Where does football sit in the Australian sporting landscape?

c: A few teams are privately owned, such as the West Coast Eagles. At the moment, they happen to be owned by the State football body, but they were previously owned by Indian Pacific, and there have been bids for new ownership since then.

In the windies era cricket was far more popular than it is now from my recollection. I've been thinking how much it has died down in recent times. Those 50 over games against the windies were just epic.

@ jeznez & mbgrice: As to what's 'easier' to particpate in, this is a bit of a side-issue - but I think you're drawing a VERY long bow in claiming football is less serious in amateur competition!!! Think about the following: If you just want to play around with your mates on a weekend afternoon and not have the game impact you the following week, which game is more conducive to achieving this? Football Why? Less physical contact, less complicated rules, less players required to actually play an oprganised game (Touch footy being the exception, but I doubt you were referring to this sport in your arguments about the 'seriousness' participants take it with). To play Union or League or AFL requires more physcial contact (and to an extent a higher acceptance of pain or injury), a more committed understanding of the rules, and finally more players to play (although possibly 7-a-side comps can neagte this last assertion?). The fact that your (@ mbgrice) team made the regional finals in a particular competition (which one? evidence?) without training says more about the standard of competition or perhaps the players' skills than it does for the seriousness of amateur football. The Bill Turner Cup in NSW is a very serious competition for NSW schools and is regularly played by teams that train multiple times a week before, after (& even during) school hours. I went to a GPS school in Sydney and played in the 2nd XI & occasionally in the 3rd/4th XV in my senior years (in addition to 2nd XI cricket during the summer) whilst we weren't a great football team, we trained at least twice a week in addition to going out onto the pitch with a determination to beat every side we played. After school I was a part of a weekend park team that my mates started up and we trained at least once if not twice a week and even paid a qualified coach to run the 1st team - this team now has 3 Men's teams & a Women's team and is still run by the guy that started it up about 15yrs ago! Now this is only my experience just like you've both described your experiences. So please try not to generalise and paint everyone with the same brush just because in your area things are the way they are. Not sure how old you both are jeznez & mbgrice, but maybe with a few more years of experience you'll see the benefit in trying to broaden your research base before making such grand assertions. Fadida is a lot more blunt than I am in pointing out the pitfalls of not doing so! ;-) As a general comment, I think the reason people have "a heavy soccer bias" is due to this being a football thread - people on here have by an large above-average interest in football and devote some of their time to reading & discussing football issues critically (so your post was somewhat asking for a bit of critical feedback). However, not everyone tries to articulate themselves with care or consideration of their target if they're annoyed...

Mid, About 30% of Australians have Foxtel, which means probably 25% have FOX sports at home, as not everybody likes sport. That's much better than on SBS2, which has a 3-4% share of FTA viewership. We were never going to get nowhere near 600k viewers per game on SBS2, we need a commercial FTA station to take the sport on for that happen. At the moment were getting about 150k viewers on SBS2. I reckon if we were on Channel 10 now we'd get at least 4 or 5 times more viewers than on SBS2.

Not sure where this $20m profit figure was plucked out of. Collingwood made a $5.5m profit this year, the biggest in their history, and a great profit for any organization. But its not $20m, theres a massive difference between the 2 figures. Just a bit of mayo on that one...

