As a proud round-ball game enthusiast, being at the MCG on Thursday night to see 70,000 fill the stands made me ponder many things about football.
Could we here in Australia get to this stage of passion and support for a domestic football game? Could we see a Melbourne derby here at the mighty MCG, where the floodlights are bright and the people themselves flood through the gates to see the beautiful game in all is dramatic glory?
Wishful thinking perhaps, but not outside the realm of possibility. You see, what brings people to games of AFL in Australia is the same thing that brings people to games of football in Europe.
To put it simply, it’s culture.
Many moons ago, the very people who stood in that 70,000 capacity crowd went to games with their mothers and fathers as kids They grew up with the sport and their team’s colours. And when they reach adulthood they took their own kids to games, and the cycle of sporting culture continues.
A-League attendances have on the decline, and people bemoan the lack of class and quality on the pitch. The administration of the game has been controversial and has alienated even the most die-hard fans from attending games. Football’s strength, the point of difference it has from other codes, is the atmosphere, and yet seats are empty. We had some incredibly passionate active area support groups, such as the Terrace, but they have been forced to disband, significantly dampening the atmosphere at games.
Simply, we are lacking culture.
But football is a sleeping giant and the passion for the game burns deep throughout the communities. The Socceroos continually draw packed houses, and who can forget when Liverpool visited the MCG and 90,000 sung You’ll Never Walk Alone in unison. It was special, to say the least.
Perhaps most pertinently is that football is the most highly participated sport among children around the country. The round-ball game reeks of untapped potential in Australia, but to make the most of that potential we need to change the culture, and fast.
Melbourne City fans (Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
I was a fan of the FFA’s decision to add Western United and Macarthur to the A-League. Why? Melbourne and Sydney are the two largest cities in Australia and are almost the fastest growing cities too. Adding more teams in these catchment areas creates more tribalism and more derbies in football. In essence, these rivalries will create culture, and hopefully on the agenda is second teams in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, all of which will spark rivalry between communities and love between supporters.
And from there, well, we need to start getting our bums on seats. Its high time for the many football enthusiasts in Australia to start attending more games. Yes, the FFA is in a state of disarray; yes, the quality on the pitch has stagnated in the last few years; and, yes, the administrators of the game have made questionable decisions regarding active support, but football needs unity among its community now more than ever. Like all revolutions in history, the power of the people will triumph over the few ruling at the top.
There are myriad issues around football in Australia that need addressing if we are to see an improvement in our game. Let’s forget the administrative issues and focus on what we as fans can control, and that is supporting our domestic competition.
The MLS was in serious peril at the turn of the millennium, but fast forward 20 years and the league has 26 teams and regularly has capacity crowds. Let’s strive for more of that Down Under, preferably with promotion and relegation, but that’s another issue altogether.
Maybe one day we will see that Melbourne Derby at the MCG. A guy can dream, can’t he?
Justin Mahon
Roar Rookie
The United States has 46 cities larger than Canberra and is economically integrated with Canada with a bunch more cities of this size.
Justin Mahon
Roar Rookie
Sounds like a fan to me. Put his passion and his hard earned where his mouth was. Fair play to him.
Justin Mahon
Roar Rookie
Lol. All these articles about getting a football culture. No one can define it, and God help us if they could. The game would be off on a cultural revolution, without regard the the actual Australian sporting culture. If running our game counter to the established culture is what you want. Youll get what you deserve. Irelevance. If we're lucky.
David V
Guest
The very idea of a club from a small population centre being fully professional and working its way to the highest level is one of the beauties of foreign league systems. Keep in mind that some people were foolish enough to believe one team per city was enough for the A-League when we all knew it was never going to be. Australian football fans need to stop thinking that we are somehow "different" and must do things differently here.
Munro Mike
Roar Rookie
#David V Expanding to regional centres means unless you've got a wonderfully subscribed streaming service that you're running yourself as a major revenue stream; otherwise you'll condemn yourself to background mediocrity. The revenue model requires something of the big 3; sponsorship, broadcast rights, members/attendance. Hiding away in Woollongong or Canberra doesn't really tick those boxes. And certainly not Geelong. If these regions were 'virgin territory' from a sporting sense then there's an argument - but the Australian market place is rather saturated. Geelong for example was at the forefront of Australian Football back in 1859-60 along with Melbourne when over in England Sheffield were pioneering their own rules soon to be association and thereafter to jump into bed with the London association. What I'm pointing out there is the danger of comparing a city like Geelong with 160 years association to one brand of football with a city like Sheffield that has similar but to another brand of football.
David V
Guest
What are the populations of Sheffield, Bournemouth, Leicester, Brighton, Burnley, etc which have or have had clubs at the highest level? Or of clubs in Spain, France and Italy from similar size and even smaller population centres? Why is there such a pathological aversion in Australia to ignoring global football realities?
VivGilchrist
Roar Rookie
He’s paid his $100 let him do as he wishes. Why should this bother you?
chris
Guest
Stevo the point i was trying to make is what is to be considered sporting culture. Im a rusted on Souths fan but can't remember the last game attended. Can't culture also be centred around spending Saturday mornings watching the kids play soccer?
