I may be off the beam here, but I think it has less to do with Nix as such, and more to do with the underlying, deep seated, multilayered Kiwi insecurity.
Football apparently is a game that foreigners play, and just because some Kiwis play it and seem to be good at it, well, then they go to play in Europe or if they are good enough (really good) they may even play in EPL one day.
I remember that same situation in Australia as a young Euro migrant to Sydney in 1983. It took ages before this mentality changed. But it did change. For anyone who wants to look deeper into it, I highly recommend two books:
- by Johny Warren: "Sheilas, wogs and poofters" (2011)
- by Jesse Fink: "Fifteen days in June - how Australia became a football nation" (2007)
And then there is New Zealand. Both rugby league and rugby union are sports that are played by locals, and by people we can relate to, like the Aussies, the Brits or the Pacific Islanders. And these sports have limited appeal outside of a handful of countries. (OK, yes, there is rugby in Italy or Japan but you would not find them on the front pages of Il Correro de la Sera or Asahi Shimbun). But we as a small country can win in those sports, and also because of their limited appeal and limited international competition.
As I said I may be completely wrong, but I reckon we can (and prefer to) compete as a country in that small cosy safe world, where we can be as good or better as other countries, and so we do not really want to reach out for things outside of our shared experience as a nation.
After the WC in 2006, Australian sporting public instinctively knew that a quantitative change took place. Australia went to Round 16 in Germany, left OFC, and started the A-League. They have since qualified for every single WC, out of Asia.
After the WC in 2010, New Zealand sporting public knew that things will go back to normal, because the AW participation that was just a one-off aberrant blip.
If done correctly, the A-League expansion to Auckland might just be the factor that also causes a slow shift in NZ. Although if I was the owner, I would query if there is enough money to be made from such a small market. I hope he is right.