So what has that got to do with the price of fish in the sporting market, I hear you ask?
Everything, I say.
That is why I have this horrible feeling that the impending result of what the Super Rugby competition is going to mutate to will somehow overshadow whether the Crusaders or Lions will win the bragging rights to the season this weekend.
It seems Super Rugby, at best, is about to undergo a voodoo economics of sorts.
The overriding issue in the imminent witch hunt of Super Rugby is supply and demand.
The turnout in the playoffs in the past fortnight, never mind the pool phases in the three conferences, has been abysmal by New Zealand and South Africa standards. Australia venues, needless to say, resembled the abandoned post-nuclear Chernobyl city in Ukraine.
When something is labelled a "super food", such as avocado, the price rises dramatically.
For those few who have money to burn, forking out $6 for a puny product in the name of health may seem justifiable but for the rest it's a blunt "no thanks" because survival takes precedence.
It pays to cast one's mind back to when rugby started mutating in 1986 as the South Pacific Championship.
I actually remember as a young man watching the Fiji national team run riot in Suva in what I believe was the birth of "Super Rugby". Fifteen men ran like backs at the likes of Queensland and New South Wales, leaving the tourists stunned and islanders delirious.
In the name of professionalism, the championship was sacrificed in 1990 and two years later Super 6 was launched comprising Auckland, Canterbury, Wellington as well as Queensland, NSW and Fiji.
Realising the potential of its fan appeal, the organisers immediately extended it to Super 10 in 1993 with the invitation extended to a post-apartheid South Africa to inject Natal, Transvaal and Northern Transvaal provincial sides. The island thread remained, just, as Samoa who were the Pacific Tri-Nations winners.
In 1995, the Australia, NZ and South Africa rugby boards formed Sanzar as the competition, incorporating the franchise concept, mutated to Super 12 amid fears of rugby league usurping the TV market. The Tri-Nations Series also found traction.
As the coffers overflowed, Super 14 kicked in a decade later before the label, "Super Rugby", and the Pacific Island nations became conspicuous in their absence despite talk of inclusion even as a combined force.
The trickle-down diplomacy was tested again among the protagonists and in 2011 the Melbourne Rebels from Australia became the 15th team much to the dismay of the Southern Kings of South Africa.
But Sanzar wasn't done in its laboratory. In 2012 it mooted the idea of including Argentina, Japan and the United States on account of the interest the code's love child, sevens rugby, was creating globally on the promise of Rio Olympics as well as what soccer was achieving through colleges in America.
Argentina and Japan came to pass last year for a mind-boggling 18 teams but now there's talk of culling it back to 15 next year.
But you see, you somehow get the impression the problem isn't just with the number of teams.
The lowest common denominator is people, the fans. They aren't holding their breath to see if the avocados turn to "holy guacamole", as it were.
Bringing down the price of tickets won't work. There's also the issue of whether fans want to sit in freezing temperatures at 7.30pm. Forget about buying hot dogs, chips and beers that can destroy monthly household budgets.
Even desperate Samoa fans gave the historic Blues v Reds match in Apia a goose step in June, when tickets cost 40 tala to 500 tala ($20 to $250) in a nation where the average income is 2.37 tala an hour.
But wait, there's more. Rules frustrate fans, resulting in impasses on social media where the "cheating" officials become scapegoats.
The Crusaders' dour campaign is anything but "winning" fans outside their commune, more so after the touring British and Irish Lions yanked off the half-slip on the Super Rugby facade.
To have two former Crusaders, Aaron Mauger and Mark Hammett, at the helm of the Highlanders is a huge gamble especially if Hammett's failed philosophy with the Hurricanes is anything to go by.
The conference system is a flop, the playoffs criteria is a joke and it's time for everyone, akin to netball, to go back to their grassroots although Australia need help for rugby to retain credibility as a global sport.
It'll take more than witch hunts and voodoo economics to exorcise rugby's demons if they are to win back the public's faith.
