Historically, football in Australia has sat in strange position. It’s the most international of all the games, with football first, daylight second, and union third.
It has by far the most number of players, and it’s by far the most diverse in regards to cultural support. Yet, until recently, it’s been a bad joke.
With football rejecting its recent past and becoming more mainstream, has it hurt any other code? And is the football code war real or imaginary?
My belief is that management decisions are, by and large, what affects the success of a sport.
By its own hand, in 1955 football choose to set up a new competition which, in time, lead to many of the division of top clubs being of an ethnic origin. The management of old soccer is legendary for being corrupt, hopeless, and inept.
But did this total mismanagement of football mask many other sports and codes failures as it was easy to look and point at football? Thus was borne the assumption that they (other sports) were being well run.
I believe football was such an easy target. Accordingly, very poor management practices by other sports were often overlooked and the good work by the old football heads was also overlooked.
In my opinion, tennis has been the most poorly run sport in Australia.
Tennis in the 1950s was arguably Australia biggest sport. It was played year round, and was a social event for boys and girls to meet at: the Davis Cup, the Australian Open.
On almost every street there was a tennis court. My grandparents could talk at length about which player has a good backhand or was a serve and volleyer, and so on.
Today, tennis courts are rare and few people play at a serious level. Even fewer could discuss the relative strengths and skills of a tennis player.
Tennis looked to the national players and ignored its local courts and clubs. Thus tennis finds itself in a strange position of having an almost unaffordable junior league needing fanatical parents and supporters prepared to take their kids all over the state to play.
Union, well what more can be said of the NSWRU and the ARU, other than that around the world, rugby as a code is expanding, yet in Australia it is declining. Where do you start? Concord oval and the Mac bank, the inability to spread its playing base outside private schools and state academically advanced schools in Sydney and Brisbane.
Has football turning mainstream hurt anyone or is it more that the weaknesses in other codes are being exposed?
My observations are that league, union and AFL all benefited from the 1955 mistake of football, allowing each to develop a loyal media support, without any real contest from football.
Rugby League then gave all the other codes a free kick with its Super League war. It was sitting at the top, with 21 teams and making real inroads in Western Australia and South Australia, not to mention Fiji and other Pacific islands. Then News and Optus had their little set to. Football was incapable of reacting still in its declining years, while both union and AFL attacked and made lots of ground.
After the war, the ARL made in my opinion the second worst management decision in Australian sports history (only football’s 1955 club split was worst) by giving News half of the TV media deals. This now has the ARL needing to get News to approve its own expansion plans.
Kerry Packer loved league with a passion and made it work. Now Kerry Packer is gone and his son James seems to want to leave the media. Kerry Packer has been replaced by Kerry Stokes who has a passion for the AFL in a similar way that Packer had with league. Thus, AFL has a sugar daddy prepared to spend big to support the code.
The AFL has been caught resting on its laurels with massive TV deals, a media baron backer, the Super League war, and so on. The success of the Gold Coast Titans has rushed the AFL into a decision making process about their expansion plans that only time will tell if it was correct. Maybe the media companies forced their hand on the expansion with the need for more exposure in the northern states for increased funding.
So I believe that football going mainstream in itself has hurt no other code or is a threat to any other code. However, by football becoming more accepted, past management practices which were previously able to be smudged over, no longer worked.
While the sports can co-exist happily, the winner of the codes will be that which best manages it’s own path.
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Salvation said | May 16th 2008 @ 7:38am | Report comment
Nice read.
Redb said | May 16th 2008 @ 8:02am | Report comment
Midfielder,
It is straight out wishful thinking to contend that due to soccer dropping the ball in 1955 it gave the VFL in Melbourne a free kick with the media. The VFL was getting crowds in excess of 70,000 in the 1930s!
Redb
Midfielder said | May 16th 2008 @ 8:31am | Report comment
Redb
AFL has always had crowds and if that is the yard stick you measure all codes then without doubt AFL is close to the worlds best.
But during the 60′s with 3 commercial TV channels, league on one, union on one and the new boy ten looking around for something to put on. Also not long after WSC, a certain Mr Packer offered the then NSL a massive package if he had ten teams and start from scratch not to different to the A-League now. They told him to FO they LOL could do it better.
So yes AFL has always had crowds but that is not the only measure.
Redb said | May 16th 2008 @ 9:28am | Report comment
Midfielder,
I guess the point about crowds is that it generally equals public support. The VFL attracted media due to interest in the game as reflected by crowds. The very early history of Australian football in Melbourne was played out in the media, from the first letter by Tom Wills wishing to establish a game of football in 1858.
I’m not speaking for other codes, just pointing out that Aust football was up and going well and truly by 1955 and was a already a big paper seller back in the ‘day’.
There are more significant decisions in Australian sport amongst the choice of particular States and their football code of choice that date back well before 1955. Som examples, would be the NSW rugby administrators in the early 1900s choosing rugby football over Australian rules and Victorian adminsitrators protecting Aust Rules in Victorian schools from rugby. This all happened a century ago.
