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.
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.
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
Jordan
Guest
State of origin is without a doubt the most intense, draw dropping sporting event in the world, 80 minutes of non stop action, huge tackles, massive hit ups, broken bones, blood, sweat and tears every game. Anything can happen, both sides with the best rugby league players in Australia (best in the world). Nothing can compare, there's no armor like nfl. Just 15 men a side, going at it. Fear and anger running in there veins. A true battle. State of Origin is the ultimate sporting event.
AxeMaster
Guest
Australia doesn't need the superbowl hype cos the actual games of AFL/NRL and Football is all about substance. Gridiron has no substance....it's a really crap game so needs other distractions to deflect it's rankness. The world couldn't give a rats clacker about the superbowl, except when they need to have a good laugh. Helmets, 80's spandex and little ankle hugging aerobics socks.....I can't type anymore, I'm laughing too hard.
Ned Balme
Roar Guru
I live in America and just finished playing college football over here so all my buddy's are football players. And from their point of view, many people over here actually somewhat resent what the Superbowl has become. The endless media access and game preview shows throughout the week are more or less tossed aside once the game starts for the focus of celebrity culture and many many people I've spoken to hate the fact that the Halftime Show is even a thing. Every year I watch the AFL GF and think how underwhelming the pre-match entertainment is but then I remind myself that this is Australia, our sporting icons aren't larger than life so nothing other than the game itself should be and I for one love it. Also, they are adamant about having the Superbowl in warm weather locales for quality purposes which leaves traditional "homes of NFL" such as Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Washington and NY as afterthoughts. Thank God we have the Mecca that is the G' and the smarts to have our biggest game at the start of Spring rather than the mid-Winter.
Tim
Guest
The reason why Auustralia will never have a "Super Bowl" level event is due to the lack of advertising time that can be sold during any of the major codes. http://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-commercials-and-just-11-minutes-of-play/ NFL has over 100 commercials per match for 11 minutes of action. Try and fit that into the grand final of any australian sport
Brian M
Guest
Its my understanding "the wave" originally started at Anaheim Angels baseball games. Thankfully, its time has more or less come and gone. Never did like it myself.
Dogs Of War
Roar Guru
I think State Of Origin is pretty much doing the same thing is Australia now. You only have to look at the ratings, and they can only go up as the next generation gets used to all sports being available on TV, which wasn't always the case.
Dogs Of War
Roar Guru
Same, having witnessed what the was the decade of misery (90's), everything we do now makes me happy, though it would be nice to win a playoff game finally.
Hayley
Guest
Auckland, not actually in Australia mate.
Andrew Kitchener
Roar Guru
Just like the huge amount of college ball on Saturdays!
New York Hawk
Guest
Good points but no one wants to miss an NFL game as there are only sixteen in the regular season and every one of them is important to your team's possible success. This leads to the final round having many playoff possibilities across conferences. It also helps there are 32 teams and most games are scheduled for Sunday. With not much else happening on Sundays anywhere, the NFL completely owns them. And I must say, it is truly awesome.
New York Hawk
Guest
As a Jets fan, I empathize. The Jets balance out being a Hawks supporter nicely. And the Dragons kind of fall in between. Now if Geno Smith could catch fire in 2015 and Percy Harvin can stay on the field, we could be in with a shot of playoff football! ;-)
Fivehole
Guest
True dat. 4xFinals in as many years is awesome by bengals standards... compare it to the Pats though..........
Andrew Kitchener
Roar Guru
True. Although in a sport like hockey, where the puck movements are sometimes so incredibly fickle, the 7-game situation suits. It's fantastic drama!
ilikedahoodoogurusingha
Guest
The 12th man flag started to be raised at each home game in 2003, the number 12 jersey having been retired in 1984....so it certainly was around, just not as conspicuous. In the early 1980's Seahawks fans also used to perform the "Blue Wave" in the Kingdome, years before it came to the world at the 1986 Football World Cup in Mexico, and ever since known as the Mexican Wave.
ProfVonSchrodinger
Guest
Except for the extreme right wing conservatives, it's a commie plot for them.
Andrew Kitchener
Roar Guru
MLS actually has a reasonable following and, similar to Australia, the Americans get around their team in the World Cup!
Gurudoright
Guest
If the Bengals ever win the Super Bowl I will be filthy if band wagoners jump on board.ive been with them since before Super bowl XXIII when Boomer Esaison was the main Man, the first time round. It sucks being a Bengals fan
ProfVonSchrodinger
Guest
From my experiences when studying at an American Uni, I visited Seattle many times for some postgraduate work. At that stage, early 2000s, the Sonics were still the big ticket item with Seahawks fans either quite oblivious to their team's fortunes or not particularly enamoured by them, and certainly not overt in their support like they are now. There was none of this "12th man" nonsense or the seemingly die hard fan base that follows their team religiously like you get in cities like Cleveland or Philadelphia regardless of the fortunes of those respective teams. The Seattle natives I worked with were more likely to follow Green Bay or Dallas than their local team.
MJ
Guest
Unlike the other major American sports, all of which are decided by a best of 7 game series (even the WNBA is best of 3) Super Bowl is THE ultimate game. Most will tune into Game 1, then take a passing glance until the series could potentially be decided.
Bondy
Guest
Epiquin Just partially off topic the "code wars" here in Australia if they could be called as such unlike America where they have one form of "prominent" physical football we have amazingly three, League, Union and Aussie Rules , a truly unique or bizarre occurrence for a Country and all are promoting they're tougher than the other .