For as long as I have been writing about cars, motorcycles and the local competition scene, fellow enthusiasts have been complaining about the lack of coverage in ‘the media.’ By this they generally mean what I suppose these days you could call the ‘old media;’ you know, daily newspapers, radio and the TV news at 6.00pm.
Fellow commentator Allan Dick can always be guaranteed an immediate, vocal and spittle-flecked response, for instance, to any Facebook post he cares to put up on the subject of motor racing not getting its ‘fair share’ of column inches or TV time. Having worked on both sides of the fence, however, I’m not 100% sure such ‘mouth-opening/wind-catching/lip-flappery is actually justified….Or indeed the whole story.
These days, in fact, I tend to think that the amount of coverage motor racing in all its many and varied forms gets is about right. What ISN’T (right), however, is the blanket, carpet-bomb coverage of ‘sunset’ sports like rugby and cricket. Particularly now the numbers actively playing and following both codes are in free-fall.
it’s not just motor racing that suffers in the shadow cast by the all-encompassing coverage of these quaint, olde-world ‘stick ‘n ball’ behemoths either.
I’ve been to Breakers game at Auckland’s Spark Arena where the local (and because it is the only NZ team in the Aussie-based NBL, the de facto national basketball outfit) team has played to a sold-out (9000) crowd of whooping, hollering fans and whipped the backside of the best Australian squads. Yet the day after, the report on another emphatic win has been relegated to back-of-the-sports section status by a breathless ‘thought-piece’ on ‘why the Blues rugby team needs a new coach/manager/water boy’ or whatever.
The same goes with netball.
I’ve been to games at (Wild West) Auckland’s Trusts Arena where the home side has played a nail-biter of a game against – say – the equally-talented Mystics or the Southern Sting (now Steel), and either won or lost by a point or two. But, again, the game has failed to unsettle the traditional’ print/TV pecking order of rugby, cricket or – if the editor can’t find someone to ‘interview their typewriter’ about either code – league in the ‘Herald the next morning.
So believe me I share your frustration. But you won’t find me ‘Liking’ one of Allan’s posts bagging ‘the media’ or worse still, adding a ‘they’re all wankers’ comment.
Sure, there are some total tossers working in the media, as there are in every industry. I know of several, in fact, who have an active dislike of motor racing and the ‘petrolheads’ who follow the sport. There are good people as well though, so the first thing you need to know is that the amount of space ‘motor racing’ gets or doesn’t get is not a black and white issue. Like most things involving people and egos it is all shades of grey. And, at the end of the day, it all boils down to money.
Let me explain.
While it was a few years ago now, Motorcycling NZ commissioned a media monitoring organisation to check for, ‘clip’ and collate any mention of the words ‘motorcycle, race, competition’ etc etc in the nation’s media for a period of three months.
The silly/funny/odd thing was, that once the clippings etc were analysed, outside Auckland, motorcycle events were, by and large, reasonably well covered, by the daily press, particularly if a local rider was competing nationally or internationally. Where most people lived, however – Auckland – coverage was sporadic at best, and insulting (one particularly sadistic Herald sports sub-editor used to tell the duty photographer not to bother filing anything from Pukekohe unless it was a crash shot!) at worst.
Once the clipping project established a base line I then started producing preview and review pieces before and after all key NZ championship title meetings, as well as background features on people, bikes and places. And guess what? That’s right, the response was immediately positive, particularly – and oh how I dined out on this – in Auckland. The reason? The then motorsport reporter, Bob Pearce, welcomed our copy, pics and story ideas with open arms because he (and this became a common theme) was very much a one-man-band, with a desire to give the sport a fair go but a lack of (time, money etc etc) resources to properly do so.
This also was still in the day when both TV1 and TV3’s 6.00pm national news bulletins were still effectively ‘The Herald with (Moving) Pictures’ so more often than not we got two bites at one of the media’s juiciest cherries, the Auckland ‘metro’ market.
In theory the advent, and subsequent rise and rise of social media should have helped our cause. Dedicated race result sites like Speedhive and NatSoft, apps like Race Monitor, and the increasing instance of the live streaming of events, have all certainly helped the proactive amongst us to ‘find out what’s going on, when.’ Sister sites like nzmotorracing.co.nz also do an excellent job of keeping the serious Kiwi fan up to date with what’s happening on the local scene, and to Kiwis racing overseas, in real time, rather than having to wait for days for the print version.
