Brewed for Sport: Vol 4

King's Birthday weekend brought about a plethora of sporting results for New Zealand, whether that’s good or bad. 

Let’s start with the bad news:

• Canterbury beat Moana Pasifika cleanly on Friday night 43-10, which kept our sliver of hope alive. However, the Fijian Drua utterly smoked the Rebels 4--19, which means our postseason hopes are officially crushed.  
• The Black Ferns lost to Canada 22-19 in a massive upset in their World Finals Series Semi-Final. 
• The PGA tour unfolded over the week, in which we had some kiwi competitors - Ryan Fox and Lydia Ko being the big names. Ryan Fox was tied for 1st for the first couple days, but his last two days consisted of even par-70s, drifting him to 7th. Lydia Ko, conversely, made history for all the wrong reasons. She shot the worst round she ever has, with a 10 over par 80 in the first round of the Women’s Open. Her lowlight was a triple bogey-eight at the par 5 seventh. 

In better news: 

• Defending Sal’s NBL champions Canterbury Rams got the job done over the Hawkes Bay Hawks 98-84 to go 9 wins in a row! 
• Scott Dixon won the Indycar race in Detroit - his record fourth.
• The U20 Basketball Nationals were held in Rangiora, and Canterbury managed to come out victorious on both the male and female sides! A very rare occurrence, one that will be treasured for years to come. 

Cricket. A well renowned kiwi sport that we hold close to our hearts, yet it hasn’t even been spoken about on Brewed for Sport yet! What better time to open this account than just before this year’s Twenty20 World Cup. The Black Caps play Afghanistan on Saturday 8th June at 11:30am for our first match, and boy are we underprepared. The squad has really only assembled in the last few days, with 9 of our 15 coming from playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Gary Stead and his staff have decided that rather than forcing the squad to get out to the Caribbean early, they should have the time to recover and rest at home with their family. “It’s getting that balance right between getting ready to play in our first match, and also trying to get guys some time at home to be with their family and reconnect with them.” A bold, but inherently great, decision on behalf of the Blackcaps. However, it may impact the performance vs Afghanistan. Not only that, but of the 9 that have been playing in the IPL, it was only Trent Boult, Daryl Mitchell and Rachin Ravindra that played ten times or more. It is well safe to say the Black Caps are going into the World Cup pretty cold, playing an Afghanistan team who would’ve played twice already. Lucky for us, we are consistent overperformers on the world stage, so let’s see how we go on Saturday 8th of June!

The highly anticipated State of Origin game unfolded on Wednesday night, and there was certainly a lot of energy surrounding it. Queensland entered the game as heavy favorites, given they’ve won the last two, and things continued on this trajectory. Queensland smoked NSW 38-10! The result was practically predictable from the beginning, with Joseph Suaalii taking Reece Walsh down in a late and high hit only 7 minutes into the game. Setting history for the wrong reasons, he became the man with the fastest exist in origin history. This set the tempo for the game, QLD getting up 20-6 at halftime and never looking back. Interestingly, NZ fans have no affiliation to this series whatsoever, yet it dominates sporting culture here in Aotearoa. It interested me how many fans with no affiliation are so deeply invested in how this series unfolds. It begs the question - If state of origin came to NZ and played at eden park, how many fans do you reckon would come watch? I think it would be a sell out!

Sam, my fellow HBC host, and I, split a lottery ticket in hopes for us to win $50 million. We were delusionally optimistic, so began to scheme what we would do with such a lump sum. Naturally, it progressed to what outrageous sport fan endeavors we could go on. So, here lies a list of outrageous sports fan antics you could get up to with $50 million: 

• VIP tickets to Manchester United Games (these sit at about $8k a piece) 
• Super Bowl Premium Tickets - $17,883 each 
• Two tickets to every All Blacks, Black Ferns and Maori All Blacks match for the rest of your life 
• You could invest it - champion NZ racemare Imperatriz just sold at an auction for $7.14 million. 
• Along the line of investment, you could invest in ownership of a sports team. An entire NBA team ownership is currently sitting at about $4 billion, so you could hold somewhat of a decent percentage with $50 million. 
• If you wanted to flex, you could buy the Pegasus Golf Course. Imagine dropping the casual “Wanna go to my golf course” in conversation. You could event have a swing at the Madison Golf Club in California, which has an initial upfront free of $800k 
• Imagine the memorabilia! You could DECK out your room. For example, MJ’s 98 finals ‘The Last Dance’ jersey he wore sold for $16 million

The chances of winning the lottery are highly unlikely, but imagining the damage you could do is always a fun little game. Any thoughts on what you’d do? Send them through to the Instagram - @bassline96.1