Ten reasons for poor international AFL growth

Roar Pro

By Forgetmenot, 10 Dec 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: AFL, AFL grand final, American Football, ARL, Gaelic football, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States, WAFL

Related coverage

Faster, higher, stronger. If you don’t recognize it, it is the official motto of the modern Olympic games. But it also describes football perfectly.

The game of AFL football is played at a far faster rate than in previous generations. Players are always striving for that Jesulenko mark, and players are being modeled into muscular athletes that make players of the eighties seem puny.

Football is a game that has everything going for it. But interestingly, it is also the football code which has the smallest global reach.

This article attempts to examine reasons why football has failed to make a large impact outside Australian shores, while other sports have.

Reason 1: It has too many aspects to it
AFL does encompass all three aspects of the Olympic motto (Faster, Higher, Stronger). Are all three of these too many to have in one sport? None of the other sports encompass all three to the extent that AFL does, as identified briefly below (each code given a score out of 10 for each part):

- American Football: Faster (F) 7, Stronger (S) 9, Higher (H) 7
- Association Football: F 7, S 3, H 4
- Football: F 8, S 8, H 9
- Gaelic Football: F 8, S 4, H 5
- Rugby League: F 5, S 9, H 6
- Rugby Union: F 4, S 9, H 7

You can read the identification yourself, or perform your own, but in any analysis it is clear that football does have a large amount of each aspect in it.

Apart from that analysis we can look at the skills used in the different sports and how hard it would be
to learn, watch or use the skills.

The basic skills of AFL are marking, kicking and tackling. They are hard to learn, easy to master, but near impossible to perfect.

As a sport to pick up and start playing, it lurks about halfway between football and union.

The following list ranks the codes from easiest to hardest in playing straight away at a basic level.

1. Soccer
2. Gaelic
3. Rugby League
4. Football
5. American Football
6. Rugby Union

At its most basic level AFL is a very simple game to pick up and learn. Possibly the unique nature of kicking the ball is an obstacle towards people picking up the game and learning it.

The game does have an extraordinary amount of rules. However, again, at a basic level, it is very easy to learn.

After briefly discussing this reason, we can safely say that it has no large effect on preventing the spread of AFL, and if anything the nature of the game should be a catalyst for growth.

Reason 2: Australias comparative low emigration (and high immigration)
Australia is a country where people immigrate too, not emigrate from. As a result there are not high numbers of people spreading the game around the world. American Football has a similar situation, but its large population, economic and political status in the world means that the sport has many other opportunities to grow.

Rugby union and football, both started in Britain, have had the benefit of high emigration numbers in order to grow their respective codes, with the latter taking the most advantage of the situation.

As time goes on, AFL will grow as people emigrate and travel around the world spreading the sport. This reason has had a large influence on the poor comparative growth of the sport overseas.

Australias high immigration levels mean that there is always people coming into the country who have not been exposed to AFL. A large number of these people, if exposed to AFL in the right way, will go back to their previous countries for holidays and spread the game.

Reason 3: Australia is not a cultural hub.
Australia was originally a colony of Britain, and currently the head of state is still the Queen. Britain has colonized many countries, impressing their culture, and with that their sports, upon the natives. This has happened in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia with rugby union, and cricket. It has happened in India and Sri Lanka with cricket.

AFL has had similar chances with smaller countries like Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Nauru, but the population of these countries means they cannot compete with Australia.

Reason 4: Australia is not an economic hub
While Australia is a first world country, it does not have the money like the United States and England to splash around. This along with the population of the country means that there is not a large amount of money flowing into AFL, which then means that the AFL is not able to spend a lot of money growing the game overseas.

Reason 5: Australia is physically isolated from the rest of the world
“Girt by sea” is a part of Australia’s national anthem. The statement above is very true if the centre of the world is Europe or America. Europe and America are often seen as the centre of the world, and Australia is viewed as the “land Down Under.”

While Australia may be surrounded by sea, planes can still travel easily to countries like New Zealand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Football should concentrate its growth on Asia, an area which largely does not yet have an entrenched AFL code.

