The Rugby World Cup started this weekend in France. For those of you that don't follow International Rugby, this competition is played every four years and involves 20 different teams (selected from past World Cup performance and various qualifying matches).
New Zealand won the inaugural Cup in 1986, and we've come close, but never quite triumphed since. Suffice to say, most New Zealanders feel they are well overdue.
Rugby is almost non-existent in the US. You get the occasional mention on TV, but it's largely ignored. If you didn't follow it over the web, you would never know the World Cup was on. Which is a shame, as there is actually a US team in the competition (although they are pretty bad).
As a sport, it's almost impossible to break through the Baseball, American Football, Basketball trio here - those sports are such an important part of the fabric of US society. There isn't really room for anything else. But the same goes for Rugby in New Zealand and Soccer in the UK.
Sports are the ultimate brands in a way - people devote huge amounts of time, effort and emotion following their teams and will willingly dish out significant sums of money for the privilege - sort of like Apple enthusiasts (poor sods).
So spare a thought for me as I sit in my $150 All Black replica top (that cost me $30 to ship from NZ), sipping $40/case NZ beer watching the World Cup on $25/game pay-per-view. If we win it was obviously money well spent! If we lose, I will be looking for a refund.
1 comment:
I was wondering how you were going to cope. Luckily for NZers in the UK every single match is live on regular TV. Not so lucky for those of us who are negatively interested! (ok I'm slightly interested).
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