That said, there’s nothing like seeing ‘your’ sport up there in the full glare of national-level publicity on the front (sports) page of the NZ Herald/Christchurch Press/ODT etc etc, or first or second item up in the sports sections of TV1 or TV3’s 6.00pm news bulletins.
Because I have achieved that goal any number of times with client drivers and/or teams I have a fair idea of how good that makes even the most casual of motorsport fans feel. However, I’m now of the opinion that rather than a client driver (or more usually) his Dad paying me to devote my time and skill to the process I think that MotorSport NZ should step up to the plate and finally take some ownership of the issue. After all, it’s only – what? – 22 years since Motorcycling NZ (all thanks, by the way to the vision, tenacity and restless drive of a man who would go on to become president of that organisation, Jim Tuckerman) set the ball rolling……
And as I found out way back then, the blanket – and usually cloyingly sycophantic with it – coverage rugby gets does not happen ‘by accident’ or because every sports editor is a rabid bloody fan.
When, for instance, I was promoting the Formula Vee category’s ‘outreach’ to the South Island (at roughly the same time as I was running the Motorcycling NZ media campaign) the then Sports Editor of the Southland Times showed me a pile at least 12 cms tall (this was before the internet and email remember) of pre-written ‘press releases’ complete with professionally taken photos.
He could have used any one – or six – of them to fill the space in the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday editions of his paper had my pre event press release not appeared on his desk the previous Monday and spiked an interest in, and subsequent impressive (front as well as the back and inside sports pages) coverage of, the category’s first ever visit to the Deep South.
The other press releases (in his pile) were all produced by ex-journos working for either the Rugby Union itself, one of its regional member groups (this was also well before Super Rugby) or the national cricket, cycling, rowing etc etc bodies. Which got me thinking.
On my return to Auckland I phoned a bloke I had worked with on a cadetship when I was at journalism school who (I had heard through the media grapevine) had taken a job with the Rugby Union.
He had a good old laugh when I told him what I had discovered in Invercargill, going on to say that he had been ‘poached’ from a job in corporate PR and was part of a three-journo ‘brains trust’ headed by a top former (female) TV1 sports journalist with the stated aim of not only getting more rugby in ‘the news’ but also dictating the direction that that coverage might take!
I was impressed and appalled (In pretty much equal measure) by such a cavalier admission. What left the most lasting impression on me, however, were the dollars involved. My guy was the junior member of the triumvirate but had no compunction in admitting he had left the world of corporate PR for the money; an eye-watering ‘$80K plus benefits.’ Not bad for a bloke in his late 20s, who, had he been working for a paper as a reporter at the time, would have been lucky to clear $25-35K.
The guy above him , he said, was on ‘a bit over a hundred,’ their boss $130K..plus benefits (which would have included a car, gym membership, health insurance, home phone paid etc etc)! This, remember, was back in the late 1990s. And we are ‘only’ talking about the actual ‘Rugby Union.’ The All Blacks had and still do have a ‘paid fan club’ of media professionals of their very own.
So is it any wonder Sports Editors around the country were (and no doubt still are) drowning in pre-written previews, player interviews and ‘thought pieces’ which they can slot into a space and call their own? It is also as good a reason as any to explain why rugby retains its pre-eminent position on our TV screens and newspaper sports pages.
Bottom line? The buggers have been effectively buying the time and space since Adam was a cowboy!
Knowing this, of course, you have to ask yourself why MotorSport NZ hasn’t borrowed a leaf out of Rugby NZ’s (obviously well-thumbed) media ‘book’ and set up a ‘media division’ of its own?
We certainly have the raw material. And as my colleague Ian Hepenstall consistently proves with the sterling job he does publicising the annual ITM SuperSprint round of the Virgin Australia Supercars championship at Pukekohe Park Raceway, done right you can get your fair share of national level publicity fairly simply (note if you’re reading this Ian I didn’t say easily). Because easy it ain’t.
To be fair on our own national body, it has made some inroads of late, and has now employed another of my long-term colleagues, Kate Gordon-Smith, to consult on matters of publicity and produce regular press releases on what the organisation is up to.
However, we still don’t have a media ‘office’ as such, or even a single staff member dedicated to doing the same sort of job as old mate (long gone from Rugby NZ but now making even more $$$ mixing sport and politics back in the corporate world).
I know the matter has been discussed, too, because this is not the only time I have related this little tale.
The first was to a bloke who was working in promotions for the national body ten or so years ago. He was definitely interested……until I mentioned the ‘remuneration’ my guy told me he was on.
“But that’s more than I make,” he spluttered…..and that, apparently, was the end of it!
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