Rugby costs too much!

I cannot believe that Dunedin has to pay money to host a World Cup Rugby games! The rate payer, now having to pay for an expensive temple to the game, and having to buy the one they don't want, has to contribute to having the Rugby World Cup games in the city. They will also have to foot the bill for the inevitable tidy up of copious drunken rugby fan celebrations happening in the city! Studies overseas show that big game contests in a city do not add much to the local economy anyway! Haven't we got the whole rugby world cup out of kilter? It is only a game! I am over it already! It is crap. In fact rugby as it is is turning this some time fan into a non-fan. Let me list off just some of the costs I perceive in our society.

• Rugby injuries cost the country's health system heaps. Every Saturday there are emergency departments and emergency doctors coping with various injuries because of rugby. Not only these current injuries, but the ongoing impact of old injuries on old injured ex-players.
• Rugby has with it a binge drinking culture. Rugby is often linked to breweries and alcohol associated sponsors. The binge drinking culture cost NZ heaps of pain, violence and health system costs. Any encouragement of binge drinking, like rugby events have is not what this country needs.
• Rugby, as it is played also encourages violent attitudes and violent behaviour. It depicts the quality that men ought to be hard and unforgiving. That to be a man it is OK to live by the eye for and eye mentality. That we don't need in this country where violence and in particular domestic violence is so high.

We make a God out of rugby. It is only a game. I think if all the sums were added up in terms of economic cost to the country and emotional and cultural wellbeing, I suspect that our love of rugby is costing us too much.

I am over it! I give the fingers whenever the TV implores me to buy my ticket. When it suggests I will be part of "History in the making" I scream "Get real... it is only a game! Big kids playing." It is artificial life! And I think it costs too much!