Rugby might be losing popularity, but Richie McCaw is still the nation’s favourite sportsperson.
Kiwis are ditching the rugby boots for running shoes as the nation moves away from traditional team sports.
A Nielsen survey of New Zealand’s exercise habits has found we’re losing interest in rugby and instead walking, running and going to the gym are favourites.
Nielsen’s Sports, Arts and Entertainment Report examined how Kiwis’ interest in various sports have changed since 2010.
This graphic shows how New Zealanders’ interest in different sports has changed in the past five years.
Walking now occupies the top spot, with an increase of 29 per cent since 2010 – 44 per cent of respondents saying it was their preferred way to exercise.
Rugby had dropped 17 per cent to second place since 2010. Camping and tramping tied for third with swimming and diving.
Other team sports to fall out of favour were netball and rugby league. The only team game to gain popularity was football (soccer), which has gained 18 per cent to become our tenth favourite sport.
Running and jogging appear to be all the rage, posting the survey’s biggest gain of 44 per cent in the last five years.
ALL HAIL KING RICHIE
He may have retired, but Richie McCaw is now New Zealand’s favourite sports person.
It’s official – Richie’s our fave.
The former All Blacks captain had the most unprompted mentions of any sportsperson in New Zealand, the report found.
With 1,694,000 mentions, McCaw was had 400,000 more mentions than his closest competitor, shot putter Valerie Adams.
Golfing prodigy Lydia Ko was third, followed by Dan Carter and cricketer Brendon McCullum.
Valerie Adams is the sportswoman New Zealanders are most interested in.
TV STILL THE FAVOURITE WAY TO WATCH SPORT
But whether it’s Richie, Valerie or Lydia they’re watching, most Kiwis still reach for the remote when they want to watch sport or catch up on the latest sporting news.
The Sports, Arts and Entertainment report found television was the key driver of sporting engagement in New Zealand.
Running has had a huge jump in interest in the past five years.
Around two in five Kiwis keep up to date with sport on TV, but that number spiked when it came to rugby, with 72 per cent of respondents saying they’d watched a live rugby game in the past year.
1.5 million New Zealanders visited a sport website (like your old buddy Stuff) in February 2016.
39 per cent of Kiwis use newspapers to get information and engage with sports they are interested in. Just under a third use Facebook for this purpose and around a quarter listen to the radio.
– Stuff
