There are pockets of the city where the game remains strong and the big, traditional boys schools continue to grab the best athletes and win the majority of resources.
The city's fractured relationship with the sport is best epitomised, however, by the failure to make any kind of footprint with the Asian community and the low participation rates in South Auckland.
What's different today and may change the whole dynamic of the city's relationship with the game, is that the Blues are now winners.
They have won a title and everyone loves the sense of achievement and certainty that emanates from a title winner, even one that feels just a touch economy as Super Rugby Transtasman does.
Winners have a different ability to appeal to a wider audience and ultimately winners are lovable, supportable and capable of fostering a hitherto unknown sense of pride.
Auckland is a city of changing socio-demographics. Immigration, pre-Covid, was no longer predominantly driven by Brits arriving with an ingrained knowledge and understanding of sports popular in the old Commonwealth.
As the city grew, rugby's popularity and influence became disproportionately less as more people arrived with virtually no knowledge of its peculiarities and no incentive to bother finding out.
There was no gravitational pull towards the sport because there was no North Star leading the way in Super Rugby. The Blues were not a magnet, attracting new followers because it's a hard and fast rule in sport that all the marketing dollars in the world can't buy what success can.
Stick a billboard up saying come to Eden Park and no one will. Win a title and the world is suddenly interested.
Win a title and that old Blues jersey, the one bought back in the mid-1990s when the club were winning, can be dusted off and worn again.
Win a title and those who previously didn't care about either the Blues or rugby will instantly be thinking about buying a ball and maybe a jersey and heading down the park to see if they can pass it like Finlay Christie or kick it like Zarn Sullivan.
This is not how things have previously been. New arrivals to Auckland have no doubt looked around once they got here and sensed no reason to connect with the Blues and by extension rugby.
When it was apparent the locals had an uneasy relationship with the club and were seemingly going to Eden Park on sufferance – it gave those new in town a distinct sense that it would be a serious social faux pas to turn up to an event wearing a replica Blues jersey.
To assimilate in Auckland these past two decades, it has been best to avoid the Blues. Look at primary school playgrounds across the city – those which don't have uniforms kind of do, as most children will turn up wearing a Barcelona shirt, most specifically that of Lionel Messi.
And that's the power of winning right there – that kids 12,000 miles away in Auckland will happily and proudly be seen wearing a replica jersey of a Spanish football club, but not that of their home rugby team.
Maybe that will all change now. Auckland kids needn't scour the world to fill their wardrobe or worry about what their friends might think if they unashamedly declare their allegiance to the Blues.
Winning has removed the stigma, made it socially acceptable to be a Blues fan and in a year or so, Auckland's coolest kids could still be coming to school with a No 10 on their jersey, but that of Beauden Barret rather than Messi.
One title may not be enough to deliver thousands of new players or fans. But it's certainly a start and if Auckland is going to become the rugby powerhouse it wants to be and NZR needs it to be, then it certainly seems more likely to happen now than it has at any other time in the last 18 years.
