There’s so much sport in the news, we’re fighting over it, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

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In the early hours of Monday morning, Ryan Fox made New Zealand sports history by making a 20-foot putt to secure a birdie on the 18th hole to win the British Open, becoming just the fourth New Zealander to claim a golf major. Hours later, after a brutal (and often brutish) 120-plus minutes of play, Spain beat Messi’s Argentina to win the FIFA World Cup. All of this came only days after the All Blacks had wrapped up another Rugby Championship campaign.

It’s excusable then, that for the last few days, it’s felt like the front pages of our nation’s daily news sites have been a glorious, chaotic mess of sporting headlines, each competing for the top spot. And this week, the Commonwealth Games are nearly here, threatening to make it even messier.

The Commonwealth Games are nearly here!

You can be forgiven if the Commonwealth Games has crept up on you. This year’s downsized games have, over the four years since the 2022 event in Birmingham, not exactly been giving off winning vibes. As Madeleine Chapman writes on The Spinoff this morning, the initial host pulled out just two years ago due to rising costs, to be replaced by Glasgow who stepped up on the condition that the event would be scaled back. And so the 2026 Commonwealth Games – now only 10 sports, with no athlete village (not a high point for spectators anyway) – could be considered “a regional meet for most athletes,” Chapman writes.

Still, even though it’s getting further and further away from being the Olympics’ almost-as-good little sibling for former colonies, there’s likely to be athletic thrills, underdog victories, local heroes, and heartwarming storylines. What else could you want from a multinational sports event?

But the Commonwealth Games faces a mighty battle to get a look-in this week, with New Zealanders still digesting the sporting feast of the past few days.

The battle of the bulletins

And that’s where the trouble starts. Because when there’s too much sporting greatness all at once, something has to give – and who decides what leads the news?

Earlier this week, Stuff’s Finn Hogan published a report about whether state broadcaster TVNZ had sidelined Ryan Fox’s historic Open win. The complaint was that 1News at 6 spent about 17 minutes on FIFA World Cup coverage – a tournament New Zealand wasn’t even playing in the final of – before properly getting to Fox becoming just the fourth New Zealander to win a golf major.

The accusation was that TVNZ had “stacked” its bulletins with footage of matches it had paid millions to broadcast, effectively using the news as a promotional vehicle. TVNZ had, in fact, just secured the rights to the 2030 FIFA World Cup days earlier, adding to its successful run with the 2026 tournament which broke its own streaming records with over 20 million streams. The final between Spain and Argentina attracted 761,000 viewers on TVNZ 1 alone. So there’s certainly a commercial incentive to keep football front and centre.

Critics pointed out that the Rugby World Cup wins of 1987, 2011 and 2015 were all lead stories even when TVNZ didn’t have the rights. By contrast, non-rights holders like the Stuff-produced bulletin on TV3 or The Crowd Goes Wild on Sky are allowed only a limited amount of rights holder footage each day.

Spoiled for choice

This isn’t a bad problem to have. New Zealanders seem to be enjoying more sport than ever, and broadcasters are scrambling to keep up. TVNZ has committed to football through to 2030. Sky NZ and TV3 will provide extensive Commonwealth Games coverage. And, despite their decreasing cultural prominence, the All Blacks will continue to dominate the discourse, regardless of what else is happening.

But when the headlines are this crowded, editorial decisions can easily become commercial ones. The Commonwealth Games, despite its scaled-back format, offers genuine sporting drama – and it’s easy to watch, with streaming and free-to-air options. Yet it will likely still struggle for oxygen.

Perhaps the real question isn’t which sport matters most, but whether the media should be leading the conversation or simply reflecting it. If a nation is split between football glory, golfing history, the reliable old All Blacks, and the Commonwealth Games, maybe it’s okay for the news to be a bit messy, too.

But if you were waiting for Ryan Fox’s putt on the 6pm news, you might have been forgiven for changing the channel. Or picking up your phone.