This reason is the reason for the poor growth of AFL in the past, but in the modern day should not be large obstacle.

However, it still is a small obstacle. People are not able to travel from Germany or the USA for a day trip, and watch a game of football. They are able to travel from Hanoi to Brisbane for a day trip.

Reason 6: World War I
Prior to the Great War, AFL was played in many countries such as South Africa, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. BWorld War I came along and took most of the Australian expats and eradicated the game in those areas.

If World War I had not occurred, the sport would no doubt be played in respectable numbers in all of these countries.

Reason 7: Perceived violent nature of the sport
Aussie rules is often known as No Rules Football, overseas. With only one umpire, and a field full of well built and strong men, the state leagues often had a problem with behind the play incidents. This combined with the strong physical nature of the game combined to create a sport that became violent as teams became more aware of tactics.

The introduction of many new rules by the AFL, including more field umpires and video technology, has meant that the game has lost a lot of the violent nature. However, many people have not seen a game of AFL since the introduction of the new rules, and they spread the word that the game is violent.

Reason 8: Football is not popular in Sydney
Sydney is often the incorrect answer to the trivia question, “What is the Capital of Australia?.” This is because when internationals think of Australia, they automatically associate it with Sydney.

AFL is not the most popular sport in Sydney.

Because of this, people coming to Australia often do not hear about AFL. The AFL is changing this scenario through the growth of AFL in Sydney, which could soon yield a second team.

Reason 9: Poor decisions
The AFL was started from an expanded VFL and has become the world governing body for AFL. Because of a continual association with the Victoria, and the fact that there are 10 Victorian AFL teams, the AFL is continually criticized by Victorians for trying to grow the game outside of Victoria.

It would have been much better for AFL if the SANFL, WAFL and VFL, and possibly the TFL and NTFL had each put teams towards a National Football League. This would have prevented Victorians holding the game back.

Reason 10: Community minded
AFL, throughout its 150 year history, has been mostly community focused. Because of this, the people in control of the game have not really focused on growing the game outside its traditional areas. It was only with the persuasion of Allen Aylett that the game was grown into the traditional rugby league areas of NSW and QLD.

In recent years it has been the fans, and expats, pushing the AFL to provide funding to grow the game overseas. The AFL has been pushing the growth of the game in NSW and QLD, and also is heavily involved in the community. The AFL helps football to be the leader in areas such as Aboriginal rights, disadvantaged people, and health and well-being.

This focus has meant that AFL has improved through its history, and the people who love it, love it more.

AFL has gotten better, and as a result, it will be much easier to spread the game overseas.

However, the game could have sacrificed some of this community mindedness in earlier years and focused on international development. The game would be improved by a much larger range of supporters and followers as a result.

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

The Crowd Says (366) | Page 1 of Comments

Michael C said | December 10th 2008 @ 8:07am | Report comment

LUck too – - –

Dally Messenger for example – - if he did not exist, would RL not exist, or at least not in the form of today in Sydney.

Had Dally Messenger remained in South Melbourne with his relatives, would RL have taken off as it did? Had Dally Messenger done as his brothers did, and stick with the ‘Australian’ game – - would Aust Footy have taken off in Sydney. Quite possibly so.

Why else did supposedly huge numbers flock to see him kick goals from over half way………because, there was an appetite for that sort of action – and RL at that time still packaged goal kicking. Messenger played the game in a manner that an Aust Footballer would, and why else was he pushing for a Aust footy and RL merger (Australeague) if he thought that RL was by far the superior game?

- – - – - had Sydney have been ‘won’ over – - then, some of the following wouldn’t have happened :

Aust Footy has a reasonable history in PNG – and was only really over taken through the ’80s as the VFL was broke and focussed on a national league with a diverse focus across to Perth, Sydney and Brisbane but with the power base in Melb. The NRL, with Murdoch on side, established a greater presence in and around QLD and flowing into PNG.

Aust Footy had a pretty good history in NZ – - and WWI had a major impact – - but, so too, that the Victorian ‘influence’ was more limited to the South Island, and the Sydney influence was greater in the North Island. As it turned out, the North Island grew as the more populous and more ‘influential’ of the islands (climate helps that).

