Phoenix on the radio - links

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 8:16a.m.

Wellington Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick joins the show to look at his side’s struggle to retain top form after the international window break and this weekend’s fixture against the Newcastle Jets in the capital.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Ernie-Merrick/tabid/454/articleID/22501/Default.aspx

Sun, 22 Feb 2015 9:39a.m.

Riccardo and Wynton are joined by David Dome from the Wellington Phoenix

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/David-Dome/tabid/454/articleID/22520/Default.aspx

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 8:48a.m.

Phoenix star Nathan Burns is with us to look at his side’s somewhat unexpected 2-all draw with Newcastle, playing in the Hutt Valley, the arrival of countryman Joel Griffiths and rumours of his move to a Chinese club.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Nathan-Burns/tabid/454/articleID/22564/Default.aspx

Sun, 08 Mar 2015 8:56a.m.

Riccardo caught up with Micheal Boxall after the fantastic win by the Phoenix yesterday.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Micheal-Boxall/tabid/454/articleID/23716/Default.aspx

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 8:30a.m.

Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick is with us to talk about his side’s vital 2-0 victory over the Newcastle Jets at the Hutt Recreation Ground on the weekend and his decision to add three more years to his contract with the Wellington-based club.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Ernie-Merrick/tabid/454/articleID/23725/Default.aspx

looks like live sport have the hutt news syndrome in writing the wrong team!

Wellington Phoenix captain Andrew Durante speaks to Nigel Yalden ahead of their match against the Perth Glory in the Hyundai A-League tonight.

http://www.radiosport.co.nz/on-demand/audio/andrew-durante-taking-on-the-table-toppers/

Go to 1'29" to listen to Nathan Burns http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11215.mp3

Go to 12'29 to listen to Ernie http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11315.mp3

continues here http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11330.mp3

Go to 8'36 to listen to Andy Harper http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11500.mp3

continues here with Andy then David Dome http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11515.mp3

David's continues here http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11530.mp3

or if you feel like listening to a lot more Veitch - bit of sifting through though http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/veitch-on-sport/audio/veitchy-on-sport-podcast-march-15-2015/

Go to 13'06" to hear Dura (take note of the comment Dura makes about the licence.) http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11830.mp3

and continues here http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11845.mp3

The rugby biased media can't let the Phoenix have a feel good story, have to find something negative. On the TV news they said the Phoenix may be top but the A-League want to kick them out. Here Veitch is saying that the A-League isn't worth sweet fudge all to Sky and the NZ market.

Just celebrate that we are top of the league, have the most wins, second highest goals scored, and best defense ffs.

How hard is it for just one person to do some research before these discussions and offer an opposing view to these morons?

I also don't understand why people compare the A-League to the NBL. No one outside of NZ cares about the NBL.

A League gets about 700k viewers per round whereas the NBL gets less than 100k. 

Of course no one watches the A League compared to the NRL and ARL which both get millions of viewers per round.

The comparison with the NRL is complete bollocks in the country.

Even before the Warriors started it had been shown in primetime FTA for a decade so there was an identification with the teams and players and Warriors just expanded on that.  Chuck in the lack of restrictions on kiwi's and it's an easier product to sell.

Of course selling it is another point.

- Sky have spent a fortune to get NRL rights and to get a return on that investment it is importnant for them to market and sell the league, the players and the names.  There is also a fair chance that the NRL chuck some promotional dollars into the local economy to talk it up, including Origin.

- Meanwhile the FFA who spend millions on promotion in NSW alone spend less than 10k a year to promoted the A-League here and let Sky have the coverage at a pittance which means there is no onus on SKy to ptomote it and gain a return on the investment.

Of course no one talking about this 'issue' is making any effort to throw these facts back at the FFA or their trained journalists, they just lap it up as if it's fact.

No, I meant they were comparing the Phoenix and the Breakers.

Yeah.  I just wrote that off.  NZ media are unlikely to be realistic about the actual interest in the NBL while the Breakers dominate it (and good on them).

They are a million miles ahead of any other franchise in every respect.

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 7:31a.m.

Wellington Phoenix assistant coach Chris Greenacre is with us to look at the side’s rise to the top of the A-League table and touch on Manchester United star Wayne Rooney’s recent extracurricular activities.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Chris-Greenacre/tabid/454/articleID/23831/Default.aspx

The depressing thing is that there is a nugget of truth in Harper's comments. Sky does need to step up and support us better.

