There's a reason why governments over the past 30 years have funded and basked in the successes of national sports events, writes Peter Dunne, and that's why the America's Cup won't necessarily end up offshore.
Sport and politics have always been intertwined in our culture, but the relationship has frequently been an uneasy one. In earlier times, when top-line sport was generally amateur and commercialism was not as strong a component, governments were happy to acknowledge,with the rest of the country, the achievements of successful teams and individuals, but there was not much more to it than that.
However, as travel and communication became easier, governments quickly came to realise the power of international sport to influence relations between nations. In turn, that meant the old mantra to “keep politics out of sport” became more difficult to sustain, which came to cause problems for New Zealand because of the vexed relationship between rugby football and apartheid South Africa.
In 1959, a strong Citizens All Black Tour Association was formed, taking a “No Māoris, No Tour” approach to the All Blacks’ 1960 tour of South Africa. The campaign was unsuccessful at the time because the official government position of the Nash Labour Government, supported by National under Holyoake was still that politics should be kept out of sport.
However, when in government Holyoake quietly leaned on the Rugby Union to cancel the projected tour to South Africa in 1967 unless South Africa would allow Māori players within the All Blacks into their country.
The public separation between sport and politics remained until 1973 when Norman Kirk cancelled the Springbok Tour to New Zealand, ostensibly on the grounds of preserving law and order and on averting any threat of countries boycotting the Christchurch Commonwealth Games in early 1974.
Public and international disquiet grew steadily after that, leading to the Gleneagles Agreement between Commonwealth countries in 1977. This encouraged member countries to do all they could to discourage sporting contact with South Africa, something the defiant Muldoon Government agreed to reluctantly but ignored when the Springbok Tour to New Zealand in 1981 was proposed.
That event was the nadir in the link between politics and sport in this country – although it still took the High Court, not the government, to stop a projected All Black Tour to South Africa in 1985.
Things were still rocky during the inaugural Rugby World Cup hosted jointly by Australia and New Zealand in 1987. Because of lingering bitterness over the New Zealand Rugby Union’s attitude to South Africa, the Lange government refused to invite overseas dignitaries to attend the Rugby World Cup or to host functions for visiting players and administrators.
Prime Minister Lange even boycotted the matches, although many of his ministers did not follow suit, yet all basked in the glory of the All Blacks’ winning the World Cup at Eden Park in June – just two months before that year’s general election.
After that, a more positive relationship gradually developed between the major sporting codes and the politicians, especially after the fall of apartheid in 1991 and South Africa’s return to international competition in 1992.
Since then, successive governments have supported the All Blacks’ efforts to win the World Cup again. Then Prime Minister Helen Clark not only hosted an exclusive dinner between All Black greats and the International Rugby Board in 2005 to push New Zealand’s bid to host the 2011 World Cup but also made a special trip to Dublin a few months later to make a presentation widely considered to have clinched the deal for New Zealand.
Both her government and the National-led government that followed appointed special Ministers for the Rugby World Cup and made the necessary amendments to legislation to ensure the smooth running of the event here.
And who will ever forget the awkward three-way handshake between Prime Minister John Key, All Black Captain Richie McCaw and World Rugby chair Bernard Lapasset after the All Blacks’ victory in the 2011 World Cup final?
Earlier, New Zealand’s successful entry to the world of America’s Cup yachting in 1986-87 had captured the mood of not only the nation but also the Labour government of the time. It even secured the rights to much of the footage of the excitement of that contest, some of which made its way into Labour’s advertising for its successful election campaign later that year.
When Sir Michael Fay launched an unsuccessful one-off challenge for the America’s Cup in 1988, Dennis Connor’s decision to defend the Cup in a speedy little catamaran against Fay’s so-called “Big Boat” sparked off challenges in American Courts about whether this was in keeping with the spirit of the Cup’s original Deed of Gift.