So – - just in our local realm, had Sydney been ‘won over’, and had Australian Footy been able to continue it’s ‘Australasian’ trajectory that HAD been established in the late 1800s – - then, who knows.

Reply
Millster said | December 10th 2008 @ 8:21am | Report comment

The pompousness and hyperbole in this article is sickening.

Strenuous objections as I read through a second time:

1. Any attempt at masking totally biased subjective opinions in numerical scales is STRICTLY NOT an analysis. That said I do give this article a “faster-higher-stronger index” of nil nil nil.

2. The purported difficulty of learning AFL skills over any other sports skills is presumptuous the extreme. And breathtakingly arrogant. And simply wrong.

3. The article at times uses the term ‘football properly – as shorthand for the game known as association football or soccer – but mostly uses it in a manner which is becoming rapidly culturally antequated – to describe AFL. I note that this is against the convention on this site and the regular editing decisions of the moderators.

4. Many of the specific points are highly debateable, eg:

- Australia may not be a cultural hub at one level, however a good weight of our expats are industry and media leaders who should be able to give a degree of momentum and ‘market weight’ globally to any sport with merit. Its not as if other things that symbolise Australian culture are not out there in the global consciousness

- Australia is absolutely an economic hub, the 12th biggest economy in the world, a G20 member, a major APEC member, almost equal to all the ASEAN nations put together, and a strategically critical provider of resources to all major powers

- People do not commonly travel from Europe or Asia to the USA to watch baseball yet it has globally known teams, cable TV coverage on major global channels, numerous secondary leagues in various continents, and a world-wide brand awareness. In this world of communications, globalisation, live/streaming content, merchandise, etc bleating about geography is admitting to an abject lack of imagination and endeavour.

- I have never heard this point about WW1 before and my instinct is to be enormously sceptical of it. It defies simple logic.

- Violence in sport cannot possibly be an issue in an age where combat sports (UFC, K1 etc) have seen an unprecendented global rise, where NFL is the largest league by attendance in the world, and where broader media/entertainment options contain frequent graphic violence. Also, if anything, with stricter apcation of rules combined with more apparent diving/milking by AFL players the game is choosing to be softer than it used to be and losing this marketing edge.

- AFL IS popular in Sydney. It is popular as one of 3-4 codes in that market, all of which get 15-30 thousand supporters to a decent game. It doesnt have the unnatural myopic monocultural following that it enjoys in its southern stronghold but most here would argue the problem is with its overemphasis in Melbourne not its underemphasis in Sydney.

- All codes have administrators who make good and bad decisions, and all codes have geographic and historical legacies. Weak argument. And an issue that could be argued to be as much a strength for AFL as a weakness. In fact I can’t see a relevant point in this at all.

- AFL is ‘community minded’ because that is all it has, and also because it has momentum in its marketing hype around this issue (not the least of which, because this differentiates it from the ownership models of football and NRL).

- Finally it is impossible for you to argue that AFL has ‘gotten better’. It has no external reference point against which this could possibly be judged. It is one closed insular professional league, and what is more it has a set of socialist levelling devices between seasons (drafts and salary caps most obviously) which are certtainly not aimed at raising the levels of the best, and rather serve to re-level the comp by making sure the best in fact dont get too far ahead of the worst. One has no basis whatsoever to assess whether the game is improving, stable, or eroding down.

Bottom line for me is that AFL is a great niche sport in the Australian landscape and an idiosyncratic part of the Australian culture which I enjoy. None of what I’ve written above is intended to indicate that I am anti-AFL. But what I am absolutely anti is this kind of article and the types of biases, prejudices, blinkered views and puffery that underpins it.

Reason 11: Because hard core AFL fans do not have a realistic perspective on their game, and live predominantly in environments where they are unlikely to gain that anytime soon.

Reply
Michael C said | December 10th 2008 @ 8:34am | Report comment

Millster – I’m most disappointed with you.

3. The article at times uses the term ‘football properly – as shorthand for the game known as association football or soccer – but mostly uses it in a manner which is becoming rapidly culturally antequated – to describe AFL. I note that this is against the convention on this site and the regular editing decisions of the moderators.

