By Adrian Musolino
January 25th 2009 @ 3:51am
Is Australia the sporting capital of the world?
Lance Armstrong and his lycra clad buddies are in Adelaide, Federer and co. are in Melbourne, the Aussie cricketers are touring the nation, as the A-League is coming down to a thrilling conclusion, and the AFL and rugby folk gear up for another season.
Plenty to keep us entertained. So is Australia the sporting capital of the world?
We’ve all heard the expression “Melbourne. The Sporting Capital of the World.”
Forget it!
In many ways London has more of a right to the title with thirteen professional football clubs, Wembley stadium which has staged a World Cup final, Wimbledon, Twickenham, Lord’s and its third Summer Olympics around the corner, and yes I know London’s population is larger than Melbourne’s but London has a larger percentage of the major sporting events in the UK than Melbourne has in Australia.
While it may be the hub of the AFL, if we focused only on the Victorian capital we would ignore the Tour Down Under, the SCG, the NSW versus Queensland State of Origin rivalry and the city which actually first attracted a Grand Prix down under, Adelaide.
So, with Australia Day around the corner, let’s forget the city concept and expand slightly to a national platform and how we compare against other nations.
The USA is an obvious competitor.
Its own sporting creations are huge with a variety of codes sharing the limelight, the likes of the NBA, MLB, NFL etc plus the various college competitions.
Like Australia, it has sports on the fringes, a useful example being Major League Soccer that, like the A-League, has a difficult task in competing against the indigenous football codes.
However, Australia has a better record of turning major international sporting events into a success than the USA, which tends to be very introverted when it comes to sport and how it views the rest of the world. In other words, considering our relative population, we have a better appreciation and following of events and sports played outside our homeland, surely a sign of a nations obsession with sport.
For example, we have a better record of enticing and maintaining global sports to our shores such as motorsport and cycling – the Tour Down Under is the only event outside Europe on the UCI Pro Tour.
What about the UK with the most popular domestic league around the world, the EPL, and the various events in its capital London?
Unlike in the USA and Australia, there is not the variety of codes that share the limelight with the EPL and football in general dominating. For example, the basketball league in the UK, the BBL struggles a lot more than our version of the game does.
As the UK prepares for its Olympics and with so much government funding being invested into various stadiums and programs, the UK will only grow as a sporting nation as their performance at Beijing indicated, and that investment filters down to strengthen local competitions, development and eventually fanfare.
So are we the sporting capital of the world?
Perhaps.
It may be a futile exercise but it does provide an interesting comparison.
This Australia Day we should be thankful for the variety of our sporting palette. It might just be the best in the world.
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Sam said | January 25th 2009 @ 7:50am | Report comment
Adrian
I think you will be upsetting a few Victorians here, but who cares
In terms of sporting capital it depends how you look at it. We are maybe a sporting events capital. In terms of week to week competition the Americans and Europeans kick our butts. Apart from AFL the crowds are poor in Australia. Would like to see both a-league, Super 14 and NRL improve before this happens.
One thing for sure is we have a lot of diversity. I believe there are a good 15-20 sports which are well supported.
Dave said | January 25th 2009 @ 7:53am | Report comment
Adrian
“However, Australia has a better record of turning major international sporting events into a success than the USA, which tends to be very introverted when it comes to sport and how it views the rest of the world”
They did a great job of the 1994 World Cup where games were spread to all corners of the country and in over 60 matches the games averaged 68,000 spectators. A record for the World Cup. Also they did a terrific job with the Womens WC a few years later when over 100,000 saw the USA beat China in the final.
Maria said | January 25th 2009 @ 9:34am | Report comment
futile indeed…
Forgetmenot said | January 25th 2009 @ 10:16am | Report comment
Im going to say yes we are the sporting capital country of the world. And with that Melbourne is the capital city of the sporting capital of the world.
You must also take into account the cities record of hosting successful and memorable events. In this melbourne officially comes out on top: http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/166531/melbourne-retains-title-as-ultimate-sports-city
Also to consider why Australia is the sporting capital is how well it does at the Olympics. Yes we dont win, but this isnt about the placementat the Olympics as such. When someone visits Australia itself they notice the lifestyle which allows us to win so many medals per capita.
Michael C said | February 11th 2010 @ 3:24pm | Report comment
on a global scale of soccer leagues – the A-League ranks in the top 20!!!! Not bad for a 3rd/4th in line domestic league in this country.
