AFL to capture Sydney’s sporting hearts? Not likely

Roar Guru

By Adam_Santarossa, 6 Jul 2009 Adam Santarossa is a Roar Guru

Tagged:: AFL, AFL expansion, NRL

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The sporting war between the NRL and the AFL is in full swing, with the AFL surging into the east coast with a promise of winning the hearts of Sydney’s sporting fans.

But from this weekends example, it is quite clear the AFL are kidding themselves if they want to win the war.

The AFL had potentially the biggest military weapon at their disposal and decided to let it fester on the sidelines.

The weekend’s epic St Kilda v Geelong clash was the perfect vehicle to capture non-AFL sporting fans in Sydney.

Two teams undefeated to this point in the season (which is a first in the AFL), who stood at 85-all with just 60 seconds remaining in a great match…and yet it was not broadcast on free-to-air television in Sydney. And even those with Foxtel may have struggled to find it on the reserve foxsports channel, Channel 518.

They missed a game that was the best regular season game in over ten years and a game that would have showcased the highest quality of skills and the brilliance of Ablett, Riewoldt, Selwood, Gardiner and Bartell to non AFL fans.

The AFL had a perfect lead in to the St Kilda-Geelong game as well with the Sydney v North Melbourne game concluding at 3.15pm, only three minutes after the St Kilda-Geelong game had begun.

Not only would have most AFL fans watching the previous game had stayed onto watch, but it would have almost certainly grabbed the casual sporting and NRL fans waiting patiently till 4pm for Nine’s Rugby League coverage to begin.

You could even argue that had the NRL fans indeed tuned in, given the quality of the 1st half from both St Kilda and Geelong, those fans may have just stuck around.

But it was not to be.

Instead they witnessed a gripping 38-34 game between Penrith and Parramatta, and ironically perhaps picked up a few AFL fans who had nothing better to watch in the process.

What is also ironic is that the AFL is attempting to win over the Western Sydney market, a low socio-economic area of Sydney, which indicates many can not afford such luxury’s as Foxtel and Austar and are confined to free-to-air television for their sporting fix.

Furthermore, the AFL’s spurning of AFL fans in Sydney is all on the back of the NRL’s record television audience in Melbourne for Origin 1, and a record crowd for an NRL game in Perth in the recent South Sydney-Melbourne Storm fixture.

It is early days in a war that will only intensify as the AFL get closer to introducing teams on the East Coast and in particular Western Sydney, but it is a war that the NRL is winning.

And the AFL has only got themselves to blame!

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The Crowd Says (262) | Page 1 of Comments

Kento said | July 6th 2009 @ 8:42am | Report comment

I couldn’t agree more with this.

I’m not a big AFL fan – I just don’t ‘see’ the patterns and beauty of the sport. But that’s not to say that i don’t think it’s there (heck, most of Australia can’t be wrong)…I’ve just never been able to pick it up.

So I was looking forward to seeing this match. I would see the best of AFL and no-doubt witness the beauty of the game.

But I couldn’t believe it when they were showing an average Swans match instead of the biggest match in years. Crazy!

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Michael C said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:03am | Report comment

Actually – the AFL had done a pretty good job to work with Foxtel and Ch.7 to get the game on live into Victoria, having to push it back an hour and having found the way to the ‘too hard basket’ in trying to get the venue switched to the MCG. With all the things going on – - it’s fair to say that busting a gut with Ch.7 in Sydney to get a Sunday double header might well have been in the too hard basket too.

I couldn’t imagine that the AFL wouldn’t have looked into it. They aren’t stupid – - they just aren’t all powerful. THe obvious example of which has been the little unneeded distraction of the Docklands AC-DC stand-off.