Sadly, sky probably feel they've paid 200k too much for Aleague rights.  It's up to the NZ public to decide if they want this team in the Aleague - if they do, then they need to watch nix games as well as the other teams game, go to the matches, buy merchandise, season memberships, get involved in radio talkback etc.  If the demand is up, then they'll have to pay more.  The problem is there is still a very large portion of the population that couldn't give a crap about football in this country and would quite happily see it die. 

I try to book reminders in on mysky so that when there is football on, the channel will change to it and sky will know it's being watched.

 Sky as a business will piggy back themselves onto the biggest show, and thus biggest money maker, in town. In this county, that's rugby and it always will be. 

Sky have zero incentive to pay more because its unlikely they are going to lose many viewers if they decide against renewing the HAL rights. How has losing EPL, Golf and F1 hurt them? Nada.... They value rugby, league and cricket in that order as the revenue generators and the rest are all the 1%ers. For them, a bidding war is easy to walk away from because commercially, not having HAL rights does not hurts them.

I was at the Ireland vs India game of cricket the other day in Hamilton, I saw a couple of people in stripies, and the group of older guys sitting behind us were talking about the Phoenix for a good hour or so, particularly Nathan Burns.

So there is very much awareness out there.

Awareness doesn't = dollars though and Sky, like most of the media in this country has too much vested interest in other sports to make a significant effort.

Things like ensuring every A-League game is watched or recorded if you have Sky is good but things like Talkback are enough to make you want to top yourself as apart from Kent Johns all you get is patronising ill-informed hosts who undermine any good your attempt to call does.  Witness Veitch handing Harper the microphone and soapbox.

I saw an add last night for NRL tickets, clearly not a Warriors focussed ad just a general NRL one, not on Sky.  NZRL won't have paid for that, Sky won't have paid for that, the Warriors won't have paid for that.  The NRL has a budget for promoting the game that spend in all the markets they are in.

The A-League has a budget for promoting the game in 7 markets they think it is New Zealand football or the Phoenix's job to market the A-League here which is both unfair and ignorant.

I was actually hoping that Harper would get stuck into Veitch and NZ media in general (Sky rightly got a serve), though would probably be unware of the complete lack of HAL coverage and limited 'Nix coverage. It's probably worse than he thinks, no 'Nix on the news after they win a game (or before), no mention of All Whites playing in HAL or other HAL results or the table (normally, now most on the bandwagon). The mainstream media (sound like a Fox conspiracy theorist) are the major touch-point for the masses to get information and an affinity to the league and they don't really help. It makes it hard for the HAL and the 'Nix to get NZers to value the league.

Thats kinda it really. The reason why the NRL is so strong is that seems to subscribe to the mantra about only being as strong as your weakest. 

If you look at the HAL, there are 2 clubs falling apart in CCM and Newcastle yet they are picking on one of the stronger ones cause our media market/interest is not on par with others. As an organisation, you would think its in their interests to ensure the competition is strong across the board, not just chuck us in a roomful of straw and expect us to spin it into gold after the fact. The stronger all clubs are, the better position for the FFA when it goes forward across various fronts.

This.

Plus it should be noted that our media/market interest are comparable with the Mariners and the Jets based on all metrics.  The only metric we don't meet is that Sky don't pay enough for the TV rights which is the fault of the FFA, not the Phoenix despite what the FFA PR campaign says.

The other thing with the NRL is there was support for other teams (mainly due to Kiwi players, but also some TV coverage... KB Cup anyone?) prior to the Kiwi team entering the comp. So the competition had fans prior to our entry. With the A-league/NSL there was little engagement aside from a few die hards that had connections to the few Kiwi's involved - the profile was not even on the same planet as the pre-Warriors NSWRL.

There needs to be investment (millions) to garner the same/similar here - and "one" good point Harper made (there may have been others but I lost them in the rant) was that if the FFA/AFC/NZF/OFC/FIFA, and everyone else agree that NZ does have a future in the A-league, do it properly and set up an Auckland team.

But again it comes down to the same old thing.