ON a relative scale –
allowing for the youth of Australia, and the domestic population base – - we stand very, very well and have 2 Olympic City’s, along with 1 of 4 Tennis Grand Slams and 1 of a dozen of so F1 GPs and likewise MotoGP’s etc,
and to boot – we also have our own indigenous footy code that goes alright.
On the relative scale as well – you gotta factor in the relative isolation – - it’s far, far easier in the UK for example to turn it into a big business with Europe on their doorstep.
The kinda fair comparison for Australia to benchmark with is Canada but even Canada has the 330 million (or however many) Americans just south of the border.
Dan said | January 25th 2009 @ 10:28am | Report comment
Adrian: “In many ways London has more of a right to the title with thirteen professional football clubs…”
13 football clubs isn’t that big a deal given London’s size. Just look at Sydney – a quarter of the population, but supports 12 professional football clubs (9 NRL teams, an AFL team, a Rugby Union team, and a soccer team).
Adrian Musolino said | January 25th 2009 @ 10:52am | Report comment
Dan, the 13 football clubs in London are soccer clubs only, I didn’t include Rugby teams etc.
Dan said | January 25th 2009 @ 11:10am | Report comment
Nevertheless. It’s a city with more people than the whole of Australia and it still doesn’t support as many codes as Australia’s 2 major cities. But as you say things are more split through Aus than in England; Melbourne has a tonne of international sporting events, but a fair bit goes to Sydney as well (2000 Olympics, 2003 RWC Final etc), so when compared overall combining Sydney and Melbourne alone makes as more a sporting capital I think.
Daniel King said | February 11th 2010 @ 2:49pm | Report comment
Last time i looked the population of London was around 8,500,000. London supports 13 pro football teams, four pro rugby teams and a rugby league team. Per capita i would say the average support is greater in London than the average support per capita in Sydney, but only just.
John Ryan said | February 11th 2010 @ 4:46pm | Report comment
Whats the Population of Greater London think its close (though I could be wrong)to 13 mil
Daniel King said | February 11th 2010 @ 6:53pm | Report comment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London
It is referenced.
Kettles said | January 25th 2009 @ 12:26pm | Report comment
Melbourne is the sporting capital of the world.End of.
Sam said | January 25th 2009 @ 12:45pm | Report comment
London would have one rugby league team at most. It is London Broncos (although don’t know if they are still around). Rugby League is a very Northern English sport. There would be at least a few Rugby Union teams.
Still:
Wembley – home of football
Wimbeldon – home of tennis
Twickenham – home of rugby
Lords – home of cricket
is just about impossible to beat.
Michael C said | February 11th 2010 @ 3:40pm | Report comment
however – the MCG is the site of the first official test match in 1877 – - it is hallowed turf in the cricket world,
Melbourne is the home of the ashes urn, (Sunbury lays claim) and was presented by a group of Melbourne Women when England tourned in 1882/83.
Albert Park is a famous Grand Prix circuit and the Australian home of such, dating back to the Bradham days,
Kooyong – alas, no longer used and the Aust Open is no longer a grass court tourney —– mores the shame,
Bathurst (NSW) is a world reknowned Race track,
Bell’s Beach,…..famous would over,
we do alright
and the MCG doubles up as the first Sth Hemisphere Olympic Stadium, and doubles more than doubles as the home of Australian Football – - in addition to it’s cricket role.
For a country barely over 200 years old and born from the British Empire ruled by London – - Australia is going alright on any relative scale,…..and does okay in real terms too.
Realist said | February 11th 2010 @ 4:02pm | Report comment
Don’t forget about Lang Park, which is the world’s premier rugby league stadium and the spiritual home of Queensland Rugby League.
The Australian Ice Hockey competition is one of the oldest in the world, too.
Siva Samoa said | February 11th 2010 @ 4:15pm | Report comment
Is that why the broncos paid rent to play at suncorp stadium ?
