As a nation we love our sport, and the All Blacks are front and centre of this obsession.  If the All Blacks are playing, it’s a national event.  We celebrate and make the most of the festivities by going out to our local bars and restaurants.  So, what impact does the All Blacks have on New Zealand spending habits during a game?  It turns out to be quite a bit.

To help understand how much of an impact our national heroes have on our spending, we compared the number of transactions and dollars spent* on 17 August - the evening the All Blacks dazzled Australia at Eden Park, with the week before, when the All Blacks weren’t playing.

Anecdotally, this is the effect the rugby may have had on our main cities:

Auckland

The City of Sails hosted its first All Blacks match this year on 17 August.  For this reason, it’s not a big surprise to see that on the night of the test, transaction volumes in Auckland increased by 10.5% and dollars spent were up 6.5% when compared to the previous Saturday.

Wellington

On the same night in our capital however, transaction volumes and dollars spent both declined by 9.06% and 8.61% respectively.  Whilst these numbers may seem like an anomaly, adverse weather in Wellington on the night of the test compared to the previous Saturday where it was 5 degrees warmer and dry, is likely to have had a big impact on people’s willingness to go out.    

Christchurch

It appears that the near-freezing temperatures didn’t stop the mighty Cantabrians from going out to their local clubs and bars to watch the All Blacks play at Eden Park.  Transaction volumes were up by 10.96% and dollars spent by 8.38% - the biggest increase of the three cities. 

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*Transaction volumes and dollars spent were compared between 5pm and 12pm on Saturday the 12 of August and Saturday the 17 of August 2019.