Something Australian football fans know all too well is that the sport is often relegated to the sidelines when it comes to mainstream media in Australia.
The World Cup is always an exception, but other football leagues or cups can be a bit of a wild card, depending on the network and date/time.
One network might report on the A-League, but then another may not.
But one thing is usually for certain: football is Australia does not receive the attention it deserves in the mainstream. By this, I mean the mainstream media such as the 7, 9 and 10 television networks, and the newspapers and tabloids.
I try to avoid the aforementioned media outlets because I feel that there are better sources out there for news, but people easily perceive something as popular based on the media’s exposure.
If something is reported on often (such as the AFL), then it is popular.
If it doesn’t get a mention, then society won’t know about it, and might not accept it, which is a problem we sometimes have with football’s exposure here.
So, over the past couple of years, I’ve paid curious attention to the media at times to see what the football coverage is like.
I’d start off every morning with a coffee and watching Sunrise on 7, or the Morning Show on 9, purely waiting for the headlines.
Usually the sport would barely get a mention, and if it did, it would only show a few seconds of footage from one of the big EPL teams.
Unfortunately, most of the time it wouldn’t even get airtime.
In fact, quite often other sports like golf, cycling or motor racing would get a mention, but no football. The evening news is not much better, nor are certain newspapers.
But in the last few days, things have been quite the opposite. Obviously there’s a good chance that football’s exposure is assisted by the AFL/NRL off-seasons, but the fact that the sport is suddenly receiving such good attention is very promising.
The first thing that took me by surprise was seeing A-League ads between 6pm and 8pm on the major free-to-air networks.
Even though it’s officially an ad for Fox Sports, it is exposure for the league nonetheless.
Other things have come in the form of billboards and posters around cities. But I think what has impressed me the most was seeing football mentioned in the news headlines. I watched the Friday night evening news and waited for the sports segment.
The very first story was about the Melbourne Derby, and the second story was about the Socceroos clash.
Later that night, after the A-League opener, I saw a news update on Channel Nine, featuring four headlines: three serious news stories, and the fourth being about the A-League.
And then, the next day, the A-League was all over the back page of the Herald Sun.
Later that day, I turned on the evening news again, and saw that Holger’s sacking was the third story mentioned on the evening news!
The last time I saw the evening news mention football so early was back in the days of the ’06 World Cup.
Overall, it seems like there is a sudden boost in the mainstream media for football. Hopefully it will be a regular thing and not just an A-League launch promo.
But I believe it’s a clear sign that the sport is rising and gaining recognition.
The huge membership sales, crowd numbers, and audience for the first SBS match are all undeniable indications. I even saw a couple of young boys wearing Chelsea jerseys today at the supermarket (this year I moved to a small town of 11,000 people, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything football-related in the VFL-dominated region).
Five minutes later, I overheard a teenage boy talking to his mother about a football website that he came across, and I saw that he was wearing a Barcelona jersey.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but seeing the young men wearing their jerseys at the start of the Aussie football season was encouraging.
If all of this exposure continues, then the A-League is really only at the beginning stages of its potential growth.
The game will continue to grow naturally, but the mainstream exposure is a huge boost. Even if someone is not a football fan, seeing the sport mentioned on the big networks might be enough for them to, at the very least, accept it as one of Australia’s national sports.
Avon River
Guest
#Fuss Also re the Roy Morgan pole the figure for an afternoon 6 minutes f a horse race with many people away from home provides OzTam figures generally on a par with AFL (afternoon) GF (over 3 hrs so avg audience means a whole lot more) & NRL SofO (2 hrs) but in prime time. We might suggest the OzTam model would be most geared to accurately reflect the prime time show. Given Roy Morgan suggests 10.5 million for the Melb Cup what then might we expect for the AFL GF?? Of course it runs longer than 6 minutes. Reality is it is a bit of a 'nothing' survey that gets referenced amazingly often. Fuss I urge you to look at it critically because it is not a very strong case for the defense - so to speak. OzTam is known to have limitations and the conspiracy case against SBS is a laugh when you look at the other event numbers vs what OzTam presents. It underestimates pretty well anything. What is the best measure is % of audience and the Melb Cup for example runs in the 90%+ of total audience (for 6 mins). I'd suggest SBS had a healthy proportion of the 2am audience.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Have you seen the start times they've listed for Perth's games? I don't think Perth's BBL ratings will be blowing anyone's skirt up, just quietly.
