The rise of football: who has it hurt?
Roar Guru By Midfielder, 16 May 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
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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May 16th 2008 @ 2:49pm
Redb said | May 16th 2008 @ 2:49pm | Report comment
Lazza,
Freo v Port would not rate in Melbourne either. Friday or Saturday night games always feature Vic clubs (finals aside). The value is showing the home grown team in their home market that will appeal to the local fans of that club. If you can offer two local clubs instead of one, that will attract growth and produce derbies.etc. Each market offers big TV audeicnes, that is why is aid melb is still the msot improtant to the AFL, becuase anytime Collignwood, Essendon, Carlton, Richmond, H\awthorn play they get huge ratings in Melb and thus a big chunk of this got the $750M.
There is no doubt the AFL benefits from northern migration but not to the extent that would make much of a difference in crowds and TV ratings. For example, the Swans pulled 45,000 to the last game at ANZ against West Coast. Now your not telling me that most of the crowd were made up of expat Vics and WA folk surely. Last year the Swans pulled 60,000+ crowds three times.
I think the sisue is that the AFL has been longer at its expansion, has excellent junior programs and marketed the game fairly well in the eastern states. This is not AFL is better then NRL, but a reality. Despite some big mistakes with the Swans and Bris Bears in the first decade, the AFL perservered until they got it right ( a solid niche and presence).
My read of the Storm in Melbourne which i have expoused a few times, is that the Melb Storm has only really got its act together off the field in the last 2-3 years but still hasn’t quite got its PR machine working that well. Unlike the Swans who used icon players like Tony Lockett to get a high media profile, followed up by Big bad Bazza, Spida Everitt, none of the Storm players do any general media. They come across very reluctant to be here and it shows. (hold the weather jokes
)
you’d think as an NRL fan, that Billy Slater, Greg inglis, Folau would be superstars in sports mad Melbourne – their known but hardly in that category. No Storm games are shown live, no Storm games are shown head to head on a Friday night, Saturday night. Even the last Monday night game agaisnt the Knights was only available on Foxtel, they would have had the night to themselves.
So everytime an NRL fan jokes that Iron Chef is more popular than the Swans in Sydney I think the Storm don’t even out rate the test pattern in Melbourne.
The point for the AFL is at least the games are shown in the first place.
Redb
May 16th 2008 @ 3:31pm
Lazza said | May 16th 2008 @ 3:31pm | Report comment
Didn’t know Vic’s were so parochial Rebd. All AFL games get good ratings in Adelaide with the Crows and Power obviously of most interest.
That’s when you know a game is truly National, you can show non local teams and still get healthy ratings. Basketball was not considered a major sport in the USA until the 1980′s because games would only get good ratings in their local market.
A certain Magic Johnson changed all that and Basketball became a truly national sport in the US.
May 16th 2008 @ 3:58pm
Paul said | May 16th 2008 @ 3:58pm | Report comment
Sports by popularity ranking in the world. (my rough guess)
1) Soccer
AFL
2) Cricket
3) Baseball
4) Basketball
5) Rugby Union
6) Ice hockey
7) NFL
9) Rugby League
Other than than I don’t have anything to argue with. Midfielder, this was mostly an intelligent article. I would have to agree with Red B about your argument over the 1950s. I wonder why you haven’t offered anything this good on the debate about how big soccer is internationally. Still, I guess that is your prerogative.
May 16th 2008 @ 3:59pm
Redb said | May 16th 2008 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
Lazza,
Basketball is huge in the States, my daughter has been offered a College scholarship to a New Hampshire university as they love junior Aussies do to work ethic and skills development even at 17 yrs Old. Apparently women’s basketball in the UA starts later at about 14, whereas our kids are running around from 9-10 years old.
Even College basketball games get 10,000 – now that’s parochial.
The Big V
Redb
May 16th 2008 @ 4:14pm
Paul said | May 16th 2008 @ 4:14pm | Report comment
Red B,
Congrats on your daughter getting a scholraship, you must be tickled.