If the Geel vs StK game happened in absolutely isolation – probably it would’ve been at the MCG, 310 pm, the Swans brought forward a tad to avoid overlap and the game live around the nation. Alas – - it’s not that simple.

btw – NRL SoO ‘record’ viewing in Melb – isn’t really an issue with respect to H&A regular season matches. That hardly comes into the equation of the regular season ‘war’ – - it’d be like counting Socceroos or Wallabies matches………that’s a different marketplace. If it were viewership figures for Melb Storm in a head to head timeslot – - that’d be something to write home about. As it was – Storm, 9K attendance on Saturday about sums it up. (and yep, Swans 22K was below par for them too).

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Jake said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment

The only problem with the article above is you failed to mention that the Super League is shown from 2pm to 4pm on a Sunday on Channel 9 and Fox has a 2pm game as well. The AFL will find it hard to pull in rugby league viewers when it is up against free to air Rugby League from 2pm to 6pm on a Sunday. Best bet is Saturday afternoon for AFL. At least then in Sydney they won’t be competing against the other codes.

I wish the AFL all the best in western Sydney. But I think they will be wasting money and the whole expirement could back fire on them down the track. What will happen when they have no money left to protect their heartlands from the 2 Rugby Codes and Football?

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Rodney McDonell said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:08am | Report comment

I’m not a huge AFL fan. Infact, i’m down right insanely pro NRL , which is saying something having grown up in an AFL hotbed.

However, you’d be pressed hard to find anyone that would not have appreicated the skills last night. For the last two quaters, which were the only ones I’d seen, there was some big hits, fast exchanges of the ball between the hands, frantic play and peices of individual brilliance. All those aspects are quite easily transferable from one sports code to another. In fact, if you were to break it down, and if you were to capture a peice of rugby league, where the ball is in open play, it would look very much like patches of last nights AFL game. All those things i’d mentioned before are there.

Great game.

Having said that, i wont go out of my way to watch another. What keeps me coming back to league is my history with it. With the teams. It’s about the drama now. It’s about one team getting up and another getting hammered. It waht keeps me coming bakc for me. Like the characters in a day time soap. There are the good guys and the bad guys. We continue to stay fixated to this series because it’s drama, but it’s real.

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Redb said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:09am | Report comment

I think you’ll find week to week TV scheduling is up to the TV station, the AFL would have had no ability to change the telecast of this game into Sydney especially when a Swans game was being played. There would have been a far greater outcry if the Swans game was bounced by a game between two Vic teams.

It’s a shame Sydney fans missed out on St Kilda v Geelong. But then again Sydney based fans have missed out on superior quality AFL games for 5-6 years with the Swans ugly football style.

What if the players of Geelong or St Kilda played for Sydney these last few years? What if the Swans were 13 zip – how would the sporting interest barometer look in Sydney for AFL then? I would have been over-hyped the other way with people suggesting the AFL will take over Sydney, which is rubbish.

RL Origin is a great contest and worthy event on the sporting calendar, Melbournians will watch elite sport in other codes, especially a TV friendly sport like RL. However, Storm only got 9,000 to their game on Saturday night in Melbourne, again after heavy TV promotion and with a full list playing. Despite the hype and fireworks the ‘gameplay’ does not stack up live against AFL football. It never will.

If your in doubt about which game gets the heartbeat of Melbourne going check out the replay of the St Kilda – Geelong game. Unbeleivable atmosphere and game tempo. The AFL maybe slipping in Sydney as the Swans fade but the NRL is hardly going to bump the titan clubs of AFL off in Melbourne – that is pure fantasy.

Sydney will always jump to the next bandwagon anyway such is its fickle nature. If Western Sydney wins a few games, get its marketing and communtity involvement right, who knows what fans it will attract. The Swans brand has matured.

I think the AFL has to realise Sydney may never fully take to the game, but if 20% like it, watch it, go to games, fine.

Redb

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sheek said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:13am | Report comment

The AFL have the largest war chest of any football code in Australia.

They can most probably afford to “throw away” several tens of millions of dollars establishing a team in Western Sydney, & succeed. Money talks… eventually.