Tenash
Guest
only time will tell. but right now its definitely working. and you're right but with a slight correction - its not traditional cricket just for purists, its cricket for the masses :D . its something which cricket has been searching for centuries and has finally found
Avon River
Guest
#Fusd Expanding re the Roy Morgan poll you referred to. Very limited polling b/w 600-700 on each of 4 occassions. Asked about last 8 months and so excludes AFL & NRL finals in 2005. Within the time frame the only listed AFL game is a Mon night Coll v Adel match. No Anzac day clash or the like. No NRL origin. Those limitations and exclusions make it look very half hearted indeed. Seems like a means to an end which I guess is what you've accused OzTam of being but at least with a larger sample size!!
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Sorry Tenash, only got that link for AFL. But @Mediaweek on Twitter should have data for every NRL match on FoxSports & most of the ones on FTA Tv.
Tenash
Guest
hey Fuss thanks for that AFL TV ratings link. Do you know something similar for the NRL TV ratings ?
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
"That Roy Morgan poll was very limited." You do realise Roy Morgan Research's core business is polls & analysing statistics? I'm not a statistician, but, unless you can provide verifiable case studies to demonstrate you have expertise to judge the veracity of Roy Morgan's methodology ... with all due respect, your views have little basis. Incidentally, RMR has been the closest at calling the last few federal elections, including predicting the hung parliament in 2010. I think they know what they're doing ... or, they've fooled the whole business & political world! Maybe you should try your luck at the polling caper? :-)
Avon River
Guest
#Fuss That Roy Morgan poll was very limited.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
" I alwsys feel AFL and NRL in general must be under represented in foreign territories because recrnt expats are least likely to be onthe Oztam system. I suspect" Ha! I think you're way off. OzTAM is owned by Ch7, Ch9 & Ch10. They will make sure they are adequately represented in households that view their content. By contrast, Roy Morgan Research (RMR) found that OzTAM meters are under-represented in households that: a) watch SBS b) don't watch a lot of TV c) have LOTE as the primary language d) watch TV in the early hours of the morning ... As you can see the above characteristics are exactly the A-League market. In fact, for the 2006 WC broadcast on SBS, RMR found the true viewing numbers on SBS were 70% higher than the OzTAM meters predicted.
Avon River
Guest
#Fuss Let the wookie win ; as they say in the classics. Sat nights on 7mate Swans v Adel rnd 13 had 95,000 for Sydney beamed in from Adel. And rnd 7 v Haw in Melb had 87,000. It might be that a home game erodes the potential audience too greatly!! However it all depends on just who is on the OzTam system. I alwsys feel AFL and NRL in general must be under represented in foreign territories because recrnt expats are least likely to be onthe Oztam system. I suspect.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@Avon River It's always good to refute misinformation with hard data. Thankfully, our AFL friend The Wookie has created a Wiki page purely for AFL 2013 TV data. http://www.worldofwookie.com/footywiki/index.php/2013_tv_ratings Thereafter it takes less than 5 minutes of cutting, pasting & sorting to get the data to deliver whatever info you require! FTA TV figures are vital since we know close to 100% of households in AUS have access to FTA TV. And, there was lots of competition for A-League on Friday night. In case you aren't aware, all the other FTA TV channels broadcast content ... they weren't off-the-air, restaurants were open for dinner, bars were open for drinks, etc. etc.
Avon River
Guest
#Fuss I'm not entirely sure I was wanting you to go to such trouble but I gather you were at a loose end. Do note however the unknown in this. Example of Syd v Coll on a Fri night in May. The OzTam figure for Sydney suggests 67,000. Less than 10% of the 5 city metro tally. Foxtel runs at 297,000 for that game. I'm not going to do much more than suggest that the AFL fans with the best motivation to have Foxtel live north of the Murrumbidgee. Alas we don't see a geographic breakdown. Not really sure this is an argument. I mostly agree. Oh yeah one thing though on a Sat night there is AFL competition from the other AFL game. Similar to on a Fri night when there is one AFL and two NRL games such that thee NRL audience may be split.
