Is NZC edging away from independence?
NZH reveals some shock numbers behind the struggles of NZR+
NB. A full CWC semifinal preview will be posted on Wednesday.
It’s probably just as well for New Zealand Cricket that the Black Caps slid stress-free into the World Cup semifinals, because it has provided nice cover for some hinky goings-on.
It’s probably not worth lingering too long on the Henry Nicholls ball-tampering non-scandal because definitive proof of anything is difficult when the Plunket Shield is shot on Zapruder-film technology. Still, the whole thing smelled worse than a long-drop on a hot summer’s day.
The NZC release that accompanied it contained words that were largely strung together in the correct order, and that’s about it. What it didn’t contain was any explanation at all from Nicholls as to why, while vigorously working on the ball, he ‘appeared to’ scrape it along the bottom of the helmet where it joins the grille.
From the release, filed under ‘corporate news’:
The Commissioners found that neither the actions of Nicholls nor the evidence presented met the threshold required to rule a breach of the Code under Rule 3.1 Article 1.15 (Appendix A).
“We find the Player’s actions were, in fact, unlikely to alter the condition of the ball or the shape of the ball,” they noted.
That meant any allegation of unacceptable behaviour under Rule 3.1 could not be upheld.
That kind of legalese is super-convenient but also largely misses the point. The “likelihood” of it altering the condition of the ball is not even subtly different from the argument as to whether he was “trying” to alter the condition of the ball.
Maybe he was, maybe he was just innocently trying to remove a foreign object from the side of the ball.
As the case and its finding were presented, it was a complete cop out but an understandable one when considering three points:
It’s important to keep the Players’ Association happy;
There’s little chance the media will fully hold them to account;
Finding a transgression would be inconvenient to a) one of New Zealand’s key test batters and, b) NZ’s reputation as the patron saints of general cricket loveliness.
Despite the awkward optics, that’s relatively small beer compared to the other news story that passed through to the keeper without a shot being played.
Remember the recent Governance Review into rugby?
Probably not, and that’s fair enough. Well, for the purposes of this segment, all you need reminding of is NZC’s governance was praised from the rooftops because of its complete independence from its constituent regions.
The hard-won independence from the major and district associations came some years after the recommendations of the Hood Report.
According to one source, almost by stealth NZC is allowing the MAs back into the room, with the appointment of former Central Districts chair Mike Devonshire to an expanded board.
Sources have told The Bounce they are uncomfortable with the creep back towards narrow interests.
There is likely a degree of opportunism at play here, with the MAs taking advantage of a board in flux and a simple mathematics equation: to get the breadth of skills they needed while remaining committed to the Sport New Zealand edict of 40 percent female representation, a nine-person board was more manageable than eight.
That ninth person, the six MA chairs are understood to have argued, needed to have more intimate knowledge of the domestic cricket scene.
Whether it’s the thin end of the wedge or a pragmatic approach remains to be seen but what is certain is that it was not what was intended when the Chris Moller-led board resigned en masse 10 years ago to enable the new constitution to be adopted - the one that ushered in an era of director independence.
In other board news, Diane Puketapu-Lyndon has been announced as the new chair, taking over from Martin Snedden. Roger Twose will be NZC’s representative at the ICC. Former Olympic cyclist Ali Shanks has also been elected to the board.
Earlier this year, long-standing chief executive David White resigned. His role was filled by Scott Weenink, former chair of the NZ Cricket Players’ Association.
The next few years shape as critical for the international game as it tries to fit a full three-format calendar into a landscape increasingly dominated by privately run T20 franchise tournaments.
It was a weekend without a hell of a lot of interesting local links, but I did take close interest in this ($) story in the Herald, headlined: Inside NZR+’s struggle: New Zealand Rugby service’s slow uptake, costs, and the All Blacks factor.
Backed by an estimated budget of $10 million, New Zealand Rugby’s content streaming platform NZR+ launched in early August with ambitious plans to ultimately win five million registrations…
The Herald understands that the new channel won only a fraction of the followers it was hoping to snare during the World Cup, and now faces a prolonged period in which rugby will be on a summer hiatus and the All Blacks won’t play again until July next year.
Several people with knowledge of NZR’s aspirations have said that the hub was launched with the goal of having one million users by the end of the tournament, but it is believed that registrations were sitting at about 60,000 in the week before the quarter-finals - although they will likely have been boosted by the All Blacks making the final.