Besides, most humans are like sheep. If AFL establishes itself in Western Sydney, sports fans will jump aboard, whether they really like the game or not. Eventually they’ll find a way to love AFL. No-one wants to be a social outcast.

Besides, IMHO rugby union has lost the plot. They’ve slipped a long way behind, & have the devil’s job reclaiming any sort of equality with the other 3 footy codes.

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Redb said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:25am | Report comment

Sheek,

Correct.

I like to put it in terms of bases. NRL has Sydney, AFL has Melbourne. – that will never change. The single reason alone in simple terms is history as Rodney suggests above, Sydney NRL and Melbourne AFL clubs have ‘muscle memory’ on an emotional level and it ranges over multiple generations. There are swing voters who are up for grabs in times of success, bandwagon,etc.

back to bases -

Sydney NRL clubs have 110,000 members.
Melbourne AFL clubs have 400,000 members.

Members go to games, watch their club on TV, buy merchandise.

In terms of sustainability of revenue, AFL week to week gets bigger ratings in Melbourne than NRL gets in Sydney.

This base will continue to feed growth and expansion of the AFL. NRL will also grow and expand but the bigger base puts the AFL in a better short, medium and long term position. That certainly does not mean the NRL wont still be around forever, especially in Sydney.

Redb

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Rodney McDonell said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:29am | Report comment

Let us all live in fact.

NRL is not going to change the relationship and culture of AFL to Melbournians. Likewise, the AFL is not going to do the same to those of Sydney siders or QLDers. All you can do is capture a niche in the sporting fanatic. Those guys will watch anything. Further more, you can provide blockbusters that more people will watch, like a Sydney derby.

Any incursion into the outer lands of these codes won’t bring huge changes to grass roots level. It will however bring in money and exposure. But it wont make a long term change to the core culture of the area.

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sheek said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:55am | Report comment

Rodney,

Beware Queenslanders are amenable to AFL than NSWmen.

Historically, it was a close run thing back in the 1890s for rugby union to win out against Australian football in Brisbane. Secondly, many Vics, as well as croweaters & sandgropers, move to Qld to live. So there is a much more compliant market than Sydney. Especially the SE corner of Qld – Brisbane & Gold Coast.

Rugby league will remain strong in NSW & Qld, but watch out for football/soccer. Rugby union will become a marginalised game in Australia (a brutal truth that saddens me).

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Rodney McDonell said | July 6th 2009 @ 10:05am | Report comment

I’m not talking about the people. I’m talking about the culture. The culture is predominately rugby leauge and although Union might not rate, it holds a very important and almost unmoveable place in the culture of both these cities. Rugby leauge fans no all too well the influence of Union official in high places. AFL fans might not even be able to comprehand what the Union is capable of and have done in the past.

Both rugby league and Union amase great numbers in the media, politics and in the rural councils. Remember, QLD is far more rural than NSWRL, so any incursion is actually going to be harder. One team in a state the size of QLD isnot going to make much of a difference. Especially two teams that geographically are next door to each other.

Think about how much money the AFL is pouring into these clubs. They’re going to see very little returns, in fact, I’d predict none in the first ten years of both clubs.

I know the history of AFL v RU in NSW and QLD. Why don’t we go back to 1906->1908. RU was on the decline in a shocking way and the VFL/Aussie Rules brigade were making so much headway that they were probably on par with the Union at the time. Then came professional rugby league and the arguement was settled in one season. The culture prevailed. People were fed up with Union, but came back to a product that they could understand and that they knew. I.e When rugby league was introduced, it converted the clubs and the districts to a new game. Peopel were still connected to the clubs. What essentially happened was that their home town/suburb club went from playing RU (a declining spectator sport) to RL (a much faster, skillfull style sport). The core aspect is that, not that the game was better than VFL, but that it was better than RU and at least on par with the VFL but also and most importantly that their club was playing good foodball. Their club. The club they have invested so much time. A club they might have followed since childhood. It’s that culture which you can’t destroy. All you can do is provide an laternative, but people love their current clubs and you wont take that away.

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