Sale of All Blacks stake creates little stir in New Zealand

WELLINGTON : The All Blacks have a decent claim to being the most successful men's national team in any major sport and for decades their success has been tied to New Zealand's sense of itself.

In a week when a stake, albeit small, in New Zealand Rugby looks set to be sold off to a U.S. tech company for NZ$200 million ($130.60 million), however, some are suggesting that the bond is slowly loosening.

Such a sale would have been unthinkable a couple of decades ago but the final step in negotiations that have lasted for more than a year is getting scant attention from the majority of New Zealanders.

Michael Grimshaw, an associate professor at Canterbury University who researches both religion and the country's cultural nationalism, said there had been a real decline in interest in rugby that started as early as the 1980s.

"The nation has changed and rugby hasn't," he said. "Rugby is not a social glue or a transcending canopy over social life any more."

That is not to say that for many in the nation of some five million, the private equity deal with Silver Lake is not perceived as selling off some of the family silver.

The All Blacks have been an integral part of the country's identity since it gained dominion status within the British empire early last century.

Named for the iconic team shirt, or perhaps a century-old misprint of the phrase "all backs", the All Blacks have won more than three quarters of their test matches and three of the nine Rugby World Cups.

Indigenous New Zealanders and players from the wider Pacific islands community have been increasingly influential in recent years and the performance of the traditional Maori challenge, the haka, is a big attraction at their matches.

"There is a very long history of