Flotsam and jetsam from a bits-and-pieces week

Including and limited to, "Things Auckland won't be getting", "Weekend watching" and "What in the name of Keynes is happening with the world?!"

An actual yacht race (not the America’s Cup) held in actual Auckland. Getty Images

Things Auckland didn’t get

To the surprise of nobody… Auckland council made their stadium recommendation/ decision/ buck-pass and decided that putting lipstick on a pig was the most sensible thing to do. The ratepayer won’t have to stump up for the costs of the three-stage redevelopment of an Eden Park that’s been redeveloped badly about nine times previously. This is only fair seeing as the ratepayer is still owed money from the last smudge of Max Factor, but the taxpayer probably will.

The new stadium non-decision also came in the week when Auckland learned that salty old seadog Dalts Dalton wouldn’t be bringing ‘his’ show back to the City of Sails.

Sail-World’s Richard Gladwell seemed pretty peeved with the decision of the Government not to fund the hosting of the next America’s Cup regatta.

As reported in Sail-World on Sunday, Wellington-based MBIE had done little in over five months to progress the hosting bid, and the Government decision was predictable as soon as Emirates Team NZ crossed the finish line in Barcelona last October.

With the Government bleating about a lack of major events in the pipeline for New Zealand, [the] decision to walk away from the low-hanging fruit of an America’s Cup hosting is even less understandable.

The repetitive quoting of the $75million price tag is disputed by several media sources. It appears to be yet another example of Government fudging of figures, where in this case Wellington has added the Government Contribution to the Council Contribution and called it ‘Their’ Contribution.

Gladwell was on a roll, and even dragged Radio NZ and TVNZ into it!

Unsurprisingly, the hosting announcement received scant attention on the state-funded media channels. However, other independent sources gave it lead story status.

Meanwhile, over at Sportsfreak, Benji Crossley was more understanding. He made a connection between the America’s Cup and the failed-to-launch Anzac rugby test proposal, and it’s not as big a leap as you might initially think. I enjoyed the line about the outrage over water coolers, but condemn him for missing an open goal for a joke about water cooler chat.

So, what does this have to do with NZR pulling the plug on the idea of an Anzac test in Perth? Well, if you read Mark Robinson’s reasoning, he kind of makes the same point. His point, and I’m paraphrasing based on my understanding, an annual Anzac test can only work if it swaps between Australia and New Zealand and the commercial realities of events in New Zealand meant the test doesn’t work commercially here. So, you either play it in Australia every year or lose the commercial rationale for it every second year.

So, what were Perth willing to do for an Anzac test that Auckland council and central government weren’t prepared to do for an America’s Cup? Very simple – front up with cash. Cash to underwrite the event and make it commercially viable.

Big events in Australia are a competitive process between [cities and] states… These states all have big investments in stadiums that they need to justify, and they do that by attracting events… We just don’t do that in New Zealand. For reasons that are structural, economic and probably cultural. There would not be a single council in New Zealand that could justify the economic outlay to underwrite/pay a fee comparable to Perth to host [an] Anzac test. Ratepayers in my city are currently screaming about council staff having hydration stations (yes, water coolers) in the office. Can you imagine how they’d react if council underwrote a test match with a significant hosting fee?