Women's Big Bash hits A-League for six in TV ratings

Years ago I remember watching a documentary called RiP: A Remix Manifesto, it was about copyright and intellectual property. Two points were brought up by the filmmaker: 1) Culture always builds on the past. 2) The past always tries to control the future. Even though the format of the game of cricket has changed, it's still seen as cricket to many people, especially young kids. Given how many young Australians watch overseas football and play video games like FIFA, it's not surprising that Cricket Australia has created a tacky, sugary product to compete with the A-League. Cricket Australia and many older Australians don't want young Australians idolising Tim Cahill and Aaron Mooy, they want young Australians idolising Tim Paine and Aaron Finch! Personally I blame Frank Lowy. Had he invested his own money in the A-League, like Larry Kestelman did with the NBL, the A-League would probably be able to attract much better players (come home Tim Cahill!) and there would be more dollars to splurge on marketing and promotions. You can't rely on Tony Sage/David Traktovenko/Mike Charlesworth to prop the competition up and create a product the mass media will be forced to take notice of.

How popular was one day cricket in the 80s? Sold out venues, mcg use to get 70,000 regularly and the viewing figures astronomical. Twenty twenty has been good for cricket in one way but bad that its killed international cricket. Some of the traditional powers are now very poor at longer lengths of the game and in any case field weaken teams as players prefer the more ludicrative form of the game. Soccer has never had to change its format to get punters through the door and hence less likely to have volatilty with popularity.

The Ladies just need some promotion and a few $$$ put behind them. The sports they have managed to get shown on FTA TV have all rated quite well considering the low profile of womens sport. I think even the womens A League was rating decently on the ABC last time I looked, just need more exposure.

So a comp that draws over 21,000 people per match and just under a million viewers per match will only last another 2 decades ? What does that mean for the a league then who are outrated by the women.

Yes when the womens bbl gets 1.5 million spectators a year or averages 12000 per game ($30 tickets per person) maybe you can compare its popularity. I can only guess the bbl's popularity will last for another 20 years before 10/10 cricket arrives.

Basketball is bigger than soccer in Indonesia? You must be joking. The only places basketball is bigger than soccer is the US, Phillipines, Canada, Cuba, Lithuania and maybe China. But crowds for soccer in the chinese league ate growing.

A few actually along with a ref and some well known players in England and Wales.

In the past 20 years how many openly gays players have there been in the NRL . I think the number would be the same as that of the AFL . Ian Roberts came out in 95 and there has yet to be another one as he was treated so poorly by the League community. This fact makes the point that the NRL must not be all that progressive. If the NRL was so accepting of gay players you would have thought there would have at least been another one to come out in the past twenty years. It has been reported that their are dozens of closeted homosexuals playing in the AFL and NRL . So it would seem that neither of these leagues are all that progressive in this area. Anyway what does sexuality have anything to do with their sporting abilities it seems to be a non issues in Womens sport why do we make it in to an issue in the Mens.

Lol . I also missed Barry's other little dig at RL . Progressive OTHER codes . I suppose you're trying to claim that AFL is progressive . Didn't you have a big name leave this yr due to racism .? That's progressive ..welcome 1950 White Aust policy Has a GAY AFL player been game enough to "COME OUT" No ....it's 2015 & gay marriage is classed as normal where it once was frowned upon . Good to see the PROGRESSIVE AFL still lagging behind . I rarely post here anymore . The same posters posting the same crap .

AFL fans quick to jump on RL without checking any facts . Give yourself an uppercut Barry

This...so much this, we are really spoilt for choice in this country. I'm sure the South American countries don't love football because its played around the world; they play it because they love it.

