South African batsman HM Amla makes runs as Australian bowler James Hopes follows his misfielded ball during the 4th One Day International cricket match between Australia and South Africa at the Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Monday, Jan. 26, 2009. AAP Image/Dave Hunt
I have my own theory on why the crowds stayed away from the ODI cricket match at the MCG the other night. And the nation’s new infatuation with Twenty20 bash and barge is only part of the story.
There is only so much the human body can take, not to mention our purse strings. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as too much of anything.
Sport has become like a Roman banquet, feast after feast after feast.
We gorge ourselves, disgorge ourselves, and gorge ourselves again. It’s the same for individual sports. I think we’re just getting tired of it all.
Plenty of quantity, but heck, where’s the quality?
The ODI was played just 2 or 3 days after the Twenty20 bash, which saw 60,000 fans flock to the ‘Gee’. After that feast, it was asking a lot for fans to return so soon afterwards to a lukewarm dessert.
Sporting organisations and stadia don’t exactly give tickets away these days. And they make sure while you’re at the ground, they extract maximum benefit from your dollar, charging you through the roof for drinks and food.
It’s called legalised extortion!
The entire cricket season has been disjointed. Frankly, it’s been poorly organised. It just goes to show that having plenty to offer doesn’t equate with quality, or desire for a sporting fan.
But it’s not just the cricket.
We’ve had the tennis Australian Open, Yachting’s Sydney to Hobart race, Cycling’s Tour de Australia, while the rugby in the northern hemisphere has continued unabated.
Not to mention the NFL play-offs.
The sporting fan is now selective about where and when he applies his emotional and financial commitment. We drift in and out as we choose.
Cricket Australia and Channel 9 might decide it’s time to draw a line through ODIs, but I reckon it would be the wrong diagnosis.
Get the season in proper, constructive order; give priority to each form in turn, instead of offering them as a mish-mash. Offer better and more affordable ticketing and replenishment pricing at stadia.
Also, Channel 9 can stop flogging every piece of merchandise or furniture they can think of! And stop treating the sporting fan like we’re idiots who will accept whatever trash is foisted upon us.
We humans are pretty stupid most of the time. Fortunately, we’re not stupid all the time.
Recommend this story.
The Turkey 10
The Turkey 10 teams have now been selected, as Wild Turkey Bourbon's sport sponsorship kicks into the next exciting phase.
Choose which side you're going to support and get in the running to win $2,500!
Simply visit Wild Turkey Australia on Facebook for your chance to win.
Find out more.
- Explore:
- Australian Open, Cricket, Tennis, Twenty20
February 10th 2010 @ 9:47am
hazza said | February 10th 2010 @ 9:47am | Report comment
The triangular series has been dying a slow and steady death. The big bash will accelerate this death. If cricket is about an ashes series played every 4 years then cricket has more problems than we first thought.
February 10th 2010 @ 10:28am
Republican said | February 10th 2010 @ 10:28am | Report comment
I totally agree with you Sheek.
I am extremely selective these days and in fact hardly follow sport at all albeit to deconstruct the many hypocricies that go hand in hand with the elite culture thereof. I would much prefer to watch my daughter play her codes of choice i.e Netball and Swimming until recently, or a local game of Footy at Manuka Oval and tend to be more interested in the arts than sport as I age.
The seasonal boudaries that once defined codes have been blurred to excess, due to an insatiable corporate type agenda to feed us more and more rubbish, which so many seem to digest in prosaic resignation. This condition exists beyond the realms of sport I may add.
Perhaps tele is actually now having a real impact on the cultural and tribal aspect of sport, i.e. attendance at live fixtures, since the ‘brands’ are now so generic and respective ‘products’ so contrived?
My philosophy is quality over quantity, the latter seemingly the rule these days.
Cheers
February 10th 2010 @ 10:49am
Phil said | February 10th 2010 @ 10:49am | Report comment
America is a country that is full of sport – Australia seriously has about 20% of what they offer and that is being generous – so that is not the problem, in my opinion. There is never enough sport as the TV contracts for NCAA, MLB, NFL, NBA will attest to.
Cricket has a personality crisis – it should work itself out soon – and yeah the Windies and Pakistan sucked – they would have had tougher games against Australia’s C team this year than those two jokers.
February 10th 2010 @ 11:28am
Republican said | February 10th 2010 @ 11:28am | Report comment
Phil
Perhaps Australia has the personality crisis?
This may well be integral to our continued search for identity in taking the plunge to becoming a republic with our changing sporting preferances just another indicator of this cultural shift.
We are reluctant to let go of old ways, maintaining those symbols i.e. the Union Jack in the corner of the flag and the very dated Australian anthem, denying somewhat that we are already more American than we are Brit and as such prefer their approach to all and sundry. Indeeed a large part of this country always did.
Call it Cricket if you must since this is simply part of the letting go process, but going the big bash T20 is far from cricket, it’s a whole new animal and more akin to Baseball – and don’t we just love it – well most of us it seems.
You know it makes sense!