Initially, New Zealand’s legal challenge was successful, with the New York State Supreme Court awarding the Cup to New Zealand, although this decision was later overturned by the state’s Court of Appeal in 1989.
Nevertheless, the prospect of the America’s Cup coming to New Zealand following the initial Court decision had led the government to appoint a designated America’s Cup Minister to work with the potential new defenders to co-ordinate all aspects of a possible America’s Cup defence on the Hauraki Gulf.
This Ministerial role was retained under successive governments for almost the next 30 years, until after the Cup returned to New Zealand in 2017, when it was absorbed into other portfolios.
Team New Zealand’s eventual winning of the America’s Cup in 1995 and its successful defence in 2000 were hailed by the governments of the time as a triumph of New Zealand sport and technology, with syndicate head, Peter Blake and helmsman Russell Coutts, both receiving knighthoods and the team honoured at Parliamentary receptions.
It was a similar situation in 2017 when Team New Zealand returned the America’s Cup to New Zealand. And within an hour of this year’s successful defence of the Cup Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had messaged the team that it had “once again made us all so proud” while Sports Minister Grant Robertson noted “It's an event with such a rich history… I know a lot of New Zealanders tonight will be extremely proud, not only of their country, but also this amazing group of sailors."
Tourism Minister Stuart Nash went even further: “The defence of the Cup offers a global opportunity to promote New Zealand as an innovative and successful nation, with spin-offs in areas like tourism and export deals."
During these years there were also dramatic successes for women’s sports as well that drew considerable public attention and support. The remarkable success of the Black Ferns – winning five of the eight Women’s Rugby World Cups played so far – a better record than the All Blacks, culminating in our hosting of the next World Cup next year is frequently and properly hailed by the Government. Likewise, the success of the Silver Ferns in the Netball World Cup and Constellation Cup series with Australia.
The picture that emerges is that over the past 30 years successive governments have realised the positive spin-off successful sporting competition can lead to, not just for the codes and participants, but also in generating national goodwill and positivity, from which governments can benefit.
In the case of the America’s Cup there has also been the technological benefit for the country both in terms of the growth of the boatbuilding and superyacht industries, and world-class computer graphics software development.
All of which makes the current impasse between the Government and Team New Zealand over the next America’s Cup an outrider. It may well be that in this Covid-19 dominated world the costs of hosting such an event in a small country like ours have become prohibitive, and that the trend of recent years of national teams being replaced by teams of internationals (this year’s America’s Cup teams all contained New Zealanders, with two of the four skippers being New Zealanders) has changed the nature of the event dramatically.
And there is the argument that yachting of this type is an elite sport few can aspire to – although Peter Burling’s story of a young boy growing up sailing in Tauranga belies this to some extent.
For all that, there can be no denying the public enthusiasm the few weeks of the America’s Cup generated earlier this year.
The Prime Minister appeared to acknowledge that recently with her call to New Zealanders to let Team New Zealand know what they think of its plans to take the Cup overseas. Interestingly, she did not offer the same invitation to them in respect of the Government’s support for the next campaign.
One gets the impression any deal is still far from done, and that the public exchanges so far are really opening gambits. Team New Zealand chief Grant Dalton has acknowledged as much with his comment that “the money is there … but the phone is not ringing off the hook”.
The Government and Team New Zealand both say they want to keep the Cup here – but the Government says the price is too high, while Team New Zealand says the offer is not high enough. Neither can afford to lose.
After the Prime Minister’s and other ministers’ comments in March about the benefit of the America’s Cup to New Zealand, the risk is that the Government will carry the blame if the Cup moves overseas. But Team New Zealand will also be wary of the backlash against Sir Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth when they defected offshore in 2003.
It may well come down to who blinks first, not how much it costs.
Or, given the recognised benefit that accrues from successful sporting ventures, whether the Government can afford to let the America’s Cup slip through its fingers. At this stage, the odds must remain narrowly in favour of an 11th-hour compromise being reached.