mahonjt
Guest
One thing football fans always acknowledge is that, of the team sports, only football, cricket and netball are truly national, with the rugby's, AFL and basketball (to a slightly lesser extent) regionalised in terms of player participation and broadcast penetration. Where we differ is in the relative futures of football and cricket. Netball is strong in participation terms but suffers in broadcast terms from a lack of interest, and basketball will nationalise again at the broadcast level to match its slightly skewed but still national participation footprint as the NBL recovers, but is scale will remain relatively small. However, with respect to football and cricket particularly, one of them is in a slow, but demographically driven decline. On top of this you have to consider that it's summer monopoly has been shattered for the first time in its history. Make no mistake. It's only a matter of time. The 'league' focus of the BBL is no coincidence. Driven by global revenue considerations - cricket in this country also found summer go a lot harder all of a sudden and have rightly 'footified' the cricket. It won't work - because it's just not cricket.
Androo
Guest
Seen the latest issue of 442, Fuss? The following question was posed to The Special One re. life in The Old Dart: Q. "Rugby or cricket?" A. "Rugby, definitely." Surprisingly, the answer did not go along the lines of "What is this cricket? The Special One has not heard of this thing." I don't much care anymore for watching grown men stand around for 5 days in silly white flannels. "That is very silly" as The Pythons would say. However, each to their own. If I were paying for a sports product with shareholder's funds I'd damn well ensure there is a "washout" clause for cricket to dampen the price: that is, unlike the football codes, a percentage of games and game time will be lost to the elements, thereby irritating viewers, advertisers and paying customers alike. Of course, this is merely an "observation", Tenash. I was a paying customer at a farcical one day match a year or two ago: Rain. Covers on. Rain gone. Covers off. Oops, rain back. Covers on. It's gone again. Covers off. Game time reduced. No proportional reduction on my ticket price from CA! Anyway, I ended up playing "Spot the WASP" to pass the time and make the day entertaining!
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@striker Totally agree with your conclusions. But, prior to FTA Tv coverage, it was all speculation since we didn't have viewing numbers for each of the 5 major AUS cities. This data should prove invaluable: a) when SBS is seeking advertising dollars for Friday Night LIVE b) when clubs are seeking sponsorship dollars c) when the next A-League broadcast rights are being negotiated. Any potential organisation will understand: 1. they can reach more people in Sydney by aligning with HAL than AFL 2. they can reach more people in Melb, Ade & Perth by aligning with HAL than NRL Got to love the data!
striker
Guest
Fuss its because in NSW most people love NRL firstly and Football has always had a massive presence here and is number 2, most people here cant stand AFL and always will the tv rating reflect that.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@Avon River You want comparisons with Swans matches ... ok, here we go 1. There were 3 Swans matches on Friday night TV (7 Network) - all against very strong, popular Victorian teams ... & the ratings in Sydney were all lower than SydFC v NewJets Swans v Geel: 36k Coll v Swans: 67k Swans v Haw: 44k 2. Even a Swans' Finals match on Friday night rated lower on FTA Tv than SydFC v Jets Haw v Swans: 63k 3. The massive "battle of the bridge" Sydney AFL derby had lower FTA TV than SydFC v Jets GWS v Swans: 40k Swans v GWS: 46k 4. Across the whole AFL season, only 2 Swans matches - both broadcast on Saturday - achieved higher FTA TV ratings than SydFC v Newcastle on SBS2. In relation to your question about crowd numbers ... ... 35k for SydFc v Jets last year was an abnormally inflated figure driven by the 1st match in AUS for Ale Del Piero ..and Heskey was also featuring in that match. I reckon 20k would be above the 8 yr average for the fixture: SydFc v Jets
AZ_RBB
Guest
cmon guys lets be realistic. we all know that A League ratings were propped up by "The Sex Show" which followed it.
Avon River
Guest
#Fuss So we agree then. Comparing the results of the SFC v Jets localish derby GF rematch in Sydney which is the biggest soccer market in the country to the FTA results for a non Swans AFL match really is meaningless. They had 35k for that game in rnd 2 in 2012. Was 20k with live tele a solid or slightly disappointing return?
c
Guest
Can you two mathematicians / strategists’ kiss and make up now :)