Taking NZ off the All Black Jersey...

What do you feel about this???

Dave

I dont think that it is right

I don't care but would rather have New Zealand on their jersey than Adidas or whoever sponsors them

No doubt the Rugby Union is open to offers for NZ to front up with the dosh to sponsor the team with our countries name

WTF? Are you serious?? Is this even an option??

They never used to have it - look at old photo's its just a silver fern. The words "New Zealand All Blacks" were added only so the NZRFU could copyright the logo.

Having said that, its been quite clear for the last few years that rugby in New Zealand is being run by people with the same corporate mindset that brought us Air New Zealand/Ansett disaster, the BNZ bailout, the near destruction of our corporatised health system, etc etc. This way of thinking says it doesn't matter if its health, baked beans or the national game, your can hammer the "product" into the same round hole with the same square set of rules applied with zero imagination, zero regard for the past and zero intelligence.

Professional sport is a crock of shit, a Roman circus of genetic freaks smashing each other for the enjoyment of the lowest common demoninator. Sportotainment is so rich in symbolism its makes you wanna cry! Fat white people watching brown people prized for there animal physical prowess and reinforcing white racism, overpaid thugs providing senationalist fodder for the media of instant gratification. The All Blacks are no different.

The All Blacks thinking off the Field has gone to dogs since professional rugby was introduced.......

they're only interested in $$$$$$$ these days which is sad, & will be the down fall of NZ rugby

Corporate greed once again which has brought us such recent disasters as NZ losing the World Cup.
Nothing surprises me too much with the NZ rugby union these days though. They've already tampered with the jersey enough.

Adidas suck!

Anyone who thinks professional sport has anything in common with the corinthian ethics of amateur sport other than the fact they both call themselves sport is delusional. Professional sport is about entertainment and money, the All Blacks have more in common with the world of the WWF and Atomic Kitten than with the world of club rugby and the local high school first XV. Just as places with proud amateur traditions like Hawkes Bay, Southland, etc etc are fading away to the super 12 franchises, so will New Zealand rugby bee pillaged by the money in the UK/Japan/Europe.

As people become more alienated from the game, its support base will collapse. Eventually, the spectacle will become so detached and absurd that even the common mob will start to feel uneasy. Then ratings will drop, and the greedy money men will abandon a gutted and empty husk and search for the next cultural icon they can take over and pillage.

One problem with your theory fishboy, Mitchell does his best to pick white players. Apart from Umaga the rest of his top line up are either pakeha or could pass for one. Agree with what you say about the marketisation/corporatisation of rugby. It won't be what causes the all blacks downfall though, that was inevitable once professionalism came about. Unless we win the next world cup we will be forced to be the brazil of international rugby, the best team but with all our top players playing overseas.

Of course they could pay a bit more attention to real football (and in that I mean soccer) ...that seems to do pretty well in a professional environment. But then again people actually have a real passion for soccer round the world. And rugby is a rather silly game when you actually think about it. Far too many absurd rules that all depend on interpretation.

Harvey if we paid more attention to the so called real football then we would all know how horribly inflated some of the professional players salaries are. Real Football is all about money oh and bullshit acting when someone taps them they fall to the ground in a twisted mess as though they've just stepped on a land mine.

The Kings have really been doing us proud in NZ. Didn't they get the wooden spoon last year? In saying that (tongue firmly in cheek) they are performing better this year.

Well, at least something is being done in soccer to prevent people from diving and acting up. In rugby we still have gutless referees that will not send players off for repeatedly reoffending. I think that is one thing that is ruinging the game. Stop players committing professional fouls. And if you don't think there is acting in rugby then you need your head checked. How often do we see the scenario where a team has to defend a scrum down their own end of the field and one of the team has an 'injury' so the whole game has to stop while and the defending players all catch their breath.

I think that arguing over points of referring is not seeing the wood for the trees. Soccer at the top level is as completely divorced from the reality of peoples lives as any other sport - what keeps soccer alive is the fanaticism of its poor third world and white trash support base, and the fact its reagrded as a safe alternative for kids to play. It certainly does as poorly as any other sport in retaining players into adulthood.

The point is sport is meant to be about participation, the joy of physicality and fitness, social interaction and the fun of testing yourself against others. Thats what amateur sport was about, the raison d'etre of the revival of the Olympic movement and basis of mass participation and ownership of sport by people as opposed to media corporations.

does it really matter?

who reads their shirts?

we already know theyre from nz

The reason it matters (according to msnxtra.co.nz, i think it was), is that they plan to make it so that no one can place a silver fern on a black jersey without their permission, no matter what. Not just all blacks replica's, any silver fern on a black jersey, a supposed kiwi symbol is not allowed to be placed on a certain coloured jersey in the near future.

Dave

Peroxide: I think they are trademarking the silver fern with the words "all blacks" underneath. They took the words "New Zealand" out as they can't copyright a country name.

Considering the silver fern is already so widely used in NZ sport, I think they would have great difficulty in stopping anyone from using it now.

at first i was against it, but they are doing it to stop places like the Warehouse bringing out Rugby jerseys with new zealand & the Silver fern on it & charging like $20.

get the Ab's back in canterbury gear. ever since they signed for adidas they've been fuckin shite

I think they've already tried to trademark the black jersey with silver fern but failed as it is already used by so many other groups.