John Ryan said | February 11th 2010 @ 4:48pm | Report comment
Another day another stupid statement by PW or Sam or Siva just how many alias,s do you have Poly
Marco said | January 25th 2009 @ 8:27pm | Report comment
I’ll only believe we are the sporting capital of the world once we are capable of hosting the largest sporting event in the world.
josh said | January 25th 2009 @ 10:21pm | Report comment
Nice article always a good read adrian
Dan said | January 25th 2009 @ 10:29pm | Report comment
I’d argue that those titles aren’t as weighty as they seem tbh. They have the sites, but lack a significant contingent of british names in any “champions” category (the RWC was really the last great thing the brits did)
Think about it:
Wembly is the “official” Home of football, but the national team suck and most people would say Brazil is the real/spiritual home.
Wimbeldon – yeah, home of tennis, but the English themselves are and have been conspicuously absent in its title holders for a long long time.
Twickenham – again, is the “official” home of rugby, but New Zealand is pretty much universally regarded as the real/spiritual home.
Lords – again, home of cricket, but it lacks any sort of intimidation factor due to the ineptitude of the British national side.
What I’m trying to say I guess is that being the official “home of this or that” doesn’t matter much when no one respects you in that particular category.
Daniel King said | February 11th 2010 @ 2:56pm | Report comment
1. The English soccer team doesn’t ’suck’, it is ranked 9 in the world and had one of the best world cup qualifying records of all the euro nations last year and are third in the betting to win the world cup this year…. at TABSportsbet.
2. Just because English individuals don’t win at tennis, or England isn’t the best rugby team or our cricket team isn’t the best only makes the argument that Melbourne is the home of sport ridiculous.
Aussies are not great at tennis at the moment, not that great at rugby (p.s. don’t mention rugby in Melbourne, you may as well speak Russian), Aussie cricket team isn’t the best at the moment (well, yeah at ODI’s) and your football team, well….. least said the better.
Realist said | February 11th 2010 @ 4:06pm | Report comment
I suppose you could say England is the sporting capital of the world because it invented sports like cricket, rugby league, rugby union, soccer, table tennis, etc.
Jerry said | January 26th 2009 @ 6:12am | Report comment
Dan – by that standard you can’t use Melbourne hosting events as a mark of a sporting capital – I mean the Wallabies haven’t set the world on fire in the last 8 years, the Socceroos are football also rans, there’s no genuine Aussie contenders in Tennis since Hewett lost his form and Webber’s an also ran in F1. So it’s basically cricket?
Dan said | January 26th 2009 @ 9:40am | Report comment
Jerry,
My point was more that the titles alone mean very little. Having “the home of football, rugby etc” isn’t relavent unless there’s something real to back it up from the home grown talent. And when there’s not, It’s only the sporting events themselves that matter, and by that standard Australia more than holds its own against England. And yes, our own lack of success brings us into contrast, but we’re still an incredibly successful Olympic nation considering our population (we still beat the English in Beijing if you take out all the Welsh and Scottish gold medals), and our dominance in Cricket, though waning, is something that the English haven’t achieved in living memory.
Jerry said | January 26th 2009 @ 11:04am | Report comment
Well, I’d argue the history and pedigree of the likes of Twickenham, Wembley and Lords have a special significance regardless of the performance of the English national teams.
On the subject of sporting events If you take the entire country of Australia weighed up against London, perhaps it does match in terms of events. If you include the entirety of England (let alone the entire UK) I don’t think you can really argue that Australia matches England in terms of sporting events.
Brett said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:45pm | Report comment
Adrian, you’re neglecting that the NSW-centric NRL has played their vaunted NSW-QLD state of origin matches in Melbourne. Granted, it cannot compete with London on the world scale, but for a little place with the population of most countries’ smaller cities, Melbourne does just fine.
Jaredsbro said | January 26th 2009 @ 4:39pm | Report comment
Again nother gem thread/topic, man we’re really lucky here in this ‘community’.
Yes Adrian we should all be proud of where Aussie stacks up in the grand scheme of everything, but you can’t use an entire country as a sporting locality, clearly this spits in the face of research which suggests that localities, ie cities are now the best products when it comes to sporting events. You can’t cross an entire country like Australia, not properly in a week or a fortnight, which is about as long as sports tourists stay in a particular locality, so it’s just bad logistics, bad marketing. People want to invest in a place as well as a tournie or something, you can’t consume Aus like you can Sydney say!
London first (Olympics as already stated, FA Cup, usually five or six RU tests, three or four Cricket tests/ ODIs, Challenge Cup, Wimbledon)
New York second (US Open tennis, Yankees v. Mets [actually one of the only true Baseball derbies) something like four Superbowls/ MLB All Stars/ billions of World Series, many of which ended 4-3, not as common as you’d think!)
