A long way from Rangitoto
America's Cup becalmed, some Afghan feedback, Happy Birthday to The Bounce and a bit more.
At the risk of reading too much into a single interview, The Bounce is going to stick its neck out and say that Team New Zealand principal Grant Dalton talking about what they’re going to do in the next America’s Cup is persuasive evidence that they’ve swung and missed on this one.
“We can see regattas starting as early as January next year,” Dalton told Stuff. “We would increase the frequency — all the teams are calling out for more regattas.”
Last week I put out a call for people to point me in the direction of good America’s Cup content so I could do a bit of remedial work after paying little to no attention to the early races. I had more people tell me not to bother than I got suggestions. With this in mind I contacted three sources within the media industry to ask how America’s Cup content was working for them. One said it was tanking, while the others said it was barely raising a ripple unless “a boat falls off a crane” and that there was a clear “disconnect” between New Zealanders and this defence.
That will have a lot to do with the fact that this ‘home defence’ is being fought courtesy of the ciudadanos of Barcelona, many of whom don’t seem to want it there anyway (see main image).
“We’re a long way from Rangitoto and red socks,” said one journo I talked to.
A European defence means awful time zones, but even that can’t fully explain the apparent lack of engagement because I know from my days at the Herald on Sunday there was huge groundswell of interest in the 2007 Valencia regatta, where Team New Zealand lost 2-5 to Alinghi in the Cup match.
Some of it I suspect is down to distaste in Dalton himself and his tendency to treat every relationship as a transaction. He has alienated pretty much every significant media organisation bar his current Stuff/ WBD partnership, so they’re likely less inclined to promote ‘his’ event.
A friend of mine who still works in sport on one of the country’s biggest news sites said that while there has always been an element of elitism in sailing, Team NZ’s great strength was creating an identity and goal that everyday New Zealanders could relate to and embrace. “Now it just feels so mercenary,” he said.
It could all change in a hurry. Team NZ’s campaign to this point is only window-dressing. The Cup match will no doubt be closely followed.
For now, the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals start this weekend.
As a result of finishing the preliminaries in first, Britannia gets to pick their opponent, which will likely be lowest qualifier Alinghi or American Magic, with Luna Rossa the team they will almost certainly avoid.
The semis start in the early hours of Sunday, wind permitting, and can be watched live on Three Now and Stuff (and YouTube, apparently).
Take your pick. Or ignore it completely. The choice, as always, is yours.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
Couple of interesting bits of follow-up from yesterday’s look into why New Zealand’s sporting contact with Afghanistan, a country where women and girls are not just prevented from playing cricket but from basic human rights, has passed without a great deal of scrutiny.
From Greg: “I think the final extrapolation of the point you made regarding comparison with South Africa in the 70s is that all African nations were highly offended and angered by NZ’s ongoing contact with the Springboks, whereas in the current case all Asian countries are fully supportive and encouraging of ongoing ties with Afghanistan — even to the extent the oppose any withholding of funding despite the Afghan board not having any investment into women’s programmes.”
From Alex: “In a quasi-legal sense the Afghanistan team is not the official cricketing representatives of the current Afghanistan state, the Taliban-governed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They are the official cricketing representatives of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan — note the flag. So even though that previous state doesn’t exist in any meaningful sense any more, it is not necessarily legally fair to describe the team as representatives of the Taliban government.
“It’s discussed a bit in this article.
“Does that make a moral difference? Honestly, I don’t know, but I think the fundamental moral difference between the Springbok tours and this is that the Boks were officially and culturally an apartheid team in an apartheid sport, while the Afghanistan Men’s Cricket Team has a far more ambivalent relationship to the Taliban regime, and there’s very little suggestion they support the Taliban outside of the sort of politically expedient things you need to do to avoid being shot.”
Finally, it might all be moot, because the Taliban has decided that cricket = bad.
I’m led to believe that it isn’t necessarily the death knell for cricket in the country as the Taliban is not a homogenous entity and that there are other branches of the twisted tree that are pro-cricket and see it as a way of promoting Afghan prowess to the world.
The NFL is dealing, or not dealing as the case might be, with an examination into its own attitudes towards women and sexual violence.
It’s a grim case and it goes by the name of Deshaun Watson.
The star quarterback faced 24 civil lawsuits from women who had frighteningly similar stories about him exposing himself, violating them and using coercive behaviour all under the guise of massage therapy while he was at the Houston Texans.
Houston police launched an investigation but in March 2022 two grand juries in Texas declined to indict Watson on criminal charges.
Simultaneously, the NFL was conducting its own investigation and reached a settlement with Watson where he would serve an 11-game suspension without pay and pay a $5 million fine, which is an awfully big penalty for somebody who denied all the allegations.
Watson settled 23 of the original 24 civil suits outside of court. There remains one active from that tranche and a subsequent suit filed in October 2022 that remains ongoing.
Now he faces fresh accusations, detailed in this SB Nation explainer.
Watson again denies the sexual assault allegations and the NFL will again investigate.
What separates this case from the gross to the inexplicable is what happened to Watson while all this was swirling.
The Cleveland Browns, perhaps the most doomed franchise in American sports, traded for Watson, signing him to a five-year, US$230m fully guaranteed contract, while sending six draft picks, including three prized first-rounders, to the Texans.
He’s been absolutely terrible for the Browns, with some pundits already labelling the transaction alongside the infamous Hershel Walker to the Vikings, aka The Great Trade Robbery, as the worst in history.
This from Radio New Zealand looks interesting.