Get you hand off it.

That’s childish in the extreme.

This article is on the AFL thread.

WHere FOOTBALL is FOOTBALL. DOn’t like it???? Go crying back to your socca thread.

Talk about inflammatory crap dressed in sheeps clothing………..

we all know that ‘Association Football’ is fine to be called football where it is the A. dominant code or B. only code. In the Olympics it is the ONLY ‘football’ competition, so, that’s fine. But calling it Soccer IS NOT WRONG. And on an AFL thread with references to many different football codes – - there’s certainly nothing wrong with using the CORRECT term “Association Football” or the unambiguous reference of ‘soccer’.

The website is in English language – - and freely available – - and by far and away, in the English speaking world, soccer is a more common usage than ‘football’ when referring to Association Football. i.e. USA, Canada, NZ, Australia outside of Sydney, Ireland. compared to England, and maybe Scotland and Wales if you call them English speaking!!!! I know that’s a stretch;-)

—–

btw – violence aspect of AFL WAS a major marketing element (for god knows what reason) back in the 80s. Many in the US via ESPN developed an impression of the game very much based on that. A reasonably inaccurate impression. ANd certainly much less accurate than the modern reality – - however, if you browse through the websites of many of the US Aust football clubs – you’ll note that many have explicit efforts at effectively watering down that outdate ‘image’.

Reply
Forgetmenot said | December 10th 2008 @ 8:39am | Report comment

Millster,

The article was an attempt at looking at the impact different factors have had, and continue to have on the growth of football internationally. Not all of these reasons have had equal impact.
You make think there are other reasons, as in number 11. I think number 11 could be true, as the people who play the sport often aren’t the best ones to market it in new areas. It is one of the reasons that the AFL has now hired a Sydney based marketing group to market football in Sydney.

Reply
Michael C said | December 10th 2008 @ 8:47am | Report comment

Forgetmenot

I hope that Sydney based marketing group isn’t the same one that stuck a Canberra Raiders player celebration picture on Penrith Panthers marketing material!!! They might suffer Sydney football confusion syndrome (SFCS), and stick Clint Bolton instead of Craig Bolton’s face up on a billboard…..

Reply
Forgetmenot said | December 10th 2008 @ 8:52am | Report comment

Michael C

I was just hoping it wasnt a Melbourne agency with a Sydney office. But yes that SFCS really does need to be diagnosed soon. Perhaps a topic called “The Rest of Australia” in Sydney high schools.

Reply
Millster said | December 10th 2008 @ 9:00am | Report comment

MC – as evidenced by the strength of my opening line, I wasn’t trying to dress anything in sheeps clothing.

Further, the original article was inflamatory to the point of ridiculousness and my response was simply following suit.

On the use of the term football, while its not an issue that I’d die in a ditch over (mainly because I can see very rapid evolution in common parlance in the direction I want, so don’t need to mount some linguistic insurgency), I thoroughly disagree. On a national site, rather than a Melbourne site, most people would assume the word football to mean “soccer”. And more pointedly, again, that is the convention adopted on this particular site and there is frequent evidence of moderator editing consistent with this convention. To not follow it is therefore to make some dogmatic point, and that, I would argue, is what is childish.

On violence, without a strong physical aspect, the AFL is in no-mans-land. Both as a somewhat-fan and as an experienced business person I cannot help but think that it is a grave mistake for the game to try and dey this side of it. I certainly preferred the AFL of the 80′s and early 90′s to the limp-wristed and over-policed stuff we see today (who can forget Ablett clothes-lining Don Pyke in the 92 GF about a second after the first siren went, and some of the biff the year before between Brereton and Jackovich)

Reply
Millster said | December 10th 2008 @ 9:16am | Report comment

On a positive note MC I am somewhat chuffed that the only thing you seem to disagree with in my long and strong response is the semantic (and to me not top priority) issue of the use of the word ‘football’.

