Dale Owens is the host of the Nice Drop of Port podcast.
THREE KEY FACTS
Football is gaining popularity, challenging rugby as the nation’s favourite sport, with increasing participation.
Auckland FC’s success and high attendance have contributed to football’s growing appeal.
The 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup boosted engagement, especially among girls and diverse communities.
With Auckland FC’s explosion out of the blocks this year and football growing in popularity by the day, Nice Drop of Port podcast host Dale Owens asks the question – is football taking over from rugby as the nation’s favourite sport?
Across the sports fields of NewZealand’s only truly multicultural metropolis, the unmistakable audible delights of squealing children can be heard each and every Saturday morning.
Kiwi kids acting out their dreams in the form of their favourite player. But for these boys and girls, in 2025, they no longer imitate the passes and kicks of Jonah Lomu, Dan Carter or Beauden Barrett. It’s the more exotic-sounding names of Guillermo May, Neyder Moreno and Francis De Vries that these kids want to emulate.
A goal is scored, a 10-year-old boy with No 9 splashed in white on his black-and-blue jersey wheels away to the corner flag to celebrate to no-one in particular. He’s just scored a goal and feels a rush like no other. In his head, his mind is already made up: he’s a footballer and he wants to play for Auckland FC and the All Whites.
Another boy dreams of being just like Chris Wood, one of New Zealand’s highest-paid professional athletes who earns just under $10 million per year, breaking records in the English Premier League, the pinnacle of worldwide league football. Woodsy will also lead New Zealand to the Football World Cup in 2026. One by one, kids are realising it is football and not rugby that will dominate his or her inner dialogue, it will become their passion, their identity.
Chris Wood is on track to lead the All Whites at next year's World Cup. Photo / Getty Images
It may not even be considered in the higher echelons of New Zealand Rugby yet, but this scenario is already happening. The numbers show that as of 2024, rugby union in New Zealand had approximately 155,568 registered players. Figures also show that in 2025, football (including futsal) was New Zealand’s largest team participation sport, with more than 175,000 registered players.
The 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup, co-hosted by New Zealand, significantly boosted engagement: girl’s and women’s participation has surged by 27% since 2022. Participation among Māori, Pasifika and Asian communities increased by 14% after 2023.
Significantly, this was all before Auckland FC. More than 264,000 people have attended 13 Auckland FC home league games and a semifinal at Go Media Stadium during 2024/25.
Auckland FC achieved the highest home attendance in the A-League with an average of 18,101 fans per match turning up at their Penrose fortress. They became the fastest team ever to score 50 goals and the first Kiwi club to win A-League silverware. No wonder there is a buzz around football now in New Zealand.
Auckland FC fans show their passion ahead of the derby against the Wellington Phoenix. Photo/ Sylvie Whinray
Match day is a sea of colour and noise, real support with songs, chants, drums, flags and loudhailers. The players and fans are as one, celebrating, surging and eventually commiserating together. Fans organise buses from as far south as Matamata and Pāpāmoa to come up and see the game. Some have travelled to Australia and plenty went to Wellington to support the team away.
There are dads and their daughters, mums and their sons, there are old friends connected by football once again. There is hope and optimism, there is loyalty and there is passion. There are VAR (video assistant referee) decisions that don’t go our way, there are last-minute winners that do, from players with names from faraway places. There are managers angry, there are those who stay calm. There are goalkeepers who should be in the Premier League, making saves and coming up the field in the last minute to try to score a goal to save the season. There is the final whistle and the elation; sometimes it blows and there is defeat, there are the looks and the knowing smiles that this wasn’t our day and this, this painful magical thing, is football.
This is the world’s game, the game of Pele and Puskas, the sport of Gascoigne and Maradona.
And now in New Zealand’s biggest city, it is the game of Paulsen, de Vries, Sakai, Hall and Pijnaker, of Brimmer and Gallegos, Randall and Verstraete, of Moreno and May. Of Tommy Smith, whose brother drives the bus from Cambridge, full of fans of this, the most beautiful game.
It is this that scares the life out of rugby and those who attach it to our national identity. Whisper it quietly if you dare, but football has arrived on these shores like never before.
