Tell us: which modified sports codes do you love and hate?

It's not 'my' sport, never played or watched it growing up, this is why I think I can offer a more impartial view since following it and see it grow among the Sydney landscape - didn't even pick it up from Victorians, just don't have that rivalry most Sydneysiders do with Melbourne, find it all quite silly.

You could be right. The only inference i can give over the matter is that the rest (Football, League and Union) supporters are jealous of the support and governance given by your sport. The commitment of AFL supporters is its greatest strength and is the reason why it's in a position to dominate the landscape. Something the rest of us can only strive to reach, however i don't think it will ever get to that point with any of them.

Interesting points Celtic, agree about the tribal nature of NRL and AFL fans being far more committed, but totally disagree with the 85% watching being ex-pats. This may have been the case for many years when AFL made the foray up north, but I don't think that reflects the situation now, with new generations coming trough having played the game since childhood. Of course when attending a game, the most informed and vocal are people from the southern states, but I would say it would be down to 25-30% now, although there is no real way of finding out. AFL fans do like to travel as well, so that boosts the percentage. Perhaps GWS would have a greater percentage of ex pats, but doubt the Swans do. Don't know the situation in QLD - suspect the ex pats would be the only ones still capable of watching after years of dismal performances.

It's good to get some objective balance into the debate Celtic and I suspect you are about to be proven right by the number of AFL people here telling you you're wrong lol.

Sorry for some poor sentence structure, but cramming that in while at my desk. Eeekk, re-read it and cringed at some spelling mistakes.

I did post a reply but dont no what happened to it. The points i raised were. Stats don't lie, but they also don't tell the story. I can tell you categorically (as someone who has lived in QLD for 26 years, has a strong affiliation with NSW and lives in VIC) that 85% of those viewing and attending games in QLD and NSW are ex pat residents from WA, TAS, VIC and SA. Secondly RL is the most tribal game in the land, I can almost guarantee that most Aussie Rules supporters watch more than one game of football a week, it doesn't necessarily have to involve their team. RL fans on the other hand, a large majority of them, will only watch their team play. This brings about higher figures, simply because AFL fans are more committed fans. If you were to do a political style 2 party preferred vote throughout the country. Id seriously doubt it'd be more between the two sports, 50/50 down the line, its just RL are much more casual about their support, where as the AFL are religious. A friend of mine who lives on the Gold Coast refuses to go to watch the Gold Coast Titans play unless they are playing the Dragons. He is what i'd call a fanatical fan. So 13 times a year he has the opportunity to watch his team, some years he will attend 0 times, simply because the fixture list states the Dragons don't play on the GC. On the other hand my friend who is an ex pat Vic supports the Pies, has a season membership to the Suns. Infact i'd say just about everyone ino that attends Suns games are from ex pat AFL dominated states. It could be argued that AFL in QLD and NSW could even be the 4th most popular sport. RL being the obvious no1, Soccer no.2 and very little difference in popularity between RU and AFL, probably the city you come from will dictate the pref of either RU or AFL. The difference is that of the lets say 15% (10% ex pat AFL states) of the community prefers AFL, 80% of them are committed AFL watchers. Of the 65% of the community who prefer RL, only 20% of this group are committed RL watchers. the remaining 20% just doesn't care about either game. That's where these stats are skewing towards a more balanced grouping. Btw are for everyone thinking its the no.1 game, people here in my office (Melb) are bemused when i tell them most of my mates don't know who Nat Fyfe is and 50% of them couldn't even tell you how much a goal is worth. Anyway good debate

Further confirmation for clipper that League is dying everywhere and AFL is prospering lol Don't even understand what that metric is about anyway.

The AFL were clever because they waited for Free to Air TV to have extra channels to allow national coverage of the comp and chance to get sponsorship - with just 3 free to air commercial channels there would be no way AFLW would get on commercial TV. Most women's sport is on ABC - and the netball is on Nines secondary channel.

On most metrics, AFL is number 1 - survey showed 6 million people take a relatively active interest in the game (for 6 months) although that too is misleading - During the Aussie Open millions take an interest in tennis but the rest of the year interest is much lower.

Maybe they weren't ready because the AFL has not supported women's football in the way it has supported men's football. Catch up time.

Interesting MF - proves my point that Sydney is a multi code city now. There is a gap of 40 points between interest of NRL in NSW and interest in AFL in VIC. One is dominant, one is ahead of the others, but not by that much. QLD surprises me - though league would be further ahead. Funny that VIC, SA, WA and TAS all have 8 as the NRL figure - is it the same people racing around trying to drum up interest? I also think Celtic is quite a reasonable poster, has taken a fair view.