Good read Mid. This is a topic we could hours and/or pages on. Its very hard to gauge where our sport is at when compared to the others. There are way too many factors to consider. Obviously TV ratings, crowds, participation figures etc. But other things also need to be taken into consideration, like the sports' history and its past to be able to put things into perspective. Its a very subjective topic, even from different people within the football community, as most people will give you a different answer and perspective. In my opion, I think AFL & NRL are the 2 behemoths in Oz sport, and they'll stay that way for a long time, as they're both ingrained in mainstream society. And for the next little while, this is where the competition starts. You've got Rugby Union, Cricket and Football. I dont see Union as a major football code, certainly not like the bigger 2. I dont see Union as the number 1 code in any state or even close to it. In my opinion the A-league has already surpassed the Super 15, and the gap is only going to get bigger. Cricket is another large sport, but the reality is it only really stands out to the general population for 3 months of the year. The only game that really catches on is the Ashes, which isnt played every week. The sport does get massive TV ratings, for both the National Cricket team and the BBL, no doubt about that. I know the Big Bash at the moment is getting huge TV ratings on channel 10, coming off the back of a home Ashes thumping. For me, the jury's still out on the BBL. One swallow doesnt make a summer. But I would not only categorize cricket as a sport in this country but as a national pastime. Its popularity has been there since it was heavily backed by Kerry Packer and commercial FTA TV in the 70's with the World Series. And this to me is the common denominator in the history of all the successful sports, the Media. They can either make or break a sport. As I mentioned, they've helped make cricket popular from back in the 70's, and they've contributed to making both the AFL and the NRL become the 2 biggest codes in Australia, by paying huge TV dollars and advertising the hell out of these sports for decades. The publicity the media has generated for these sports is gigantic. They have deserved all this from the media, because they've both been well run sports for a very long time. But I've always maintained, that if Football had been well run like those codes and heavily pushed by the mainstream media for the last 30 years, our game would be right up there also, and our figures would show that. I remember both the AFL & NRL getting a $100-$200m TV deal about 10 or so years ago, and that's probably how far behind our code is if not a bit more from becoming a major player. But we should only be trying to improve what we do and our KPI's. The other sports dont matter. The A-league is 9 years old, and after a few hiccups its back on track. We still have the most fragmented sport of all, whether its old soccer vs new football, the disgruntled NSL community who still refuse to accept the A-league let alone follow it, eurosnobs and elitists, etc. Outside of that, we've got some huge challenges as a sport which we need to sort out in the medium to long term. They'll all improve our reach and our overall appeal not only to the non-football public but the rest of the football family. These include; 1. Length of season - this will always be an issue here, a 6 month season is nowhere near enough, as it actually stops us from attracting better players as the off season is way too long, it also hinders us from keeping our best talent. The money on offer overseas also does this. 2. Squad sizes - we need a 25-30 man rosters, when the season is long enough 3. Club training facilities & academies - all clubs need to have their own training facilities & academies ASAP, with their Youth sides or reserves playing in their state league competitions. 4. A national cup competition - this has been mooted for a while and supposedly starting up in 2014. I'll believe it when I see but fingers crossed, as its been long overdue. There's many more issues we need to get right, but unfortunately they'll all take time to bed down, but in the 9 years the A-league has been running, the sports has skyrocketed from where it was prior. The FFA has done heaps right so far, but there's heaps more work to do. We're not even half way there as a code and this is why I say its very hard to compare sports. They're all coming from different histories, and are all at different stages of their developments. And while we still have heaps of work to do, I dont believe were stalling. Our FOX TV ratings maybe a touch down on this time last year, but I think they'll get back up before the end of the season, and SBS has already brought the game to an extra 1.7m people in 11 rounds. Our crowds are still growing, as we're on track to hit between 1.8m to 2m spectators in a single season, which will be massive and a record. Average per game crowds will be about 13k-13.5k for the season, that'll be in the top 2 or 3 in the league's short history. The Melbourne Heart are just about to be sold for $12m to a group of astute businessmen, and they're definetely the poorer cousins in Melbourne and still get sub 7k crowds to some games. So its not all doom & gloom. We're definitely still growing. Just not as quickly as some people expect, but we need to remember where the code has come from. I also want quick growth for Football but I'm really happy with how its going at the moment.

Where does football sit in the Australian sporting landscape? The answer is at the point where all Australians of sporting ilk are aware of the domestic league and where our national sides, particularly the Socceroos and Matildas, are embraced as such; as national sides. From 10 years ago this is a seismic shift in the national consciousness. We sit as a recognised & respected part of the sporting landscape, and this is a pleasant change indeed.

Yep, small change.

The AFL is trying, it's hilarious to watch.

Why are the BBL home viewers ockers? Just look like normal suburban families to me. Its not a lousy few thousand either, as its well over $100k up for grabs now.

