Full hearts, empty seats: the curious case of NZ sport
Sunday, 26 April 2026
Moana Pasifika going under. Empty seats when Super Rugby high-fliers the Hurricanes and Chiefs met, Silver Ferns netballers leaving in bulk for Australia.
What is going on in New Zealand sport? It feels like decline. But that’s too simple. It’s in transition and the middle is collapsing.
Sport remains as popular as ever, University of Auckland sociologist Chris McMillan says.
What has changed is the way we consume it, and that has hurt the middle more than the elite, or individual participation.
Read more:
Sport is no longer primarily about local belonging and identity. It is about entertainment, global media, and individualised fandom.
“We’ve moved away from collective belonging… towards individuals or consumers,” he says.
In much of the 20th century, sport was built around belonging. You supported your club, your place, your province. It was a ritual. Saturday afternoon wasn’t a choice, it was what you did.
That world is still visible. But it’s no longer dominant.
Sport is in transition from local, collective identity to global, digital, consumer entertainment. Passion hasn’t disappeared; it has been relocated and reformatted, he says.
What’s emerging is a sporting culture shaped less by loyalty and more by behaviour.
In this world, winners are determined by:
what is easy to access
what is entertaining in short bursts
what fits a phone screen or a social outing
what feels like an “event” rather than obligation
And that has changed everything.
Now the Chiefs, Hurricanes, Phoenix and Tactix are competing with the world, with Manchester City, FC Barcelona the Los Angeles Lakers all instantly, endlessly, available on the same screen.
“You can be a passionate fan of the LA Lakers… and not be particularly interested in your local rugby team,” McMillan says.
That’s a squeeze on our small sports market.
Melody Johnston, AUT Sport Leadership and Management head of department says there is no question New Zealanders value sport.
“We're not in decline. We're in transition. Participation numbers are increasing at the community level, but the traditional model is under strain engaging with them.”
A National Sports Club survey found 53% of clubs were experiencing challenges related to participation affordability. Clubs couldn’t increase fees, so were taking a hit.
It wasn’t just fees that hurt, it was the cost of uniforms, of travel and other related expenses.
At the top end, sport is booming - global brands, major events, packed stadiums, huge broadcast deals.
At the bottom, participation remains strong. People are still playing sport, running, cycling, going to the gym, shooting hoops at the park.
But in the middle - provincial rugby crowds, mid-tier professional teams, clubs, the traditional without spectacle - it’s tough going.
Moana Pasifika sat right there. It had cultural relevance, community meaning, and symbolic power. But there with no permanent home, and in a system driven by attention, that’s not enough.
Netball too. With the ANZ premiership struggling for broadcast revenue elite players left for Australia - the bigger market beating local.
Super Rugby was struggling with underwhelming crowds, Paul Cully reported in the Sunday Star-Times last week.
The Hurricanes lost $2 million last year, he wrote. New Zealand Rugby has had to support the Crusaders, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Blues and Highlanders - all five of its franchises.
A brighter spark? The New Zealand Warriors - the sole NRL franchise in the country, making the most of market dominance. A club with rusted-on fans, yes, but also something else.
The Warriors are a team, but also a cultural gathering point. Music, mayhem, festival energy - fandom as experience, not obligation.
Across the city Super Rugby’s Blues offer high quality sport and technical excellence but attracts smaller crowds as it’s more niche.
Tribal loyalty is weakening, McMillan argues.
Regional attachment has softened. Once we knew All Blacks great Colin Meads played for the Waitete club, then King Country.
“It mattered to people. I don’t think we’re really getting that any more,” he says.
What’s replacing it is not disengagement, it’s new forms of engagement: fantasy sport, betting, highlights, social media clips.
People are still playing and watching. “They’re watching 10-second highlights on their phone rather than sitting down and watching a game.”
But for provincial rugby, mid-level professional clubs, and habitual attendance is being squeezed between elite “event sport” and personal activity.
“Physical activity levels are not actually changing all that much … but membership in organised sport is,” McMillan says.
University of Auckland’s Blake Bennett has seen a shift toward “self-determined” activity - fitness without the cost, pressure, or structure of club sport.
“It’s simply easier to go for a run, jump on a bike, or go to the gym … and not have to worry about the responsibility of leading or coaching others,” says the senior lecturer in education and social practice.
Volunteer-run clubs are struggling to recruit coaches and administrators, partly because of increased compliance and governance demands.
Both parents working 40-hour weeks, and weekend jobs erode the ability to devote time to a club.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why some sports are growing while others are not, Bennett says.
Rugby has had to grapple with rule changes designed to reduce concussion risk, without turning fans off with stop-start play and heavy TMO involvement.
“Perhaps the expectation that we are a ‘rugby nation’ is not resonating with young people,” he says.
Basketball, by contrast, is accessible, flexible, inclusive. It can be played almost anywhere, by anyone. And a basketball highlight reel is made for the modern attention span.
McMillan says sport is increasingly a broadcast product, shaped by advertising markets and driven by media rights.
“It’s become kind of an entertainment TV product … that’s how sport makes most of its money,” McMillan says.
Cultural legitimacy is no longer enough to sustain a professional team. You need event conversion power, and that’s hard to generate.
McMillan and University of Auckland professor of Sociology of Sport and Sports Media Toni Bruce are aligned on where Gen Z are taking sport.
Gen Z are less patient with long-form viewing, more drawn to highlights, personalities and moments. For them, sport is as much content as contest.
Participation is strong, but attendance patterns weakening. The same drift is happening with churches, unions, political parties, clubs - all built on collective belonging.
Sport is now portable and partial. The key question now is brutally simple: is it entertaining?
Older generations may still turn up to support South Canterbury, the Northcote Tigers and Northern Districts, sitting in thinning grandstands.
Younger fans are digitally fitting sport in around everything else. They are interested, just not in traditional ways, Bruce says. Gen Z see sport as “social content”.
Only just over half of them watch full matches. They are less engaged with traditional icons, such as the Olympics.
But participation remains strong. Football numbers are climbing; gym, cycling, BMX - even darts - are thriving in era of speed and spectacle.
In 2025, New Zealand Football reported a record 180,000 registered players, with women’s participation up 35% since 2022.
Bruce points out many families are priced out of live sport. Cheap tickets helped fill 2022 Women’s Rugby World Cup stadiums; that doesn’t extend to most elite competitions.
So where does this leave us? Sport is fragmenting from a model built on loyalty, to one that runs on attention.
It’s longer enough to represent people and hear their cheers. You have to stop them scrolling.