‘Viva le Republique’
February 10th 2010 @ 11:58am
Androo said | February 10th 2010 @ 11:58am | Report comment
in the words of HG Nelson ‘too much sport isn’t enough’ and truer words have never been spoken. i don’t think the australian public is sick of sport at all. if we’ve had a gutfull of sport then you’d expect the afl and nrl to be shrinking in some manner. this isn’t the case as these leagues seem to be growing in support and media profile with each season. their respective supporters can’t get enough. they are the true titans of the sports landscape here and are slowly dwarfing everything else including cricket.
plus we all know pakistan and west indies are crap on and off the field. it’s really only england, south africa, india and perhaps new zealand that matter. who cares about the rest. lack of crowds helps prove this point a bit.
phil’s right but, cricket has a self-inflicted triple-personality crisis. CA and the oz media cling to the past and try to resist the future. unlike the 1970′s there was no visionary in this country who could see the future but there were plenty in india who could and now their power is immeasurable. sadly a dismissive CA was fixated on tests and onedays and saw T20 as a bit of slap and giggle. Channel 9 saw T20 as a bit of slap and giggle too and now probably look at fox’s big bash ratings with regret. if it’s true that cricket’s top season attendance is a bit over 60,000 for any form of the sport then this is a pretty piss poor summertime figure for a supposedly mainstream sport. especially so considering it was an attendance from the world’s most sports mad city. couldn’t see the afl posting an equally unimpressive effort.
February 10th 2010 @ 12:33pm
Phil said | February 10th 2010 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
I ditched Australian sport a long time ago for baseball to be honest – but that stems back to when Souths were kicked out of the competition. (Pitchers and catchers report soon !)
One thing with cricket (even if you really forget about the caliber of those two crap teams who graced our shores this summer) is that it can not in any way shape or form support three forms of cricket – it is impossible now.
One thing that always amazes me with what is at stake for 20/20 cricket in the KFC bash – is that the players are still miked up as if it is a joke. If they are going to be miked up for anythiing – it should be the one dayers…
Also – why do most other sports now the limits of how much they can extract from the public but cricket does not??? Baseball went over board last year by a week and people went berserk (rightly so). We all know when NFL, College Football and basketball, NBA etc are going to finish like clockwork – yet cricket in the last few years has decided to test our patience by filtering its crap through to February – seriously – in the words of Tim Rogers..How much is enough??
February 10th 2010 @ 12:42pm
Lazza said | February 10th 2010 @ 12:42pm | Report comment
Americans don’t seem sick of all their sport and European Football fans are happy with a 10 month season and 4 different competitions? They’ll also have the World Cup this year since most of them have trouble coping with no Football for a couple of months.
I think we are just sick of Cricket because there are only about 4 nations worth watching and, as someone wrote above, there is no ‘context’ to a lot of these games. They are all ‘Mickey Mouse’ competitions that no-one will remember in a few years or even a few months time. We may still like Test matches but most of the Cricket world doesn’t and ODI’s seem finished as well.
T20 is the only form that’s popular now but pretty soon we’ll become bored if there are too many meaningless tournaments as well. I’m not sure what the answer is but perhaps an annual ‘World League’ involving all the nations playing for a prized and meaningful trophy? Instead of pretending to be something they are not, a global sport, why not make the most of what you do have?
February 10th 2010 @ 4:17pm
sheek said | February 10th 2010 @ 4:17pm | Report comment
It gets back to quantity versus quality. All that wall to wall sport doesn’t amount to much if the quality is lacking.
Some say they can never get sick off too much sport….. give them time……….
February 10th 2010 @ 1:25pm
soapit said | February 10th 2010 @ 1:25pm | Report comment
guys we have 20 million people, the US has 300 million, we can’t be expected to sustain anywhere near as many sports as them. the average fan can only be expected to follow a small percentage of what is available. a sport can have a small market share and still be potentially viable over there because of the scale. filling 50000 seaters doesnt take much for a population like america. it takes a lot more for us and even more when you want to do it for 5 different sports over the year (not gonna happen but individually thats what each of the 5 are trying for).
wrt cricket specifically its no longer the only game in town in summer (soccer has started up to compete), plus they’ve started competing with themselves with T20 plus they have to compete with bbq’s, beach etc and with people feeling so time poor i’m not going to dedicate 10 days of my summer weekends to watch 1 dayers.
i agree that competitive teams touring would help immensely tho. if there was a big game on i might think more about it.
and i do wonder if they halved the price would twice as many people turn up.
Add a note on why the comment is inappropriate, and click the button below to confirm
February 10th 2010 @ 4:57pm
Phil said | February 10th 2010 @ 4:57pm | Report comment
Does India has more people than America? Just checking…
February 10th 2010 @ 5:01pm
Phil said | February 10th 2010 @ 5:01pm | Report comment
Point being that I have been told here a million times that cricket is going to be just fine because India has so many people.
February 10th 2010 @ 1:29pm
soapit said | February 10th 2010 @ 1:29pm | Report comment
they should definitely make them best of 3 series. get in, entertain and get out. the last thing 1 dayers should be doing is empasising how it drags out compared to T20 and then they create the opportunity for 2 dead rubbers against pakistan.
February 10th 2010 @ 3:54pm
Deadman said | February 10th 2010 @ 3:54pm | Report comment
I’m look forward to 5/5 cricket