Celtic you reckon the AFL is the best run sport in Australia, but then claim that the AFL believes that everyone in NSW and Queensland love the sport - are you serious?? Even Melbourne has an Anti-Football League (the original AFL), and at the height of their powers, they would have had at least 42 card carrying members. People might find this interesting: Google Trends for 2016 AFL v NRL Region afl: (2016) nrl: (2016) Australia 35 23 Tasmania 100 8 Victoria 96 8 South Australia 88 8 Northern Territory 86 28 Western Australia 70 8 New South Wales 21 58 Queensland 22 53 Australian Capital Territory 35 38 Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular.

DB Correct - people are mistaken if they think we got these numbers in round one because of the AFL's marketing machine. The momentum had been building for a long time, and the AFL had very little involvement in that, in fact, all evidence suggests it got right away from them. They had zero idea what they were dealing with.

And even when they made the change, they thought that maybe, maybe about 10k will show up. 24,568 turned up - a couple of thousand locked out.

As a QLD'er that lives in Melbourne i believe i am qualified to answer most of the points being thrown around this forum. Yep the quality was garbage, but these girls also showed a hell of a lot of commitment. You cannot deny their toughness. Things will improve, personally i have little interest to watch until it does but happy to support it verbally as its a opportunity for women's sport. I just hope the AFL doesn't see this as a chance to destroy other sports with the financial muscle being thrown behind it. I get the sneaky suspicion it smells more about dollars and cents than women's sport, but guess no problems with having both. As for crowd figures and interest, living in Melbourne for the past few years has taught me a few things a) they will support midget wrestling if their team was associated with it, b) they are Australia's greatest supporters, hands down put the rest of the country to shame, c) they think the AFL is the single greatest thing known to the world and its almost their religious belief, are bemused how someone cannot think its the greatest sport on earth and are brainwashed by all things AFL, open an AFL church and they'd go, d) as much as the AFL manipulates its schedules (there's no coincidence they started the AFLW the same weekend as the 9s, 7s and ODI) they are a super organised and impressive organisation. The best in Australia and its no surprise they run the best sports organisation in Australia. e) they genuinely believe and have been told the entire population loves the game (QLD and NSW inc). Despite most people who attend games in these states are ex pat WA, VIC and SA residents. Iv learnt to think the game is ok, or in other words happy to go to the pub and watch a game if friends want to do that, plus its healthy to know whats going on for office talk, but i doubt id ever become a rusted on supporter. The game itself it exciting at times and an easy watch with a beer to enjoy, but i classify it as the all rounders game. Their skills are solid but not exceptional like football, their players are athletic but not exceptional like basketball, their players are tough but not like rugby. Its a mixed bag of a bit of everything but that's part of the charm and why its one of the few games in the world where you can legitimately grab an elite level athlete from another sport and train them up. Last thing ill add is i should of been warned not to pick the Tigers as my team (but living in Richmond kinda felt obliged). Abbreviated game i love - Rugby sevens Game i hate - don't hate any sports

Folau's stats indicate a non involvement in the game certainly, he could be a stats leader across a lot of stuff in terms of low totals.Accuracy was a weakness, he is below the worst kicker who made the qualification criteris in terms of accuracy. I only watched Folau play once on TV for a quarter , you would have to be watching for a long time given his level of involvement. In terms of contested marks he had 8 in 13 games versus 22 marks. In terms of the ratio of contested marks to everything else he could be the highest. Maybe its because he moved little that he had such a high ratio of contested marks.. .

Just follow a bit of Netball, Mick. As you will see above, I have been very positive about the new venture - hopefully in will continue. I do agree that with all the publicity and sponsorship perhaps they should get a bonus.

All this talk about the AFL hyping these games up just don't align with reality. In fact every time Gil mentioned the AFLW he was down playing it.

Kiwi huh?? Yes they do, which is why I didn't do much research on this sport. But being the number 2 international team in a commonwealth sport underlines an elite status. Something the AFLW will push towards in the coming years. 1 weekend of games is not enough of a sample size to write off the sport. If that were true then the Aussie Cricket team should have been withdrawn from all competition after South Africa destroyed them in 2 tests. Just trying to point out that we've just witnessed a birth, not a maturation.

#SonOfLordy What you say is correct - however on this topic you have to be careful. I suspect that there is a male viewpoint, and a female viewpoint. The number of women and girls, the number of dads going with their daughters. The demographic at the games was NOT the blokes who are likely to tap on their keyboards that the standard was worse than the magoos at their 3rd div suburban team. Now were the AFL still struggling with a hard sell to get girls come and play the game - then I'd be seriously concern for sustainability in all respects. However - there has been phenomenal growth (from a low base) in new teams for womens/girls footy. Several hundred new teams each year for the last couple. The flood gates have opened. And some of the stories that we hear now - of the daughters who religiously attended for example Princes Park with their families, and to now get the chance to play there - - those are the stories that we didn't hear before - it was all about the boys. Now the girls are finding their footy voice and it's about time too. btw - certainly the free entry helps. Great idea really. Interesting notion too. Perhaps marketing genius or perhaps the opposite. What they do in season 2 will be interesting.