To be honest I think that notion is as reductive as those who seen this as a code war. Soccer, like Rugby (both sports I enjoy) are ultimately quite niche games in Australia from a spectator standpoint. But that's not really important; all they need to do is be competitive "enough" and they are. No, they won't challenge the likes of Cricket, with its truly national footprint and heavily cemented place in our common memory, nor will it challenge the behemoths of the NRL or AFL, but it will survive in its niche just fine. As for the idea that "we need to embrace "the global game" if we're a true sports loving nation", well no, we don't. I love rugby in particular, and enjoy soccer quite a bit, but that argument has never washed with me. The reason the EPL is a big competition is because it is so intensely local; it is built on cross town rivalries and big brands. It's taken hold in countries outside of England because of its place in English sporting lore, and the strength of British culture as a 'brand' and the reach of the sport, BUT it is successful because it is incredibly local. Now, people say sport is culture, and they're right; sport is the accumulation of practices and support over time, and over time in this country we have very much embraced different games to the rest of the world. We've embraced our own game (or the Victorian game - either way, it's from here), a game that is partially our game (Rugby League - its genesis and evolution has as much to do with Australia as it has the UK) and of course Cricket - a sport which holds a unique place in our culture because it is tied up with our relationship with England and our rebelliousness against them. Meanwhile, Rugby has had a more niche status due to its enforced amateurism and white collar niche, and soccer has been mostly defined by its 'otherness' due to the fact it has traditionally been more embraced by people we classify as "other" (immigrants), but this is changing. All the same, much like our refusal to embrace baseball isn't a reflection of us refusing to recognise the importance of Japan and Korea to our place in Asia, Australia's "refusal" to entirely embrace soccer isn't a reflection on us rejecting "the world". It's merely a reflection of our unique footballing landscape, one that has formed its own more varied preferences than most of the rest of the world, who chose only to embrace one form of sport. Personally, I don't think that's to be sneezed at either; in most countries it really is just soccer and little else, yet in a city like Sydney or Melbourne you can support football teams across 4 different football codes, all in fully professional leagues. If you were to take the culture analogy and draw it to cuisine, it's fair to say that Australia has a lot more on the menu than most places, and if that isn't culture, then I'm not sure how you'd describe it.

This from last year, the ladies game wasn't shown on TV and was given no promotion whatsoever yet still got the punters watching, I didn't know the game was streamed live at the time. http://www.nrl.com/womens-game-attracts-online-audience/tabid/10874/newsid/83007/default.aspx?cid=NRL_HP_Latest The Kiwi Ferns' thrilling last-minute win over the Australian Jillaroos was watched live on NRL.com by more than 16,000 fans.

Found some ratings for the Australian Womens Rugby League match that was replayed on a Sunday earlier in the year. Over 100,000 alone in NSW, WOW. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/monday-buzz-highlights-lowlights-and-talking-points-from-bumper-weekend-of-sport/story-fnp0lyn3-1227367361424 JILLAROOS RISE The Australian women’s RL team, the Jillaroos may soon be able to chase their own TV rights deal. The replay of their match against the NZ Kiwi Ferns attracted an audience on Channel 9 of 100,000 in NSW alone. That’s double the average Sydney audience for free-to-air AFL matches. And they are figures our Super Rugby teams would die for.

HAHA concerned supporter, I was thinking the same thing. On looking for ratings to show someone below that the Aus womens RL side also out rated the A League earlier in the year also, I came across an old thread that I had posted in last year where the Aus womens cricket side beat the a league as well tv ratings wise, plus when the Jillaroos played in Wollongong last year before the 4 nations game, they played in front of a sell out too, it along with the mens test were the highest crowds that weekend beating every soccer attendance, womens sport is on the move.

I disagree with your comment that Basketball is bigger than Football in India. The fact is Basketball is pretty big in English medium private schools in metro citiesand these schools feed players to Colleges and Universities. But outside that Basketball does not have much following. NBA is quite small in viewership. There is no big domestic league to talk of On the other hand Football is numero uno in Indian north east and has pretty massive following (on par with Cricket) in states like Bengal, Kerala and Goa. Apart from tha, the coverage of EPL and European championships has now hooked millions of youngsters who ardently follow big European clubs and have their latest stats on fingertips. FIFA world cup matches draw massive tv ratings and so does newly conceived Indian SuperLeague. But I-League is sub standard and a work in progess. All in All Football is clearly no 2 in India but still lags far behind King Cricket.

It does, otherwise you wouldn't be posting here. Not hard mate. Know matter how you want to coat it, you'd only be lying to yourself.

I'm not sure what this proves beyond that very few people care about Australian soccer, averaging 140k viewers is pretty poor.

The changing fortunes of basketball in Australia are evidence of my argument that Australians like sports where we are big fish in small ponds. In the early 90's, Australia was one of the top national teams and the NBL one of the best basketball leagues in the world. Over time, as other countries have got better than us, and the European basketball leagues have developed to be bigger and better than the NBL, we have lost interest.

"I think the big loser of popular womens sport is not the A-League it’s the NRL who will most likely trail progressive other codes by a few decades." that's a very short sighted thing to say, the Jillaroos and Ferns have been televised, they have their own world cup and All Stars teams. Women's participation rates in RL has jumped 26% this year alone http://www.nrl.com/record-growth-in-womens-game/tabid/10874/newsid/89089/default.aspx