Paltry crowd a worrying factor

It used to be the only show in town — now the show is heading the way of the Ringling Bros.

In a generation, the attendance at a national one-day competition final has dropped by more than 90%, as cricket struggles to get its head above water in what is fast becoming a saturated sports market.

Cricket is not the only victim of what is a real and significant struggle for sporting organisations to get people out of their homes and into venues to  watch  sports  events live.

In 1993, when Otago hosted Canterbury in what was then known as the Shell Cup final, 13,000 packed into Carisbrook.

On Saturday, at the University of Otago Oval, there were  700 — yes just 700 — there to watch Otago and Wellington play out a tight and enthralling — well for some, perhaps — one-day final.

Rugby is in the same boat. Fewer than 1000 playing customers went through the gate at Rugby Park in Invercargill in October to watch Auckland thrash Southland.

Fewer than 5000 people turned up to watch Otago beat Hawke’s Bay in a Mitre 10 Cup semifinal in Dunedin six weeks ago. Crowds do not seem to be turning out in any great numbers.

So what has changed in those 25 years to turn a crowd of 13,000 into a small sprinkling of hardy cricket watchers?

We have all heard the reasons: weekend work, television and sports  saturation, too many other options, cost, weather, time-poor . . .

They are all true, along with — in cricket’s case — the somewhat puzzling decision to play club cricket on Saturday.

There is simply just too much on. The Kepler Challenge was run on Saturday and 450 athletes lined up to compete in an event in the backblocks of New Zealand.

It has proved so popular that a ballot is taking place next year to allow different runners into the event. It is limited to 450 runners,  it sells out within minutes, and could easily be filled twice over.

Strangely, more people want to slog their guts out and freeze in Fiordland than want to watch cricket at University of Otago Oval.

Then just down the road at the Caledonian Ground at the weekend more than 1300 athletes were competing in the national schools athletics championships. There was also (in no particular order): a rowing regatta at Lake Dunstan, the Otago swimming championships, softball in Dunedin and representative play in Christchurch, the 3 Peaks Enduro mountain-bike race in Dunedin, football matches, bowls, golf, tennis, rugby sevens in Timaru...the list goes on.

Then let’s not count all the people who head away in weekends in summer.

Simply, the calendar is squeezed and something has to give.

To capture the imagination of the wider public — and get them out of the house — it has to be truly big event. An All Black test, a World Cup cricket match. A game between two domestic cricket teams does not cut it any more. Shame, but the numbers do not lie.

As an aside, those 13,000 who went to that game 25 years ago could bring their own booze, there  were  14 internationals on display and the best sign at the ground won a dozen dozen cans of Speight’s.

Try to get that over the line these days!