Sydney third (Sydney to Hobart, NRL Grand Final, mandatory SOO ‘final’ RWC 2003 Final/S-Final/ Q-Finals 2x A-League finals, which I’ve heard were nothing short of delerium-inducing, Naughties first Olympics: throw in just how congested the Sydney sporting economy is with two codes that seem to mean very little to Southern Australians but calling these events might be stretching it. Add to that four or five RU tests, three Cricket matches and at least one of the annual BBall/ Netball tests)
Melbourne fourth (Aussie Open, F1, AFL grand final + International Rules BB every two-three years, pretty much always a Netball and a BBall Test. Boxing Day Tests, occasional SOO: less overall than Sydney but packing far more punch per square inch as few other than certain Aussies are interested in many of Sydney’s sporting events)
Dubai fifth: Maybe would be fourth if Golf in the Emirates was actually a major or ‘major’ tournament (2x Golf, Invitational Tennis, Rugby Sevens series/ World Cup, other friendlies or competitive matches, including Cricket tournies, Soccer internationals, RU tests…anything else we can think of, as it seems to be a hub of sporting interest and there’s heaps of sporting institutes there…
Not sure beyond that
But all of these cities have culture, locality and a certain cosmopolitian vibe which is what attracts major events in the first place
Pauly Walnuts said | January 27th 2009 @ 7:14pm | Report comment
NO. Plain and simple, to think otherwise is folly.
tim said | April 25th 2009 @ 11:21pm | Report comment
London wins hands down-all of its major sporting events,including EPL fixtures, attract massive world-wide interest.
Not sure if Sydney or Melbourne would even be contenders- just shows our local bias- there would be several cities in the world with bigger sporting profiles- eg Paris and some other European cities, some Nth American cities, Rio,Dubai.
Jaredsbro,the AFL grand final and the International Rules series are local events that get very little international or even Australia-wide attention. Could also argue that the interest in cricket tests is limited to test playing nations- and theres only about 8 or 9 or those (albiet one of them has over a billion people).
Tigerface said | July 10th 2009 @ 1:00pm | Report comment
“13 football clubs isn’t that big a deal given London’s size. Just look at Sydney – a quarter of the population, but supports 12 professional football clubs (9 NRL teams, an AFL team, a Rugby Union team, and a soccer team).”
Those 13 clubs all have their own ground and individual support…this is why London wins. Every major team in practically any sport has a spiritual home. The Poms are sickened by the idea of ground sharing and don’t have even a 10% of the financial problems in sport we tend to have.
Australia is way down the list. We think we are big players but we really, really aren’t. We are too busy hating other sports be really come together and do the business. Listen to AFL fans opposition to moving the season for the greatest show on earth: The World Cup. It’s absolutely ridiculous and we haven’t even got to the bitching that would happen over which city would host a WC final. Can you imagine.
Just as a side note….our WC bid is likely to be derailed by our media who loathe the sport and Google is a way too easy barometer of Australian attitudes.
Daniel King said | February 11th 2010 @ 2:58pm | Report comment
Hear hear mate. As a Pom i find it bizarre that Aussies spend so much time slagging other sports. Get on board brothers, they are great in their own way…. enjoy.
Punter said | February 11th 2010 @ 8:08pm | Report comment
How true this is, how can you even consider calling yourselves the greatest sporting nation without first hosting the greatest sporting event.
Realist said | February 11th 2010 @ 8:14pm | Report comment
Australians don’t consider the soccer world cup to be the “greatest sporting event”.
Punter said | February 11th 2010 @ 8:22pm | Report comment
I’m Australian & I do.
But then if you consider something the world’s greatest, you need to consider what the world thinks.
Daniel King said | February 11th 2010 @ 8:23pm | Report comment
1. Many Austrians don’t agree with you.
2. That is why you’ll never be considered the greatest sporting nation.
True Tah said | February 11th 2010 @ 7:24pm | Report comment
I would have thought Buenos Aires would have been the sporting capital of the world, it has more professional futbol teams than any other city in the world, and the Boca-River Plate rivalry is perhaps the biggest in the world. In the shadow of the futbol giant, Argentine rugby operates the best amateur rugby comp in the world. Argentina also produces plenty of fine tennis players, polo players, hockey players and basketball players.