Frank Greenall: Not just a sport - big bucks

THE once august Times of London, the Guardian, the New York Times - just some of the previously great newspapers of the world now a-weeping and gnashing their teeth as they watch their hard copy circulations plummet. Even closer to home, ditto for the venerable New Zealand Herald - today but a skeletal simulacrum of its former broadsheet glory days.

Not so the Wanganui Chronicle, punching well above its weight as one of the few newspapers still actually increasing its print circulation - bravely going from strength to strength with a reach and influence now spanning continents.

I have it on good authority, for instance, that Shag Hansen, Richie and Dan intently scrutinised last Thursday's online edition of the Chronicle for many hours prior to the crucial World Cup final.

According to my informant, in particular they were thoughtfully digesting last week's sagacious tactical suggestions to be found in this space. Shrewdly concluding they had considerable merit (the flexible Game Plan, the disciplined slipper, the droppie - oh yes, it was all there!), they actioned them on the big day, and the rest is history. While we all bask in the reflected glory of their - and our - triumph, the real pay-off from this high-profile tournament is in the boost to our hard-currency off-shore dollars. For starters, half the coaches at the World Cup were Kiwis. As were a considerable number of players.

The Brave Blossoms of Nippon, for example, who knocked the socks off the Big Bad Boks, were bristling with ex-Kiwis. World Cup organisers will have to guard against the whole event being comprised solely of Kiwis.

Good Lord, the tournament would then become the equivalent of a global Ranfurly Shield, with the Webb Ellis Cup ending up in a strip joint. But for now this diaspora of talent and rugby nous is an export industry in its own right, with valuable overseas-earned wages being remitted back to impoverished relatives living on subsistence diets in the islands, both the North and the South.

Then there are the promotional spin-offs. Every time a leviathan Brodie Retallick concusses a hapless Matt Giteau, overseas consumers get to see the value of chowing down on several racks of prime New Zealand lamb a day, as I'm led to believe is Brodie's wont, particularly as appetisers.

Since Sainsbury's in London is miraculously somehow able to sell NZ racks of lamb and butter for less than they cost in their country of origin, this represents great value for the locals. Luckily, bits of the dollars changing hands at Sainsbury's trickle back down to Kiwiland, allowing us to afford a nice piece of lamb flap at least once, or even twice, annually.

This "Sainsbury Effect" is a little understood phenomenon. As travel broadens the mind, so it also seems to conversely reduce retail price. This has not gone unnoticed. An astute local entrepreneur plans to simultaneously revive the New Zealand coastal shipping industry whilst bringing domestic consumers a better deal.

Henceforth, all primary produce destined for local consumption will first be given a voyage of three or four laps around the national coastline before returning to home port. The bracing sea air having healthily - albeit mysteriously - trimmed the retail price en route, the bargain goods will then be dispensed to grateful cash-strapped Kiwis. So, to the victors, the spoils. The world rugby audience gets to see the game-winning products of regular consumption of lashings of New Zealand milky things and racks of lamb - the essential ingredients for nurturing the Richies, the Dans, the Brodies, the Beaudies and the Sonny Bills of the rugby firmament - and they want a piece of that action too.

For every point of the victory margin, hear the cash registers ring up another billion dollars in primary export produce sales.

There're even spin-offs from the intangibles. A star-struck kid wants to touch his idol at final whistle, gets hammered by a security guard, yet ends up with a Rugby World Cup winner's gold medal. But uh-oh!... unintended consequences. Come next World Cup final, every kid in the park will be charging on to the field at game's end expecting to end up with a winner's medal, too. You just can't win... unless you're a rampant All Black. Or a circulatory-enhanced Chronicle.