The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Why the Super Bowl can't be replicated in Australia

27th January, 2015
Advertisement
One of the most exciting Super Bowls in history played out and Buzz Rothfield was too busy watching Katy Perry. (Photo by Elaine Thompson)
Roar Guru
27th January, 2015
30
1272 Reads

It’s that time of year again, the Super Bowl is under a week away and Australians are starting to come out of the woodwork, pretending they care about the sport of American Football.

This is because Super Bowl Sunday is one of the biggest days on the global sporting calendar.

It is surely testament to the NFL that a sport played almost exclusively in America is able to capture the attention of the world for their showpiece event. Unfortunately this is something that Australian sport will never achieve, for a myriad of reasons.

Unlike American football, basketball and even baseball the major Australian sporting codes, rugby league and Aussie rules, are not played and passionately supported by the entire country. As a result while Melbourne may be buzzing during AFL grand final week, Sydney and Brisbane typically don’t care about the game. The same can be said for the NRL grand final, the Melburnians do not really care.

This can’t be said for the NFL. No matter who is playing, the entire nation is drawn in by the hype and excited for the big game.

Unfortunately I don’t think Australia will ever get to that position of national saturation. While expansion would help spread the game there are still too many football codes competing for the attention of fans. There are very few fans passionate about both AFL and rugby league. There is a difference between tuning in and buying into the hype for the entire week.

Another factor that makes the Super Bowl so big is the location of the match. Unlike rugby league and AFL, cities bid for the right to host the Super Bowl. As a result there is a huge buzz around the city during Super Bowl week as the locals get invested in the hype. Additionally no team has ever played in front of their home crowd, leading to a huge influx of visiting fans during the week prior to the game. This boosts tourism of the city and leads to a festive atmosphere.

This week is often the biggest thing to happen to their city in years. The exception was New York last year; the city is already a tourism Mecca and hosts so many big events that the locals just didn’t get sucked in. It felt like any other week of the year.

Advertisement

Unless the NRL and AFL abandon tradition they will struggle to create this amount of buzz in the week before their grand finals. In recent years the NRL has tried desperately hard to change this with minimal success. Fan days, events and exhibitions have all been used to promote the game and have quite often fallen flat.

Personally, I put it down to grand final fatigue. The grand final is played in Sydney every year and unless your team is playing, there is no need to invest yourself in the hype. Maybe if the grand final was in Sydney only once every five years the fans would be more desperate to get involved, knowing that this was an opportunity that wasn’t coming around for a number of years. Limiting supply to increase demand.

While there are many benefits to the NFL’s system of awarding the game to host cities I remain a traditionalist and strongly support Sydney always hosting the NRL grand final and Melbourne always hosting the AFL grand final.

Another aspect of sport that America is streets ahead of Australia is media access. American athletes are typically open with the media and often have no choice but to talk with reporters, with fines being levied against those who don’t. As a result we get the madness of Super Bowl Media Day, a chaotic day of weird and wacky questions, outfits, answers and hijinks. More often than not, there are more non-football related questions than actual questions relating to the Super Bowl, but that’s what makes it so entertaining.

On top of this, NFL coaches give media conferences every day of the week, as do some major players, and reporters have considerable locker-room access. This is unheard of in Australian sport. NRL coaches refuse to give straight answers to the simplest of questions, out of fear that they are either giving their opposition ammo or divulging secrets. NFL coaches realise that this is a load of rubbish. The fans demand honest, open answers and if there is a secret that they might divulge during a press conference, the opposition coach isn’t doing his job properly.

What is more interesting: listening purely to reporters and ex-players speculate for a full week with minimal talk from the players and coaches involved in the game, or listening to coaches and players discuss the game and then have reporters and ex-players discuss the coaches’ comments. I know which I prefer.

While there is a lot Australian sport can learn from the NFL, there is also plenty that the NFL can learn from Australia. Unlike the Super Bowl, tickets to the NRL grand final are accessible to all fans. The AFL has repeatedly refused to bow to the whims of television networks and left the grand final in its traditional Saturday afternoon time slot.

Advertisement

Australian coaches and athletes have visited NFL teams to learn how they ensure their athletes are at peak performance for a number of years now. Let’s hope that both Gill McLachlan and David Smith are observing how this Super Bowl week plays out and taking very detailed notes.

Follow Cameron on Twitter: @fromthesheds

close