Redb
Midfielder said | May 16th 2008 @ 10:38am | Report comment
Rebd
We agree on most here, but AFL crowds support is unique in the world, few sports come close to AFL attendences and NONE given how many teams Melbourne, so without doubt the AFL is the best attended sport in the world. But that is not the only measure.
Also to say that by football, own superleague type war, that had it banned from all FIFA events, and had many teams based on race had no harm is foolish. It caused massive harm. Its football greatest cross to bear.
Lazza said | May 16th 2008 @ 11:56am | Report comment
Rebd, crowd attendances are important but with professional sport it’s all about TV Ratings. No competition can survive without TV money. The German Bundesliga gets bigger crowds than the EPL but can’t match the enormous worldwide TV audience the EPL attracts.
AFL is still weak in 55% of the country and won’t get a Billion dollar contract unless it can substantially improve ratings up there. Hence the rush for expansion.
Midfielder, after Football and daylight the next biggest team sport in the World is basketball.
Midfielder said | May 16th 2008 @ 12:34pm | Report comment
Lazza
Sorry you right on the basketball, did not include was in the main talking about football codes.
Redb said | May 16th 2008 @ 1:26pm | Report comment
Lazza,
I was specifically commenting on Midfielder’s comments re soccers’ lack of influence on the media and football code worship by media, circa 1955 and onwards.
The second part of Midfielder’s article more relates to the last 10 years and the future. The AFL faces challenges in its new markets as does the NRL in its non traditional markets. If you were to compare, the AFL is further down the road of true national exposure than the NRL.
But make no mistake, the value of AFL is still very much linked to its mass popularity in the Melbourne market, which is less than 10% smaller than Sydney but may actually be a bigger sports TV market. Crowds and TV ratings are as one in terms of magnitude in Melbourne. The AFL is also the clear dominant player in Perth and Adelaide.
The NRL has Sydney and Brisbane but not to itself like the AFL has in Adelaide and Perth.
If you take the head to head matches in Brisbane a month ago when the top of the table Broncos played the Cowboys at Suncorp v Bris Lions and Hawthorn at the gabba. The NRL crowd was a sellout at 50,000, with the Lions getting circa 33,000. The TV ratings showed a clear win to the NRL but the ratio of total viewers was about 75:25 audience share NRL to AFL.
Contrast this to non traditional NRL market of Melbourne. The audience share is 0 :100 NRL to AFL, as the NRL never goes head to head with the AFL. Now its likely that if it did there would be some NRL audience, but I bet the ratio is nowhere near 25% of the TV audience and its zero in Adelaide and Perth.
In Sydney the Swans may have 15% against the NRL 85%, feel free to dispute that, but I think that’s about right.
The TV deal will be done on the capital city market. in this the AFL has all capitals vovered to varying degrees, the NRL has two with perhaps a third if they ever go head to head, my guess is that any new NRL TV deal, the NRL will require this, but by then Ch 9 may have won back the AFL. Who knows what will happen then.
So i wouldn’t be too so sure the AFL will not get its Billion dollar or whatever increase in dollars contract. The fact is western Sydney will take a decade to work, the deal will be done primarily on the Swans in Sydney. The new Gold Coast team and Brisbane provide definite immediate upside for the AFL.
You look at AFL through NRL NSW/QLD eyes and its comparitively weak position to NRL in those states and judge the AFl has no chance against he NRL based on its TV ratings performance in comparison . I look through VIC AFL eyes and can comment that the AFL has never been stronger in its heartland and offers massive market presence in 45% of the country, but has a small but significant share of the 55% when added on.
In any case, 750M to 1,000M is only about 30% after five years, inflation running at 4% is 20% of that. The AFL may only need a 10% real growth to get the $1B.
It’s all debatable.
Redb
Lazza said | May 16th 2008 @ 2:17pm | Report comment
Rebd, that’s all true and the AFL should be congratulated on it’s success but sponsors want NATIONAL coverage and value for money. The Swans and Lions get fair TV ratings up there, I don’t think they’ve been beaten by SBS’s Iron Chef for a while.
The problem is if you ever try to show say Port Power v Freo in those markets. You would probably be out rated by an Elvis Presley movie. When a sport gets good crowds but very modest TV ratings it confirms people’s thinking that it’s mainly the expats that are driving the sport up there. That’s why the Rugby codes haven’t faired as well down south, most of the internal migration in the last 40 years has been southerners going up north.
Lazza said | May 16th 2008 @ 2:39pm | Report comment
You are right Midfielder, all sports can co-exist. I don’t think things are going to change that much in the next few years. AFL will continue to dominate the southern winter market, NRL the northern winter market and football will continue with it’s steady progress in summer.
The only thing that will change is that a lot of aging baby boomers will die off and we won’t hear so much whinging about football.