Cricket claims to be top dog of Australian sport

I can't understand why this conversation is still going on! Just enjoy the sport that you love whether it's Football, Cricket, Aussie Rules, Rugby.... Whatever. Just enjoy mates!

So, OzTam statistics show that 9.6 million people watched international cricket for five or more minutes in the past 12 months, and 18.4 million people watching “at least some” international cricket on TV nationally. And much was made of it by CA. Well, OzTam statistics are in for the 4 footy codes:- see link below: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/afl-a-league-big-winners-in-football-report-after-viewers-switch-off-rugby/story-e6frg6n6-1226525246762 Although a major focus of 'The Australia' story is the decline of union over a season, it unintentionally skewers CA's preposterous claim that it is 'top dog' in Australia. Such arrogant nonsense is what you'd expect from the stuffy, establishment-types running the sport. The article puts the viewing popularity of various sports in perspective, coming as it does after CA's somewhat arrogant 'top dog' claim - which appears to have no perspective at all. Sure, cricket may be more popular than AFL in Qld. and NSW, but it is crushed by the NRL. And it may be more popular than NRL in WA, SA, Vic., and Tas., but it is slaughtered by the AFL. What's worse, the 'new kid on the block', the A-League, is nibbling away at cricket over the summer months.

The Big Bash teams will not be playing 30 rounds each. However, thank God the socceroo's won't be playing for 30 days like the Australian test side will be this summer. 30 days of that would be hell.

I too am sceptical about Cricket Australia statistics - didn't Mark Twain say there are 'lies, damned lies and statistics'. I find personal experience and observations persuasive in the absence of clear evidence. After playing or watching cricket all my life, my son is now playing. Here in Adelaide one of the leading district clubs has had to forfeit its games in the U16 reserve competition for all of last season and again this season as it does not have enough players. Where we live a number of community cricket clubs no longer have enough interest to field any teams in the u15 to U17 age ranges. At the prefessional cricket level an observation of spectator attendances tells me that interest lies more with short forms of the game. Cricket Australia has prospered financially but this may be because the shorter forms have put bums on seats and delivered massive TV ratings. The decision to consider night time Test cricket is a sign that the authorities are aware of the need for change. I know this will upset the traditionalists but maybe it is Test cricket that needs to learn from the success of the shorter forms of the game. In a world where people are increasingly time poor, demanding of action or entertainment, working weekends and after hours, and with temperatures forecast to rise further in the decade ahead, it could be a case of change or slowly die. Rule changes that encouraged 25 overs to be bowled in an hour could see the hours of play considerably shortened while maintaining a skilled contest between bat and ball, making longer forms of the game more pallitable to spectators and viewers. Who knows it might even attract spectators to shield cricket?

Well Don, when the A-league is up against the might of the Sydney Thunder and who is the other one? the Sixers or some such? The BBL was marketted 10 fold on what the A-league was, it's in the top 3 20/20 leagues in the world and is designed to maximise ratings and crowds. Meanwhile, our very own A-league is designed to be as fair and football-purist as possible. Next season, each A-league club will get increased revenue from the FFA, and 1 match a week will be on FTA - we'll see then how we go mate :) Lastly, over 40 different nations are represented in the A-league at current... I hazard to say, that is more than all other major sports competitions combined in this country.

Indeed & the AFL stats would be largely inflated by the Aus Kick schools program.

Interesting observation. I personally have always been sceptical about the Cricket unites Australia argument. That really only holds water when Australia inspires as well as wins as well as in more conservative economical (financial and cultural) times. What Australia really needs is to genuinely give the other code a go. Just for a bit. Won't happen in Melbourne I'd say, but that is the best way to attract a unifying sense of all caring about/watching the same thing. Also how many people actually do follow those out-of-football season codes. I know the NFL's being pushed, or was by 10's digital platform a little while ago, but that's been a global failure. I love American and Canadian Football, but the numbers are not getting any bigger, the more they push. But are people just less interested in the International dimension: as the NRL/Origin and the AFL/never on anymore International Rules thing are basically domestic, with much less international interest than Nine once thought.

