The inconvenient facts about the All Blacks’ ‘poor’ crowd

Analysis - Beauden Barrett cut a sombre figure when he summed up the All Blacks' now historically unmatched record at Sky Stadium. The All Black fullback, who spent eight seasons as the Hurricanes' golden boy and won a Super Rugby title on the field he'd just walked off, described the now six-year stretch between the last All Black victory in Wellington as "an inconvenient fact".

In a classic little brother move, Jordie Barrett followed Beauden's interview and said exactly the same line about the pitiable results. But much of the talk leading up to and since the 38-30 defeat to the Pumas was about the 25,000 crowd at Sky Stadium, which therefore showed off a lot of its infamously visible yellow seats.

So naturally, the reaction was that rugby's dying, the economy is to blame and that the stadium isn't fit for purpose anymore. Which is great for some cheap pops online, but it ignores another inconvenient fact: a 25,000 crowd is the same as it's always been because New Zealanders just aren't as interested in watching the All Blacks play the Pumas.

Now, this is very much an indictment on rugby fans more than anything else, considering the Pumas have now beaten the All Blacks more times in New Zealand than the Wallabies have in 23 years and as many as the Springboks have in 14.

But since their first meeting at Carisbrook in 1979, 25,000 is exactly the average crowd figure for the 19 times* the All Blacks have hosted the Pumas, no matter where it's been played, the state of the economy or what public's relationship with rugby has been.

In fact, it's the same crowd figure for when the teams played at Athletic Park in 1997, perceived by many to be a high water mark of public rugby engagement. The All Blacks were in one of their strongest periods ever, the Hurricanes had just come off a breakout season that saw their final home game draw a full house, local hero Tana Umaga was making his home debut, ticket prices were extremely reasonable and there was a 2:30pm kick-off in beautiful sunshine.

Add in the fact that it was Wellington in the 1990s and there was very little else to do on a Saturday afternoon, but even all that couldn't get the turnstiles clicking for more than what would be a pretty reasonable crowd for an NPC game at the time.

Since then, NZ Rugby has seen fit to use the Pumas fixture for smaller markets like Hamilton, New Plymouth, Nelson and Napier as well as Christchurch's 13-year-old temporary stadium. While all those venues were full, that was very much at the limit of what those venues could draw.

What this really comes down to is New Zealanders' navel-gazing attitude, and the fact that despite indisputable recent evidence to the contrary, the Pumas aren't seen as a big market team. That is somewhat fairly based on the fact that up until the Argentines' breakthrough win in Christchurch, none of the Rugby Championship tests held in New Zealand could be described as close and in the early years, even entertaining.

Historically, that ambivalence hasn't even been limited to what was happening on the field.

In fact, during the politically turbulent season of 1976, when protesters attempted to storm the Auckland Airport runway to prevent the All Blacks' plane from leaving for a tour of apartheid South Africa, no one seemed to have much of an issue that year with another All Black team visiting a military-junta controlled Argentina that was busy waging war on its own population.

It is certainly fair to point out that Wellington's economy is on the downturn, and that it is a mostly depressing place full of depressed people. But this isn't really a case of correlation equalling causation.

Those crowd figures aren't a secret. The test match would have been budgeted for a crowd roughly this size, besides, other than Eden Park that figure would've more than sold out every other venue** in the country.

So the question of why it was actually in Wellington at all is a valid one, however Sky Stadium was owed at least one extra test given there wasn't one last year and the debacle in 2021 that saw Eden Park host two Bledisloe Cup tests in one week. Plus, there's a big clue in regard to who holds the naming rights to the place, given its ease of use for broadcast.

But the real issue here is that New Zealanders need to actually realise the Pumas side are now a constant threat and should put some respect on their name. Most of all the All Blacks, otherwise they'll be heading for another defeat this Saturday night. And if that keeps happening, that's something that will certainly affect crowd numbers in the future.

*This figure doesn't include the 2011 Rugby World Cup quarter-final, which is the only time the Pumas have played at Eden Park. It had a sold out crowd of 60,000, however these were balloted tickets sold months in advance without knowledge of who would actually be playing.

**Forsyth Barr Stadium's capacity can be raised to 30,000 with the addition of temporary seating.