OPINION: You wouldn't know it starts tonight.
There's no flashy hashtag, no theme song, no mind-numbingly stale clashes in the early hours of the morning, no complicated Conference system involving bonus points, wildcard spots and TV rights and travel distance.
In the midst of a new Blackcaps coach, a recall for Casey Kopua and Laura Langman to the Silver Ferns, and in the headlights of an intriguing Bledisloe Cup test, the Mitre 10 Cup is back.
It's the one time of the year when the ridiculously orange hardware store gets more coverage than Bunnings. Where unheralded players force their way into Super Rugby contracts, where veterans hope they've still got some life in their Deep Heat stained legs, where some of the country's finest and shabbiest stadiums are front and centre.
The sleepy rugby competition gets it right. You can relax on a Wednesday night, get pumped on a Friday, or sit back on a Sunday.
It just works.
There are the stormy nights in Whangarei with the rain lashing Toll Stadium. Or the bone-chilling evenings in Invercargill, where the scrums produce enough steam to drive a power station.
How about the sunny afternoons at Trafalgar Park, the Bucket Heads in Manawatu, kids flying down the muddy bank in Pukekohe, and the inevitably empty stands at Eden Park and Westpac Stadium.
It's fitting that at the season launch the players painted letterboxes. You get the feeling a lot of the unions probably still post letters and are only just realising what email and WhatsApp is.
There's no doubt Super Rugby has become unquestionably dull - while the international game is marred by contentious cards and increasingly muddy rules.
Let's be clear - the Mitre 10 Cup is not the answer.
You won't see full stadiums, or Kieran Read playing for Counties, or vintage defensive performances.
And while the Ranfurly Shield fever might be more of a common cold these days, there's still something undeniably glorious about the competition.
It's a quality distraction from the mess that rugby often finds itself in.
It's a chance to watch that guy you used to throw occasional rugby banter at in high school, and now pretend you were best mates with.
A chance to see some loose post-match interviews.
A chance to watch a mixture of dazzling skill, and befuddling incompetence.
The Mitre 10 Cup doesn't try to be the international game, or Super Rugby, or anything else.
It's just there.
Perhaps romance in sport is disappearing. The NPC trophy is named after a hardware store after all, and there's nothing romantic about a trip to Mitre 10.
But heck, this competition couldn't care less. It's been named after Air New Zealand and ITM, and maybe it'll be renamed the 'Krispy Kreme Carnival Tournament' soon enough.
Yet it's survived all of that - and it'll survive all the talk again this year about dwindling crowd numbers, lack of star players, and diminishing interest in the grassroots game from fans and bigwigs alike.
Because tell me you don't love a bit of afternoon footy, of rumours about Jason Rutledge and Andrew Hore making a comeback to solve an injury crisis.
Of weird mascots, of Vilimoni Koroi's cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof step, of Vaea Fifita pretending Piers Francis is the bar on a high jump mat, of Thomas Waldrom running around like an out of control tank engine.
Sometimes the simple things in life are the best.
Henry Rounce is a Newshub sports reporter.
