Can TVNZ turn Spark's push to shove?

A short and skitey Week That Was and a short and sweet Weekend That Will Be

Photosport/ Andrew Cornaga

A very short newsletter today. One of the issues raised in yesterday’s - ‘elitism’ in New Zealand cricket, particularly in the secondary school system - will be expanded upon next week.

Spark Sport ends today. It leaves a short yet diverting history that managed to disturb but never quite disrupt the Sky hegemony.

Spark wasn’t the first operator to take on Sky in the sports content game, but it was the first one to come to the party with a market cap pushing $10 billion.

In the end it lost, partly through circumstance but mostly through boardroom indifference. 

What it leaves in its place is potentially even more intriguing, with most of their offering shifting to state-owned, commercially funded broadcaster TVNZ, which has been making noises for some time about being an increased presence in the sporting landscape.

New Zealand Cricket is especially keen to crunch the numbers on what a free-to-air future might look like; whether if they stayed free-to-air beyond this cycle, they can recoup the shortfall from rights fees through contra arrangements around advertising and sponsorship.

Having spoken to a few NZC executives and key stakeholders, they were uniform in their belief that a 25-year paywall had been an obstacle to broadening cricket’s appeal beyond its typical catchment, despite the game going through a global boom. A key reason they left Sky for Spark in the first place was the free-to-air component with TVNZ was more compelling than anything Sky could offer with Prime. NZC annoyed the hell out of a lot of Black Caps’ supporters by changing to a streaming platform, but the reasons behind it, to my eyes at least, made plenty of sense.

As Richard Irvine wrote, Spark did very good things with cricket.

That first season… unashamedly boosted women’s cricket, with a fresh line up of commentators, massively changed the game for the better.

It’s fanciful to suggest TVNZ will suddenly become an aggressive rights bidder. Perhaps big-ticket events like the Olympics and World Cups might be on their radar, but the really expensive content churn of annual leagues and tournaments would appear to be the domain of Sky, who are hoping their recently released Sky Box will be an indispensable part of our home entertainment hardware.

Sky are big and they have a heap of great sport, but Spark knew that when they launched - so what killed it? Basically, the board got spooked after the negative reaction to their technical issue during the 2019 RWC opener and wouldn’t sign a cheque to give Spark Sport boss Jeff Latch and his team a toe-hold into winter.

Latch wanted the NRL, the NRL wanted Spark and with the deal all but waiting to be consummated, his masters got cold feet. 

Spark Sport pretty much died at that moment, though it has limped along until now with a stable of sports including hockey, cricket, Champions League, some NBA and NFL and a bit of motorsport.

Spark had a lot going against it. A rival that had a virtual monopoly on local sport, a global pandemic, a backdrop of telcos leaving the market to concentrate on their core businesses (you can imagine spiky shareholders asking questions of the board as to why they were looking enter a realm that the likes of British Telecom were fast reversing out of), and streaming behemoths like Amazon Prime and Disney+ who could made a splash and further disrupt the sports rights industry at the drop of Jeff Bezos’ credit card.

Still, it gave it a nudge. As a sports fan it will be intriguing to see if TVNZ takes that nudge and turns it into a push, or maybe even a shove.   

Read more: Stuff on how Spark made Sky up its game.

THE WEEK THAT WAS  

From Steve Braunias’ scan of the bestsellers’ list in Newsroom.

NONFICTION

1 Head On: Rugby, dementia, and the hidden cost of success by Carl Hayman (HarperCollins, $39.99)

Dylan Cleaver wrote a special Herald investigation in 2016 which revealed that five men from the 1964 Ranfurly Shield-winning Taranaki rugby team had been diagnosed with dementia. His trailblazing work on the subject has led to this devastating portrait of former All Black great Carl Hayman. “A brilliant read. Bold, brave and honest,” says Mike Hosking.

Thanks to all of you who have bought it.

---

Would be remiss not to point out both the sports scoop of the week, a widely admired coach facing a police complaint, and more dark tales from the ghastly chronicles of former All Whites goalkeeper Michael Utting - both from Stuff.

THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE

Here’s my Warriors go-to Pete, on what it means to be a fan right now with all his new-found stadium mates.

This evening at Go Media Stadium, the Warriors will take the field to, no doubt, an almighty roar from a sold-out crowd of people who are so connected to the team that it’s amazing. Every sports team has its share of highs and lows and the Penrose outfit has certainly experienced the latter. Having been a fan since ’95, I can remember when I couldn’t find anyone who wanted my extra ticket and I have had to endure years of jibes about my apparently senseless support of a bunch of losers. Yet many of the same people religiously follow Spurs or Arsenal through every season because “that’s my team”.

What is it about the Warriors that engenders such a following when they win but abandonment when they don’t? Loyal, it is not (as Yoda might say). Without getting all Freud on it, there’s something very curious about this team that creates such a merry-go-round of folk who hop on and off according to our position on the table. There is absolutely a hard-core base of the truly devoted, known as the Faithful, but in the ‘good years’ they are joined by a legion of people who now want to share in the excitement and joy.

The crowds are back. Photosport

In almost every sporting contest, I love the Underdog and I’ll barrack for the little guy, the outsider, the one from the wrong side of the tracks. And it’s probably because we can relate to them and want to see them overcome the odds against a superior opponent.

But whatever the score is tonight, I will be a Warriors guy ’til the end. The TAB be damned.

NZ Warriors v South Sydney, Auckland, tonight 8pm, Sky Sport 4

---

England have lost four wickets for 278 in the pursuit of Australia’s first innings 416.

1. Zak Crawley ran down the wicket and missed.

2. Ollie Pope toe-ended a scoop-cum-hook and was caught on the boundary.

3. Joe Root spooned a pull that was  might have been caught by Steven Smith.

4. Ben Duckett top-edged a hook to the finest of fine legs.

England are many things. Boring is not one of them. I’m not sure I agree they’re favourites, however.

England v Australia, 2nd test day 3, Lord’s, tonight 10pm, TVNZ+

---

Right now, the White Ferns 2nd ODI against Sri Lanka is streamed on SLC’s YouTube channel.

You might have read yesterday that the Tour de France is one of my guilty pleasures. Combine it with the Ashes and I’m going to be seeing a lot of stupid times on my clock over the next month. Stage one, which starts and finishes in Bilbao, Spain, is hilly and I’ll be amazed if Belgian superstar Wout van Aert isn’t there or thereabouts at the end.

TdF, stage one, Bilbao, tomorrow 10.30pm, Sky Sport Select

---

If anybody has any idea how to watch Shane van Gisbergen’s Nascar debut on Monday morning in Chicago, I’m all ears. The F1 season is all over bar the shouting in terms of a contest for the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, but the Austrian GP is one of the more picturesque to watch and there is rain forecast, which could liven things up a bit. I’m not going to pinpoint a match-up this early, but Wimbledon starts on Monday, so keep an eye on the draw for key games.