Look, I suppose I should be happy that there actually was some motorsport in the NZ Herald newspaper’s sports section last Monday morning (22 August 2022).
Not just any motorsport either, the ‘paper’ positively out did itself with the top half of a tabloid half page devoted to, er, two-time IndyCar series’ champion Josef Newgarden’s ‘come from behind’ drive to claim his fifth win of the 2022 NTT IndyCar season in the ‘rain-interrupted’ Bommarito Automotive 500 race on the short (just 1.25 miles long) oval at Gateway Motorsport Park’s World Wide Technologies Raceway on Saturday ( 20 August).
My suspicions – not to mention my hackles – were raised however, by the lead ‘sports story’ of the day, and no it wasn’t about the long-running soap opera that is The Herald vs the Rugby Union.
Oh no. This one was much worse, much more insidious and much more capable of denying motorsport the coverage it has so richly deserved for so long….
It was coverage of a bloody boat race!
Not even a bloody boat race on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, either. Oh no this was worse , much worse.
Sure, there was a Kiwi angle. But the actual ‘race’ Auckland’s daily ‘newspaper-of-record’ chose to’ lead its new back page sports section with was actually held in Denmark!!!!!
I’d always thought that the main reason why New Zealand’s supposedly ‘leading newspapers,’ Auckland’s NZ Herald, Wellington’s Dominion-Post & Christchurch’s The Press, wilfully ignored the achievements – particularly once they had moved overseas to compete – of our greatest racing drivers, was more to do with the stick ‘n ball strugglers who ‘still’ seem to hold sway in sports departments up and down the country.
Now, however, particularly on the evidence of the NZ Herald’s sudden, all-abiding interest in how NZ’s entry in the much-vaunted Larry Ellison-owned/Sir Russell Coutts-organised-and-run SailGP series, is tracking ……….well, let’s just say that I’m no longer so sure.
In fact, if ‘the Herald continues covering rounds of what – let’s face it – is the privately funded vanity project of one of the world’s richest men (a LIV Golf on water if you like) the ‘sunset’ sports like rugby, league, cricket et al are going to be the least of our worries.
I say this because the story the NZ Herald chose to lead its still very much agenda-setting Monday morning wrap-up of Kiwis competing in sport over the weekend last Monday was such a game changer.
As such I’m fairly certain that it was an experiment. One I must admit I’d love to see the results of. And I would because, speaking strictly personally here, I think that the NZ Herald ‘f..k.d up’ and ‘f..k.d up’ big time.
And it is all to do with (yet) another frankly amazing performance by Auckland City’s ultimate ‘local-boy-made-good,’ Shane Robert van Gisbergen.
The fact that the paper thought they’d ‘covered their arse’ by adding a couple of ‘glowing paragraphs’ about SVG’s round-winning run at Melbourne’s Sandown Park to the end of the ‘inside lead’ on Josef Newgarden’s IndyCar win at St Louis on the very same weekend only serves to strengthen my argument.
It really was a story hand-made and literally presented ‘on a plate’ for the NZ Herald….particularly given the fact that the very next round of the 2022 Repco Australian Supercars Championship series is right here in Auckland (not to mention after an absence of three years!) in a last visit to the absolutely iconic but soon to be shuttered Pukekohe Park Raceway.
With that ‘momentous’ event imminent, in fact, I would have thought that Herald ‘management’ might have approved the (surely miniscule) budget to fly a reporter to Melbourne for the Sandown weekend, both to check on Shane’s 2022 title aspirations, and to gather info for inevitable daily previews the paper will be running (surely!!) – in conjunction with major meeting sponsor ITM and overall guidance and economic support of the SuperCity’s Eke Panuku Development, promotional partner.
“Yeah right!” I’m sure many of you are muttering because as of this morning (Tuesday 30 August) there has been nary a word run in the NZ Herald about the upcoming final visit of ‘the Aussie Supercars to Pukekohe Park Raceway in less than a fortnight…
Instead, the paper actively squandered the opportunity last Monday to start building a readership (and with it an inevitable revenue) bridge to the 100,000+ race fans expected to converge on the storied Pukekohe venue for one last time for what…?
A story about a rogue pseudo-national boat race series, with only a tenuous connection with New Zealand, let alone Auckland.
Sure, the Copenhagen round was the second in a row won by New Zealand’s SailGP team led by current America’s Cup winners Peter Burling and Blair Tukes.
Of course, with the series – for what I will describe as ultra-hi-tech foiling catamarans broadly similar to those which have revolutionised the America’s Cup regattas in recent years – coming here for the first time early in March next year (albeit to Christchurch rather than Auckland) I can definitely see the benefits of regular reports on rounds of the Sail GP series.
If nothing else, it adds a layer of legitimacy to what – and let’s not beat about the bush here – is a totally artificial ‘series’ created on a whim by one of the world’ richest men, whose only link to New Zealand in general and Auckland in particular appears to be via his lieutenant, Sir Russell Coutts, who – for those of you who don’t know – did all his early sailing in Dunedin!!!
One false move, either in business or in one of his boat races, and Ellison could simply get a massive hump on, pack up his tent and head for the hills.
Which is exactly what happened in our own sphere, some of you might remember, with the ultimately ill-fated A1GP Series back in the day.
Funnily enough, I can’t remember the NZ Herald getting that excited about that particular ‘extra-national’ series – despite one of its biggest and most loyal advertisers, Auckland-based motor vehicle industry mogul Colin Giltrap, buying the NZ franchise, and running one of the top teams in the competition before its – inevitable – collapse in 2009.
On one level, I would have thought that such a supposedly ‘august body’ like the NZ Herald would have learned a lesson from the A1GP ‘debacle’ along the lines that even the incredibly deep pockets of Dubai’s ruling family, the Maktoums, were not enough to secure a long and sustained future for what, after-all, was a very similar idea and – indeed – series, despite the obvious differences on the surface.
On another level, however, having taken the filleting knife to staff journo levels early in 2021 it is entirely possible that there is no longer anyone who was around and working the sports beat at the NZ Herald back in 2008/09 who can remember the long, slow, and ultimately messy demise of the A1GP Series.
Which is one of the reasons, I am sounding the alarm.
“Beware of rich men in boats,” I say.
“Because?”
“Because in the brave new world of professional sports we are now operating in money not only talks, it shouts.
And if the sports section of the NZ Herald in question is anything to go by let me just say I like neither the voices nor indeed the accents of those making most of the noise at the moment!
Editor’s note: Even though Christchurch will host a round of the SailGP in March 2023, there was only a small paragraph in The Press regarding the Copenhagen round.
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