The lower-than-expected uptake comes despite rugby being front and centre of the global sporting landscape and after NZR invested heavily in World Cup-themed content: Tour de Rugby, featuring film director Taika Waititi, and the Front Row Daily Show hosted by former All Blacks George Bower and Andy Ellis.
NZR+ was always an interesting play, with everything from its bland, corporate-y name to its long-term content strategy and relationship with rightsholder Sky placed under the microscope.
The numbers above are horrendous though. I just busted out the calculator app on my phone so I could confidently declare that 60,000 is a lot less than one million.
I jumped on early and while I was impressed with the production values, I still felt that overall the platform suffered from a serious ideas deficit.
For example, splurging big money on a Taika Waititi junket around France might have sounded sexy on the whiteboard, but every other production company with access to a camera had exactly the same idea. Brilliant if you're Stephen Donald, Izzy Dagg, Carlos Spencer or Taika; pretty damn tedious if you’re a viewer.
The FRDS needed unfettered access to the All Blacks to separate it from myriad panel shows, but Gregor Paul explained that it didn’t happen “primarily because, as the Herald understands, no one was able to give the team a clear strategic vision for NZR+ prior to the tournament and what sort of content and access it would be looking for during the World Cup”.
That sounds broadly plausible, but most likely it was a well-aimed middle finger from the soon-to-be-departing All Blacks management team.
NZR+ faces massive challenges because not only is it a crowded marketplace (Rugby Pass’s gains in this space were covered off), but some of the biggest content machines and media companies in the world - Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros Discovery - are struggling to work out how to make money in the new distribution marketplace. Those companies have enormous budgets, distribution systems, content libraries and buying power that New Zealand Rugby CommCo will never have, with or without Silver Lake greasing the wheels of the project.
It will be interesting keeping an eye on what content they manage to generate during the short off season.
Not a bad weekend for Kiwi golfers, with Steven Alker (pictured above) and Ben Campbell winning in Phoenix and Hong Kong respectively.
Per Stuff:
[Alker] won the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup to wrap up his PGA Tour Champions campaign with a combined US$1 million (NZ$1.7 million) payday.
Alker earned $528,000 for winning the tournament at the Phoenix Country club by one stroke, and another $500,000 for finishing second in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup points race.
Meanwhile, it sounds like there were some shenanigans at the LIV-backed Asian Tour event that Campbell won, after he held off former Open champ Cam Smith and Phachara Khongwatmai.
Per Newshub:
[Campbell], the world No635 was tied with Smith and Thai Phachara Khongwatmai at 18 under par on the last hole. Smith parred, Khongwatmai bogeyed and Campbell birdied to snatch the spoils with a clutch put.
The real drama occurred two holes earlier, when outright leader Khongwatmai drove his tee shot into thick trees and then put his second even further into trouble, before taking 20 minutes over his third - much to the disgust of his playing partners.
“He can’t stand over this, can he?” Campbell protested. “He’s broken these branches here... look at that, these just got broken.”
The NZR+ numbers are the perfect example of NZRs delusion about the appeal of their product. I would love to be in the meetings and hear all the justifications the suits are giving for the poor performance.
Great column Dylan, and brilliant take on the Henry Nicholls situation, I’d hazard a guess you completely nailed it!
Moving on to the NZC governance issue, this issue has nudged me out of hiding, as I’ve become bemused at the governance focus of our major sporting bodies...
I’m more than slightly cynical that the notion of director independence will lead us to the promised land even though I’m old enough to remember the cronyism and horse trading of the old days when the MAs had the run of the farm. The argument that independence is a) simpler better and b) opens up a broader pool of talent is arguable. There are two reasons for this:
1. Independents have zero skin in the game.
2. They (mostly) have no subject matter expertise.
Whilst I’ve been a fierce critic of incompetence at the MA level, there is a strong argument that as the six constituent parts effectively making cricket work in NZ they have a far greater claim to places at the board table than robots who have done the right courses at the IoD and say all the right things before they shuffle off to their next board meeting, again in someone else’s organisation.
Your earlier piece Dylan about David White’s departure and fierce focus on revenue generated by the BCs and high performance was enlightening - I suspect that approach acted as a buffer against motherhood and apple pie governance. What happens now he’s gone? Our player pool and fundamentals are not sufficiently strong that we can remain competitive at the international level if our governance isn’t right, maybe that’s what the MAs are concerned about?