Frank Greenall: It's every brand for itself come kick-off

Newcomer Frank Greenall on why he likes living in Wanganui. 03 February 2015 Wanganui Chronicle photograph by Bevan Conley. WGP 17Feb15 - LOVE THE VIEW: Frank Greenall is happy to go back to t

HAVE PITY on the modern sportswriter.

The Chronicle's intrepid Jared Smith, for example, had to start last week's club rugby report thus: "Integrity Motors Pirates made the definitive statement to end Round 1 of the Tasman Tanning Premier competition when they lifted both the Grand Hotel Challenge Shield and the Paul Mitchell Cup with a 26-5 shutout of Waverley Harvesting Border at Spriggens Park on Saturday."

A right old Battle of the Brands - and what a yawning mouthful for reporter and reader alike.

It must have been carnage, mayhem and a pile of tanned hides down at Spriggens, with pistons and con-rods and combine harvesters all going hammer and tongs getting go forward for a beer at the Grand.

Certainly local sport needs the sponsorship, but comes a point where the magic gets buried under the muddy ruck of competing brand names. Surely there's enough opportunity for sponsors to get their money's worth simply through associated signage and jersey branding?

And is it a good thing for firms to get too close to the beneficiaries of their generosity? When driving their newly acquired vehicle off the lot, does it suddenly occur to Integrity Motors' customers that it may not be total coincidence the company think Pirates is a good name to be associated with?

And when Waverley Harvesting Border are getting comprehensively scythed down at Spriggens Park, do potential clients in the stand start to reflect a bit more energetically on Waverly Harvester's ability to achieve a pleasing yield out on the paddock?

On the other hand, the wise heads at the Grand Hotel demonstrate good smarts by making sure that, with their Challenge Shield, they are only ever associated with a winner. And the supporters of winners, as we know, are usually in a generous frame of mind when it comes to toasting their champions and keeping the bar till ringing.

The line between the adverts and the action can easily blur into oblivion. I dared to watch Saturday's Hurricanes v Blues game on Prime.

The Blues did nothing to halt coach JK's march back to the butcher's block he started his working career on. Just as the ad breaks, too, started to make mincemeat of the game itself. By the last quarter, the ads had more game-time than the game.

In the face of this commercial deluge, it was touch and go if the game was going to disappear from view altogether before the final whistle. Probably the last time I watch that slot, and why I ditched Sky for similar reasons, having naively thought the idea of pay TV was to pay for an unencumbered programme of choice, not to cough up for the privilege of being the sitting duck for yet another ad barrage.

The danger is that all commercial media simply become mercenary vehicles for maximising consumer units to potential advertisers - the same imperative that has killed off Campbell Live. No doubt the replacement will be the video equivalent of a high-fat/salt burger blow-out. But, as we know, a diet of takeaways can soon get you craving some plain but nourishing home cooking.

It will be interesting to see what extent the public choose to vote with their remote. The door swings both ways. Ultimately, we consumers have huge collective power to cripple in short order even major commercial enterprises simply by avoiding their products.

McDonald's and their zero-hours contracts policy could be dog-tucker if people ceased buying their stuff. But I don't hold much hope. Cripes, one quarter of us can't even be bothered to tick the election boxes once every three years.