Yup NRL / NSWRL had a very large following in NZ for many hears before the Warriors entered the competition in 1995, with many matches being screened free to air. I think Saturation coverage began the year of the Balmain v Canberra grand final in 1989, assisted by some very slick marketing including the whole Tina Turner / Jimmy Barnes involvement which changed the way the sport was thought of in NZ and made it a sexy product.

Over the years the NRL and its predessors have spent huge sums of money promoting the game in NZ aided by the Aussie clubs many of whom came to NZ and played pre season friendlies in NZ. I remember watching Manly play Wainui in Wainui in the early 90's. 

You certainly see far more League Jerseys around the streets of NZ than just the Warriors. The same can not be said of other HAL teams. When was the last time anyone saw a Brisbane shirt or a Bling shirt around Wellington other than on a matchday when they are playing here? Probably never?

So if the FFA want more viewers in NZ for games that do not involve the Nix, they should perhaps be doing something to foster that rather than leaving it up to the Nix to do. 

...or telling the Nix to make NZ Football do it.

Nailed it. 

The NRL took the approach of holistically fostering their competition to the point that new teams (and I guess the NZ market chiefly) when they arrived, hit the ground running and there was demand. They got lucky in pinching Ridge as it was a massive boost for eyeballs cause Gallagher was leaving 24 hours later and left a 'why do the top 2 rugby fullbacks fudge off to league' question on many NZ minds.

If the FFA took the holistic approach to try get the market in NZ stronger....

Rob Morrison talking to Daniel McHardy on radio sport right now

Ernie talking to Piney from yesterday morning - https://soundcloud.com/piney6/ernie-merrick-newstalk-zb-wellington-march-21

Rob Morrison (7'20" in) - http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/71000.mp3

continues here http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/71015.mp3

You definitely get the feeling Rob Morrison will not tolerate fools!

Dura on radiosport - 9'30" in http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/21730.mp3

and continues http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/21745.mp3

Siggy from 9'20" http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11515.mp3 

continues http://content.radionetwork.co.nz/weekondemand/radiosport/11530.mp3

So that you know, the Durra continues link gives a 404 file not found error for me...

P.S. Thank you for the effort you put into thread thread. I really appreciate it.

I've fixed it now, thanks for letting me know.

Sun, 29 Mar 2015 9:34a.m.

Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick joins Riccardo ahead of their clash this afternoon. 

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Ernie-Merrick/tabid/454/articleID/23989/Default.aspx

Wed, 08 Apr 2015 8:55a.m.

Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick looks at what has gone wrong for his side over the last couple of weeks, how the slump can be remedied and the side’s inclusion in the Hong Kong Sevens next month.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Ernie-Merrick/tabid/454/articleID/24089/Default.aspx

A few older i/vs here

Sat, 02 May 2015

How the 'Ernie Effect' has revived the Phoenix

Last July, the Wellington Phoenix started their Hyundai A-League pre-season campaign with matches against English Premier League sides West Ham United and Newcastle United. Ten months later, they face Melbourne City in a do-or-die Elimination Final. Ben Sigmund talks with Brendan Telfer about the season, the preperation for this weekend's game and life beyond football.

http://www.radiolive.co.nz/How-the-Ernie-Effect-has-revived-the-Phoenix/tabid/506/articleID/80389/Default.aspx

Sun, 03 May 2015

Confidence high in Phoenix camp

Phoenix CEO, David Dome joins Hamish McKay on Weekend Sport to talk about his team's preperations for tonight's match against Melbourne City. He says they are ready!

http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Confidence-high-in-Phoenix-camp/tabid/506/articleID/80461/Default.aspx

https://soundcloud.com/trackside-radio/ernie-merri...

AUDIO: @WgtnPhoenixFC boss Ernie Merrick with the latest from the Kiwi camp ahead of tonight's @FFACup match. http://t.co/gl49owP70k

— World of Football (@WorldFootballAU) August 26, 2015

How do you quote tweets in that format RR?

On Twitter I copy it with the 'embed Tweet' button and when I post it here, I use the insert video tab on the text box.

I just go into the HTML view </> and paste it there

https://soundcloud.com/trackside-radio/kosta-barbarouses

Ricki Herbert telling Kosta he wasn't going to the 2010 world cup cause he left the Phoenix.