The AFL 'All Australian' team sound like a pretty internationally competitive outfit..........oh wait.

Oh, so you mean't 30 rounds? Cricket's not a one-trick-pony, it has a suite of formats both domestic and international, and when I mean 'international' I mean England, India and South Africa, not the might of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Qatar. Six months would be overkill like the current football codes but it will fill a niche in the summer of cricket. The Big Bash will probably expand and include Canberra and become a truly national competition...not a pretend one.

It's closer to 6 million per round. TC

30 games per team, Don. If the BBL is averaging 400 000 then they should have no problem setting up a six month league.

Be impressed...31 games were played last year and it was the most successful Big Bash in terms of crowds and TV audience in the league's history. I suppose it will be time to panic for BBL when it's TV audience plummets 4-fold to the depths of the A-League.

Afan, you and I must've come off an assembly line. Perhaps it's a generational thing. I loved cricket when I was a kid. The Windies were IT so far as superstars went when I was growing up - they brought qualities of excitement and razzamatazz to the game that have long gone. Today's Australian cricketers (the ones that I am able to name, that is) are as bland as the breakfast cereals they plug on the telly. For a lot of kids today, footy and NBA stars are IT. One leaves childish things behind eventually, and I decided there are better things during summer and simply lost interest in cricket somewhere in the 90's. Perhaps the Australian team being a bunch of prats also had something to do with it. As soon as I glanced the headline of this article, I guessed there must be a TV deal in the offing, and CA is laying the groundwork in the lead-up to it. CA must be dreaming with this media release. Can it in all honesty believe its own BS? It can be damn thankful there is not a single, unified national footy league to compare itself against. The fractured footy market in Australia means it can claim to be #1, when in fact we all know that since the 80's AFL and NRL have left it for dead. These leagues combined would easily eclipse cricket's paltry figures of 9.6 and 18.4 million - not at all impressive, CA. The AFL claims cumulative TV viewership of 4 million PER ROUND. 11k is what a domestic soccer football fixture in Brisbane gets. The landscape has changed, with there being more choice over the summer: A-League, NBL, NBA, NFL, tennis, whatever. AFL and NRL tower above all else. The new paradigm is that, come end of the AFL and NRL seasons, the footy tribes go their separate ways and spread their attention over various other sports (or none at all), and not only cricket, as once was the case. Cricket still has a lot of things going for it: 1. T20; 2. Very favorable coverage from a media that suffers paradigm paralysis; 3. A healthy and growing ex-pat community from the subcontinent (witness last year's tour by India)

Although i agree with your post, there is plenty, and i mean plenty of scepticism that the Australian Cricket team is really the NSW cricket team in disguise. That may or may not lower potential ratings and indeed interest around the country towards the team in general.

So long as you know when to plant your corn Brewski, it's all good.

Look, I certainly don't agree that it is the most watched sport in TV - it certainly doesn't make people crowd around the telly for 5+ hours, but I do believe that cricket is one of the top sports in Australia. If you've ever watched the cricket on Channel 9, you've wanted to watch it muted or just change the channel. So just using TV data is flawed in that respect. A lot of people listen to the cricket through the radio (or smartphone) And as Australians, do we really care about which sport is the more popular? Or do we just want to make sure that our teams can beat teams that are from New Zealand, England, South Africa, France, Ireland, etc?

That leaves the AFL and NRL playing in the football season.

I wonder where that leaves AFL and League then?.

Feeder selection competitions to what? The national team? Which you want to compare to the a-league? Isn't the a-league just a feeder league to Europe and national team? As I said, play a 30 game BBL season and if the ratings and crowds hold up I will be impressed.

It is, however, safe to say that Australian Cricket is a bigger international draw that Australian soccer. Apparently there's an entire massive sub-continent of non-Anglo types who would take an interest in a visit from the Baggy Greens. Good luck finding a Soccer equivalent.