News

The start of April is playoffs time for trans-Tasman sports. The Wellington Phoenix have had their A-League (football/soccer) playoff run ended by a heartbreaking extra-time goal to the Glory in Perth on Easter Saturday night. And by the time you read this the New Zealand Breakers will have either won, lost or be preparing for a deciding game three in their Australian NBL (basketball) finals series against the Perth Wildcats.

If the Breaker’s go to a third game it will be played in front of a packed Vector Arena crowd of 8,500 people. The Breakers usually play home games at the 4400 capacity North Shore Events Centre. They occasionally fill the NSEC for a big game, but not regularly. The difference between regular season crowds and finals crowds? Bandwagon jumpers. For their respective regular seasons not many people really care about the Phoenix or the Breakers. Sure, they get reasonable crowds, and hardcore fans will watch their games on TV, but when it comes round to the playoffs they become everyone’s favourite team.

Take me as a perfect example; sure I like sports slightly more than your average student, but the Breakers and the Phoenix spend their regular seasons safely under my radar. I have watched one Phoenix game this year which I went to live at Forsyth Barr stadium because I got in for free. I have watched zero Breakers games this season. Yet there I was down the pub at 11 o’clock on Easter Saturday shouting at the TV screen as the Phoenix battled hard but ultimately lost to the Perth Glory. The amount of bluffing in that room was shocking: Punters were making speculative calls and getting angry at players for “always doing that” when they had only learned the name of the player they were rubbishing at the start of the game.

New Zealand seems to embrace bandwagon jumping much more readily than other more passionate supporters groups. Often banners can be seen at the home ground of previously poor and woeful, but recently rich and successful Manchester City Football Club in England that read “Where were you when we were shit?” The exact same signs could easily be hung at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington or Vector in Auckland.

Still, everyone loves a winner and supporting a successful team is way more fun than watching losers. Playoff games are way more exciting than the regular season anyway.