Maori TV: World Cup genius

I think the people at Maori TV are on to something. They at least have applied some genuine competitive intelligence to the World Cup coverage bid and they’re almost there. The missing stroke of genius comes from a probing comment from a visiting Australian. He wasn’t being vexatious either, he had a good question; “Is New Zealand prepared for the prospect of losing the World Cup on home soil?” As the astute Australian pointed out he was in New Zealand after a (rare) Bledisloe cup loss and we were almost suicidal then.

I don’t think we are prepared for a home World Cup loss and Maori TV have the perfect answer. All World Cup coverage during the event should be in Maori and we should all have fun trying to understand what they’re trying to say rather than watch the games. We should go to the matches and really enjoy the spectacle and the party. We can then focus on being very, very good hosts to the lovely people that will be visiting. By the end of the tournament we will have had a very good time and we won’t know what happened.

If it then turns out that we have won then Maori TV can licence the replay rights at a huge profit and we can watch the whole thing on TV and really enjoy it again.

If we don’t win, well then we can do what we should have done in 2007. Pretend it never happened.