Paul.
May 16th 2008 @ 4:16pm
Lazza said | May 16th 2008 @ 4:16pm | Report comment
Paul, Cricket may have India but that still leaves 80% of the World. Since we compete against nations not populations that means something like 95% of the World’s nations don’t play Cricket.
Basketball would be the 2nd biggest sport in the World. Crucially, all the World’s great sporting nations from the America’s, Europe and East Asia play the game. Only ex-empire nations play Cricket.
May 16th 2008 @ 4:31pm
Paul said | May 16th 2008 @ 4:31pm | Report comment
Lazza,
Using your criteria I agree with you. It would be interesting to see how this changes in years to come with the injection of IPL money.
May 16th 2008 @ 5:05pm
40/20 said | May 16th 2008 @ 5:05pm | Report comment
Paul how the hell do you end up having australian rules bigger than rugby league on a world scale
Apart from victoria sa and wa nauru where else are hotbeds for aussie rules compared to league
And basketball is bigger then cricket and baseball.
May 16th 2008 @ 8:14pm
Midfielder said | May 16th 2008 @ 8:14pm | Report comment
Redb
Your comments about the future ………. the next ten years is going to be interesting.
AFL has over its history been very well run, yes there have been times when it could have been better run but never poorly run or even close to poorly. As an aside I think Jackson was perhaps the best ………… not saying AD is bad just think Jackson had something special.
But Jackson never had to deal with a well run football code, nor the contest for the big TV deal that’s taking place over the next few years. With League saying it’s bigger on all Australia count ——— don’t wish to debate this TV rating over who is right but that it must be very important given the attention the AFL & NRL are giving it.
IMO that code that best manages it’s own path will come out on top. Both Football and the AFL have very clearly defined plans about the next few years. I think NRL & ARU don’t have clear plans ……….. well what I can see anyway.
AFL to expand its northern presence via new teams in WS & GC, while trying to create an international profile of some kind as a buffer to a perceived weakness in the AFL armory.
Football to expand to 12 teams, create a women’s league & youth league, qualify for Asia & World cups, plus do well in Asian Club Champions League. This is a big ask and football to achieve its end is appealing to both AFL / NRL / Union fans to also watch football in summer. Risk Reduction is the fancy name for it but it is IMO a very clever bit of planning.
I have seen no such evidence from either the NRL or ARU to forward planning. As I mentioned in my article the NRL’s decision to have News as a 50% partner is causing real concern with the rusted on hard core leagueies as they feel the need to get News boards approval to do most things and from what I have seen that is not easy to get. Even Gallop is a former News employee.
The ARU …… can …. JOH ………… keep it at its current level and or have growth. To me it looks outside his control and will depend upon what NZ & SA unions feel about growing S14 at the expense of their local leagues. Years of inward looking thinking ( see management inward looking) are coming home to bite hard ——— number of juniors (real count not same player at school, local park team, attend skills training countered as 3), ——— quality of players they have compared to other codes. The more the Socceroos grow in stature the less the Wallabies brand can grow outside already existing fans.
Given my belief that management decisions and forward planning are the key to the future I think both the AFL and Football will grow, …………. As I see it due to an apparent lack of planning the NRL & ARU will be in decline.
May 16th 2008 @ 8:35pm
Midfielder said | May 16th 2008 @ 8:35pm | Report comment
Lazza
Baseball 2 en biggest world sport …………… its big ………….. but number 2 ………… big call ………… I would have through Basketball, Tennis, Golf.
However it departs from my topic a tad, ………. regarding the importance of management in both growing a sport, and keeping a sport at its current level. Tennis was my example of a sport that had it all, courts everywhere, international matches, game played by man, women and even mixed. In the 50′s & 60′s with a steady stream of champion players what could go wrong. TBH I can never see Australia a power in Tennis agian its just a numbers game not enough quality people play it. IMO very poor management led to this.
Would be very interested on your comments about your views on past management decisions either good or bad and how they are playing out today, and what you think of the various sports forward planning.