Agree totally, NickOS. Having watched a bit of BBL on Ten, I am appalled at how 'bogan' (for want of a better word) the broadcast has become since leaving Fox. The home viewer segment is a sorry thing: cash give-aways galore, with ocker home viewers shamelessly queuing for a lousy few thousand AUD. God knows what Mel must think! Ten should learn from the teachings of Machiavelli: you can throw as much cash as you want at mercenaries but at the end of the day when the gold is gone you will not have their loyalty. As I've said before, after watching this sort of lowest common denominator stuff, I now truly wish A-League doesn't go mainstream and avoids being corrupted by the Big 3; even if if this means it's market visibility (and therefore growth) is stunted. So long as A-League lives and there is lager ... Given Ten's ongoing poor and directionless strategy execution(s), recent woeful share price history and under-performing ROE/ROI, I sometimes wonder, despite early momentum of the BBL, if it invested wisely for its outlay. Fox balked at forking out the sort of cash Ten did: there is much risk in startups, and maybe Fox decided BBL's long term upside does not justify the millions asked for. Perhaps it saw more value in build its football portfolio: add La Liga and Serie A to EPL and A=League, etc.

Emric I agree with your post.

Or report him to his pay master (AFL) and say his posts are to small to be paid the full amount...

@graham "...a tragedy for a country..." - A TRAGEDY ??? My word Graham you really need to extend your worldliness beyond playing games

yes agree Matt, most owners do genuinely love football, the club, region etc. Bourgoin has been accused by some of using Auxerre as a way to get into politics and expand his business but when he left the club went down, then he came back if I remember well. Same with guys like Dreyfus and Pinault at Marseille and Rennes. They are (were for RL Dreyfus as he died a few years ago) some of the richest French biz men (like Tapie before) and have invested a lot of their personal money in these clubs and admit they have lost money. They don't need football to exist but just did that out of passion (mostly). We need those guys in football or sports in general imo and even if we whinge they don't invest enough etc, they still put their own money so full respect for that.

let me know when the afl commission make an afl club available for sale I may look at the proposal

No doubt that you can get some serious exposure but any owner aiming to make a financial profit is going to be disappointing. Given that the aim of football clubs is to win matches, not make big profits, I've always thought that they should be seen as not for profit organisations, more like charities. They should look to generate enough revenue to meet their operational targets (wins for football clubs and financing various programs for charities). Even the few clubs that do make profits would be better off putting the profits towards future expenditures, whether it's an increased transfer budget, facility upgrades etc. I'd also assume that Mr Bourgoin would still have the football clubs best interests at heart. Sure he'll get exposure for his business but not at the expense of the club. For every Auxerre there is a Blackburn Rovers with their disastrous Venky's owners.

I think its often true Matt, especially for big clubs owned by qataris, millionaires etc. Having said that, smaller investors want some kind of return, whether its brand exposure or notoriety. In the French ligue 1, most clubs are owned by French businessmen. They aren't like the Qatari at PSG or Russians with Monaco who can invest and not care (much) about the return on investment. Sure they know they aren't going to make money from football directly but they will get exposure on the European stage. The best example that comes to mind is Gerard Bourgoin, the guy who owned Auxerre for decades. He was the CEO of then a small biz selling chickens. He was always saying that by investing at Auxerre, he puts this 50000 little french town on the euro/world map, gave his small company some exposure he would have never have with advertising etc. I remember he was even saying the Bourgogne region, which is a wine region famous all around the world, now got more tourism from Auxerre the football team that their wine related reputation. And for him as a businessman, it was much easier to sell chickens all around Europe when you say you're also the owner of a team that plays Ac Milan or Ajax (even if you lose!) than just the owner of a 30 employees company.

How many football clubs make profits? Some of the biggest in the world make huge losses and are only able to do so because their owners are willing to throw money at them. The fact is nobody takes over a football club (of any sport) and expects to make money. You do it for love and hope that they don't lose so much that you can't afford to cover it

I think you"ll find that the AFL models it's revenue sharing conduct on the NFL model. There are many NFL franchises which are owned by multi-millionaires. You might think there is no money in creating an even competition but the NFL franchise owners would no doubt disagree with you.