Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Unscripted Drama, in reply to Alan Perrott,
as for current prices, how do they compare to Super 15 and such?
That's a bad comparison. For S15 the attendance is high enough and reliable enough that it becomes a legitimate part of the budget. For test cricket they know for certain that they will get a couple of thousand at best, essentially they know they will make no money from gate sales maybe $5-10000. All the profit from test cricket comes from TV sales. And the profitability of the tour depends on the success of those TV sales and the attendance at one day and twenty 20 matches.
They could, if they chose, make entry free for test matches and it would make no difference to the success financially of the tour.
That isn't true for one day matches or twenty 20. Nor is it true of S15.
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And as for prices - sigh. Does it really benefit New Zealand cricket to have Eden Park mostly empty? I'm sure there is some kind of cost per person to have them in the stadium but it sure as hell isn't $45. Once they've committed to using Eden Park then the more people they can get into the stadium the better.
The last hour free used to be great, more than once I'd go to the last hour after work and then make the decision to come to the whole day the next day. And just having a few more people in the stadium made the game more exciting. I bet the players appreciated it after 5 hours in the sun (or wind or rain).
Why not have a $5 day and see how many come along? Why not let schoolkids in for a gold coin?
Surely the aim is to have a better TV spectacle (that's where the real money is) so stop pretending that the gate fees are important to profitability and instead think about getting more people to experience the way the game looks live.
And on that note the biggest difference with being at the ground for me ... it's how close you are, the TV makes everything seem more distant somehow, at the ground I feel like the players are just so close.
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One of the things that makes test cricket so great for me is the duration. That very thing that causes many to roll their eyes (5 days! and a draw!) is the thing that attracts me. In so many other sports it's a moment of brilliance that decides the result, in test cricket a moment is just that. No matter how good the catch may have been there are still nine more wickets to get, nine more batsmen to challenge you, twice!
That duration emphasizes the importance of the team in cricket. It doesn't matter how good one batsman, a team will lose regularly until it has 4 or 5 batsmen who are reliable enough to get big scores every second or third try.
And yet batting is very obviously such an individual, almost solitary exercise, you see batsmen go through the range of human emotions over time. A single batsman can spend hours at the crease and during that time they reveal so much of their character, be it dogged patience or flamboyant skill.
And it really is the duration that reveals all those things about the people on the field. Twenty-20 is entertaining but test cricket is engrossing.
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Hard News: The Cycle Frolic, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
But surely it adds a customer ($), and potentially takes another car off the road – why couldn’t they see that as something that could grow their business’s attractiveness and viability – and perhaps a nod to their part in the ‘holistic whole’ of the transport options
Except none of those things reduce costs or increase revenue. They couldn't give a rats arse about cars on the road, in fact more cars makes the bus more attractive.
The point is that unless the council place an additional motivation on the bus company (tender conditions as suggested) then the monopoly that is our Auckland buses will not do a thing for bikes.
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Hard News: The Cycle Frolic, in reply to Jolisa,
Anyone know at what point bike racks will be added to Auckland buses?
Auckland buses are subcontracted to a private enterprise (in the name of efficiency). Since there is no value to the private company to add bike racks to a bus it will never happen. Such bikes racks are only a value to the community, which sadly has lost any control over the buses other than subsidizing them.
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THIS is why we need to send kiwis out into the world. Because almost everything is more complicated and because the simple-minded version of the world news we get is so very very inadequate. Once you seen the complexity out there you learn to ask for all four sides of the argument before forming a firm opinion.
Oh and also because the world out there is fucking amazing.
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Hard News: Growing up in public, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Bloody yanks, thinking everyone plays basketball.
That's the game they run around with baskets on sticks tossing the ball to each other right?
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Hard News: Growing up in public, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
weren’t fully equipped to protect Lorde’s entourage from the horde
Again I suspect they [the airport management] didn't expect the NZ media crews there to behave like a "horde" (more a hordelet). It isn't usual for media in NZ to do that and maybe they just got caught up in the moment as well.
It's a pity those involved couldn't have followed Guy Williams lead and apologize rather than acting all indignant.
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Hard News: Growing up in public, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
Ultimately it likely in the future to get worse for Lorde.
I think she's knows and accepts that. But I also think she hoped, apparently forlornly, that in her home town she might be offered a bit more courtesy from a media that has had pretty awesome access to her.
That's how I read those tweets. I also read "the media's response" as that of a churlish spoiled entity that believes it has some special right to behave unpleasantly.
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Hebe,
“This is an industry; it’s here to make money.”
I've been thinking about this all weekend which is not to imply my thinking has any value more perhaps that my thinking is slow and tortured.
It seems that Damian wants to talk about the people that are journalists without getting bogged down by the industry of which they are a part. I understand the desire, but I think it is misplaced.
I don't know what motivates people to become journalists, I suspect it is quite variable from person to person. But I would hope that for many there is a desire to play a valuable role in society.
If the industry they are a part of prevents that occurring and worse causes them to behave in ways they personally find unbecoming, then it seems to me that you can't have the discussion about the way journalists behave towards each other without considering the nature of the industry as well.
While Damian's personal changes may help, if the industry itself is broken no amount of personal honour will help.
I'd point out that I don't think the media is entirely broken. I think there are parts of the media that are broken but there are also parts that are very strong. I guess the problem at the moment is that the best paying parts of the media are also the most broken.