The Employment Court this week heard High Performance Sport NZ’s (HPSNZ) appeal of an earlier ruling requiring that it engages in collective bargaining with new athlete union The Athlete Cooperative (TAC).
Nienke Middleton joined several top name athletes in giving evidence at Wednesday’s hearing on behalf of TAC, outlining Podmore's challenges in the system.
The talented sprint cyclist died in a suspected suicide in August 2021 at the age of 24.
Middleton told the court how her daughter experienced “bullying” from coaches and officials, who acted “aggressively and arrogantly” towards Podmore after the young cyclist came forward with concerns about the conduct of one of the programme’s coaches.
Belated Birthday notice
I missed a significant birthday last week as I was enjoying the last days of my South Island sojourn. The Bounce turned three on September 6. I can say without fear of contradiction that I feel the same about it now as when I pushed publish on this introductory essay.
I still get a kick out of putting it together; still feel humbled that people deem it worthy of paying for; still get that knot of anxiety knowing that even if I have the time on my side to read through it multiple times I will miss typos and clunky syntax (much like this sentence, actually).
Every day I worry that I’m not doing enough, hence posting twice during my recent ‘holiday’, and occasionally I worry that I’m dropping into your inbox too often.
I still despair at the hollowing out of traditional sports (text-based) media and curse the Age of Chartbeat that lures those in charge into thinking that popular stories are the same as good stories. At the same time, my admiration for those that pump out quality work has only grown.
I love the fact that people feel moved to comment on stories, or email me thoughts, links and the occasional idea. I wish sometimes that I wasn’t a one-man band so I could respond more nimbly, but mostly I love being an OMB. Even the occasional rebuke doesn’t sting like it used to because it never feels personal. Ideas should be challenged and I know that readers have reshaped my thoughts on things from time to time (often about the Warriors, as it happens), and I hope in turn that I offer you perspectives you may have overlooked.
I’ve prattled on for long enough now because the whole point of what was meant to be a two-paragraph exercise was to say that I might have missed turning three, but there’s a big landmark coming up, probably before the end of the month, where I will really hit you with some self-indulgent jibber-jabber.
Be warned.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
A few of the things I’ll be watching this weekend.
For many, the first week of the NRL playoffs are the best, with four matches across three days. The most highly anticipated is tonight’s qualifying final between three-time defending premiers Penrith and Easts.
It’s a boom time for the NRL, especially when you consider that one of the country’s pre-eminent rugby writers is penning 10 reasons why the NRL can crush rugby.
It is neither fanciful nor dramatic to project that league, by the end of the next decade, if not sooner, could have usurped rugby as New Zealand’s dominant and most popular collision-based, football code for males, Gregor Paul writes.
Among the 10 reasons are financial firepower and viability, strategic vision, connection to community and, surprisingly, participation.
… rugby’s place as the preferred collision sport is also being challenged by league – which has seen its total participation numbers climb from 24,000 in 2018 to 40,000.
The popularity of the game among teenagers can be seen in the growth of the secondary schools’ tournament – recently won again by St Thomas of Canterbury – with the number of participant schools having climbed from 24 in 2018 to 60.
Penrith v Easts, Penrith, tonight 9.50pm (all SS 4); Melbourne v Cronulla-Sutherland, Melbourne, tomorrow 6.05pm; North Queensland v Newcastle, Townsville, tomorrow 9.50pm; Canterbury-Bankstown v Manly-Warringah, Sunday 6.05pm
The Black Ferns’ off-field game remains royally on point and they really could teach some other NZ-based teams how to present themselves to the world. On the hallowed turf of Twickenham, they face a massive challenge. Closer observers of the team than I remain pessimistic, but Hannah King has extra motivation to prove us wrong.
Peter and his wife Adele will finally make it to Twickenham to watch a match at the newly renamed Allianz Stadium and as an added bonus their daughter will be centre stage.
[Hannah King] will win only her fourth cap in front of more than 40,000 fans at the iconic stadium…
“My dad has just always had a dream to go watch a game of rugby there,” King revealed this week. He’s always talked about when he goes overseas, he’ll try to get a game there and I’m very lucky they’re coming over so it’s going to be very, very special.
England v NZ, London, Sunday 1.30am, SS 1
PLUS…
Shane van Gisbergen is back on a road course at Watkins Glen and could find himself up near the front in both the Xfinity and Nascar Cup series races (Three Now). Given the latter series is already in the playoff stages, SvG’s presence has the ability to ruffle some feathers.
The IndyCar season also comes to an end, but with the Kiwis out of meaningful championship contention (Scott McLaughlin has a ‘mathematical’ chance), I’m struggling to muster much enthusiasm.
Formula One’s most incongruous GP, on the streets of Baku (Sky), should provide answers as to whether McLaren’s Lando Norris can really give Max Verstappen a shake in the driver’s championship.
The Premier League returns after an international window featuring the All Whites. The pick of a sketchy weekend is undoubtedly the North London derby between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal in the early hours of Monday morning (Sky EPL).
I always pay attention to what Gregor writes because it is always pertinent, mostly insightful and generally causes a reaction in me, for or against. And his 10 reasons really had me thinking, shit could he be right? I grew up as a dyed-in-the-wool union kid, who was obsessed with Auckland and the Ranfurly Shield. And now I watch little or no union (ABs aside) but could watch 8 games of NRL a weekend if I wasn't a Dad, and I consume so much NRL content (NRL360, podcasts, mates chat etc) You think to yourself that it will surely never turn in this country...but, maybe?
PS: Please never worry about dropping into my inbox too much. It is genuinely a joy every time
Congrats on the birthday, never apologise for self indulgent jibber jabber mate.