rafael Nadal announced he will bypass the clay court Grand Slam this year, and believes next season will be his last as a tennis professional.
The French Open might actually get some new life once his claustrophobic dominance comes to an end.
Running Machine Man is a legend, no doubt about it, even though his particular style of tennis leaves me cold.
He is a lesson in perseverance and has been one-third of a tennis era that defies belief, dishing up so many amazing duels.
But give me the likes of John McEnroe any day over the endurance stuff.
WINNER/LOSER: Shane van Gisbergen
The Kiwi Supercars ace has been given a Nascar opening in America. He celebrated by crashing in the Tasmanian Supercars event, although his team rescued the situation with a miraculous repair job for the next race.
WINNER: The proverbial Yogi Berra
Just found out there is a documentary hopefully heading this way, or maybe even available somewhere now, about the unique American baseball star whose verbal exploits were so memorably unusual they overshadowed his sensational World Series record. It should be well worth hunting down or waiting for.