ArchRival23
Roar Rookie
Personally it makes more sense to put teams in urban populations that are over 4.5 million compared to a Wollongong for example, which has 289 000. In the future I would love to see places like Wollongong, Canberra and Geelong represented but what our game needs is more people invested and to do so, expanding in Melbourne and Sydney make sense
Gyfox
Roar Rookie
Chris - one could ask why the AFL culture only exists in the southern states? It has been suggested this is because at the beginning of the 20th cent Sydney looked more to Britain, whereas Melbourne preferred something Australian. I think it's more to do with interstate rivalry. IE: Sydney could not bear to play a sport invented in Melbourne, even if it was a uniquely Aussie game. This also explains why in Sydney interstate games attract the crowds, as opposed to club games. When it comes to culture, AFL is different to soccer, league & union. Aussie Rules clubs have long history of community involvement (Port Adelaide was founded in 1870) & being Aussie have unique traditions that include huge attendances since the beginning, emphasis on membership, high involvement of women (45% of crowds & now 1/3 of players following AFLW) & even their Cheer Squads. The other codes have their own traditions which come from Britain - except for the NRL cheer girls!
David V
Guest
I fail to see how adding more teams in Sydney and Melbourne is a good idea when what we need is expanding to regional centres like Wollongong, Canberra, et al. Elite football leagues around the world can have clubs from smaller centres represented so there is no reason why we can't have that as well.
David V
Guest
Depends on where in NSW you are. Southern NSW has greater "Victorian" cultural influence and hence Aussie Rules tends to be more prevalent in the border regions. Broken Hill, tied to Adelaide, likewise.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
That’s a point that Simon Hill makes. It’s about how we make the right decisions to get there.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
But you do have an equivalent ‘culture’ around NRL. The point is that you grow up with it, you get infused with it from birth. That’s the point. And that leads to supporting an NRL team, almost automatically- you practically don’t have to think about it or rationalise. You become rusted on without ever noticing that it happened.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Good contributions.
MarkfromCroydon
Roar Pro
We need to shift the paradigm. Football may never be the biggest sport in Australia in terms of viewership. That's o.k, it doesn't have to be. What we do need however is for the sport to grow to a level where viewership, both at the ground and on whatever screen (t.v, devices etc) is sufficient to help sustain an economy where football is an attractive option for sponsors and advertisers. There are external challenges and powerful direct opponents to this, but the first hurdle to overcome is the internal one. Football is a business, and it's a big business. The economic potential of this sport is greater than any other sport in Australia, because our sport is a global sport. Just take look at the City group and the example of Aaron Mooy as a first taste of what can happen in the future. The issue of being a big business open to a global market means that we have pressure within the Australian football marketplace for clubs to act solely and wholly in their own self interests with little or no regard for other Australian football clubs or to the football ecosystem in this country. Small clubs know they can't compete on a world scale and so don't try to do so. They also know they are in an ultra competitive market, and they have little incentive to help other clubs who are their direct competitors. To put it simply, at the level below the A league, there is perhaps rightly so, both fear and comfort that prevents real growth. This is where we need the paradigm shift. As an example take a look at the NPL clubs. If they were small businesses (not associated with football), how many would be looking to merge to achieve greater economic power and synergies and capture a greater market share? We need football to recognise the opportunity and take the next step. Ideally this starts with both an expansion of the A League and NPL clubs growing or merging and forming a fully professional national second division with promotion and relegation with the A League. Once we get a critical mass of entities at NPL club level (either existing clubs, mergers or super franchises backed by a number of clubs) then we can be in a position to grow the sport. Of course then the real fight begins with the Aussie Rules, Rugby league and Cricket organisations who all are direct computers with football and who have all, either in the past or currently, actively worked keep football small and prevent any threat from their competition.
Sydneysideliner
Roar Rookie
If you take everything else as equal (like competition from other sports), I guess the population has to be a big factor in the MLS' success. Doing a quick wiki search, the US has 327 million people for its 24 current MLS teams, giving it just under 14 million for each team. Last MLS season had a total attendance of 8.5 million, or nearly 3% of the total population (if you pretended every fan only turned up once). Australia has 25 million, giving it 2.5 million per 10 current teams. Last A-league season had 1.4 million people attend games, or nearly 6% of the population. So we need to do better but we're already have more A-league support 'per capita' than the States, they just have much better potential to grow by sheer population size. That being said, there are still lessons we could learn in growing a comparably unpopular sport in a crowded landscape...
ArchRival23
Roar Rookie
The states are very similar to aus, football has to compete against a number of codes for popularity in both countries. football purists all hate the MLS conference style set-up, but the way the MLS has been able to rise from where it was in 2000 should provide inspiration for our battling league down here.
Munro Mike
Roar Rookie
#ArchRival23 Funny that - the AusPlay survey......yep....it's a large survey but it's got some fundamental flaws.... one being the tables the show activities based on minimum once a year - which is why "Fitness/Gym" ranks so highly (all the people who bought a membership, went once and never returned!!). Anyway - the actual numbers from the annual reports based on registrations and minimum 6 week programs are far more interesting and realistic and meaningful. But you can stick with a survey based on 24,000 people rather than the actual raw data. (actually the once a year part fits nicely with the FFA's huge number for "Tournaments, Events, Community Programs" category in their annual report which shows 550K of their report 1.815 million participants fall in that curious if not somewhat dubious category.
chris
Guest
Interesting stats Arch. AFL is surprisingly ahead of netball, cricket and basketball.