Reply
True Tah said | December 10th 2008 @ 9:17am | Report comment

Millster,

re: per WW1 – I can talk with some authority on South Africa and what happened there, strictly speaking it was not WW1 which saw the end of Australian Football in South Africa, but the events preceding it.

There were plenty of Australian gold miners who flocked to South Africa in the 1890s, following the discovery of gold at eGoli (or Johannesburg), and many of these would have been young men from Victorian goldfields, and hence there was an AFL presence there, which increased in the Boer War, as Australia sent over 10,000 men to fight there. However the Boer War ultimately proved to be the undoing of Australian Football in South Africa.

Prior to the Boer War, the Afrikaaners had no involvement in South African rugby at all, they were cattle farmers who wanted to get away from Imperial Britain, in fact it was far more popular amongst the black and coloured communities. In concentration camps, the Boer prisoners were introduced to rugby by English, NZ and Australian troops – the Afrikaaners saw a game which they could beat the English at (sort of similar to the reason why the Irish took up rugby) – in 1906, the first Springboks toured Europe with some success, and that was the clincher that really made the Afrikaaner take the game of rugby to heart.

Also I thought you worked for the Fed Govt (Dept of Defence maybe), yet you advise here that you’re an experienced businessman?

Reply
Michael C said | December 10th 2008 @ 9:26am | Report comment

Millster -

I have illustrated before that :

West Australia -Thewest.com.au in WA uses : Australian Rules, Soccer, Rugby League, Rugby Union

TheAustralian.news.com.au uses : AFL, Soccer, Rugby League, Rugby Union

South Aust – AdelaideNow (news.com.au\Adelaidenow) uses : AFL, basketball, soccer, cricket

Tasmania – themercury.com.au in Tassie users : AFL and doesn’t list soccer or football, ironically, the little ‘foxsports lives scores and stats central’ has soccer scores next to a ‘football’ label, but for ‘more’ lists ‘soccer’ rather than ‘football’.

Sydney – news.com.au/DailyTelegraph uses : NRL, AFL, Rugby, Soccer

Sydney – SMH.com.au uses : AFL, Football, NRL, Union

Brissie – news.com.au/CourierMail uses : NRL, AFL, Rugby Union, Soccer

Canberra – canberratimes.com.au uses : AFL, soccer, Rugby League

GOld Coast – Goldcoast.com.au uses : NRL, AFL, Rugby, Soccer

Melb – TheAge.com.au uses : AFL, soccer, NRL, Union

Melb – news.com.au/heraldsun uses : AFL, soccer, Rugby League, Rugby Union

Albury/Wodonga – bordermail.com.au uses : AFL, soccer

ninemsn.com.au uses : AFL, football, rugby league, union

I find it hard to sustain your comment :
On a national site, rather than a Melbourne site, most people would assume the word football to mean “soccer”.

of the above sample, only 2 use ‘football’………..that suggests that outside of the SMH and a specific sydney agenda reflected in the SYdney driven ninemsn.com.au as well – - that you’re actually self defeating………….for a national site, the use of ‘soccer’ is actually MOST appropriate.

btw – editorial input thus far HAS been somewhat disappointing, and I too noticed that they had either missed the boat on this article (much to you apparent disappointing ………….are you writing a complaint??), or, are relaxing their stance on sports specific threads.

————-

look, I don’t mind a sports interview talking to a Rugby player who states “I’m really enjoying my football at the moment”. What, do you want the interview to correct him “THat’d be ‘rugby’, mate, not ‘football’”????

That my dear sir is childish.

SO, keep this arcane crusade to the ‘soccer’ (wrongly titled ‘football’) tab.

If theRoar wishes, they can continue on the path that they have trod a little – - and if they edit ‘football’ on the AFL thread everytime to ‘AFL’, they’ll very quickly end up being nationally boycotted by anyone with an AFL interest……(although, they haven’t proven overly popular thus far at any rate!!!).

Reply

More Comments »

Have Your Say

Explore:: AFL, AFL grand final, American Football, ARL, Gaelic football, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States, WAFL

Ten reasons for poor international AFL growth

Related coverage

Get a daily afl email

The Crowd Says (366) | Page 1 of Comments

Have Your Say

AFL articles