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Last week a football match took place in Gosford between an Australian A-League team and a Chinese Super League team. The Telegraph reported the match as follows.
“Gosford is now on the map in China, thanks to the AFC Champions League match between the Central Coast Mariners and Guangzhou Evergrande.
The Wednesday night game had a live TV audience of 50 million in China – more than double Australia’s population. Guangzhou, who won 2-1, are the Chinese equivalent of Manchester United.
This was reported towards the end of a rugby league writer’s attack on the AFL and the football number helped his case.
I understand 4.6 billion people live in Asia.
In India Football is number two to cricket and the Philippines baseball is number 1, basketball number 2, with football three.
In Korean and Japan football is growing in popularity.
I read somewhere if you add others watching then the figure was over 70 million Asia-wide, with 50 million in China alone.
Let’s just assume the AFL got 50 million people in China to watch a match between and Australia AFL side and a Chinese AFL side.
Would the it be reported in the press or would it be totally ignored?
At this point I wish not to blame or cast doubt on any AFL, NRL or rugby union writer. It is not their job to promote football.
However I can have a guess and say the same AFL, NRL, and rugby union writers would make sure those in the broader media understood the implications for Australian/Asian relationships if one of their teams was involved in such a game.
The Asian Games and the last Asian Football Cup received scant media in Australia. We read constantly about the problems in Asia in our media but it’s rare to read positive articles and outside business, boat people and terrorism.
Recently China became the nation that most of our tourists came from.
I wonder how many people on this site are aware that on the Central Coast a Chinese company paid Wyong Council close to forty million dollars for land to build a replica of the Hidden City.
The cost is estimated at $575 million to build and the company building it believe it will become Australia’s biggest tourist attraction.
I am truly amazed how a sporting event watched by 70 million across Asia, and 50 in China alone, is not headline news.
In perspective I think the AFL rates about 180, 000 for matches on Fox (let’s say 200,000). Nine matches per round, meaning around two million people.
The China watch alone for one match rated 25 rounds of the AFL Fox audience.
So where is the blame for this uneven coverage?
Maybe these figures are totally unimportant. Like the reported 600 million that watched the Australian V Japan match.
Look at the table below it shows the ratings for the each code.
Shows the code and the ratings for 2011 and 2012.
AFL … 113, 645, 255 and 123, 360, 475;
NRL … 113, 572, 436 and 113, 991, 113;
Union … 8, 833, 317 and 7, 844, 131.
This means that football is the most watched sport in the region. When we broaden our horizons and start caring about something other than what happens in our backyard?
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