What exactly is football's reward for starting late and skipping international breaks?

Possibly not. We need to remember that the NSW Government introduced a new rebate scheme for junior sport (Active Kids). It's a subsidy of $100 per child in 2018 and $200 in 2019. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that has spiked recruitment and retention of junior players There's some very interesting data here on the district by district popularity of sports at junior levels: https://sport.nsw.gov.au/sectordevelopment/activekids

"I’m from Canberra and don’t have a team to support " Umm Canberra United? Unless of course you mean you don't have a male team to support. Which is different to saying you don't have a team to support.

Not critical at all. But to say AFL is big here when it isn't, is what's laughable. AFL in NSW - all tip and no iceberg.

@ Chris You are critical that the Swans only average 30 k at home games- hilarious! Sydney is, by far, the home of soccer in Australia and has been for since the 1890's- but has higher average home crowds than Sydney and WSW combined! In the context of soccer's longevity and omnipresence, compared to Australian Football having only a very small profile until 1982, a major achievement for Australian Football. It is interesting that, when presented with facts and other objective data, many soccer fans resort to absurd fabrications, deflections from the facts presented, or simply attempt to denigrate the Australian game. Very sad. Why are some soccer fans so fearful of Australian Football and its considerable growth in NSW and Qld.? Why do some deny its strong growth, despite eg, the data g provided by Maximus Insight above, with the full NSW and Qld, detailed competition figures? As for quoting numbers "to suit themselves", AusPlay is simply: . an automated phone survey of 23,600 people who have mobile & land line phones.-less than 0.1% of the population. .it counts someone as a "participant" in a sport or activity if they say they have been involved ONLY ONCE in the last 12 months! The sport organisations own registrations are much more accurate (although all have 50%+ of their "participants" as fluff numbers- one off events, Gala Days etc.). AusPlay says the biggest activities (at least once per year) are . "Fitness and Gym"-43% . "Jogging"-34% ."Swimming"- 15% . "cycling"- 15% . "Bushwalking"- 11% How are their crowds, ratings and broadcast rights going? In the FFA's 2018 Official figures, what are the 550,000+ "Community Event and Promotional Activities"?

AR and here I thought you were doing so well in not st alking Nemesis. Don't regress. Stay on the program and do things that bring you joy and happiness.

Agree with what you say. At the end of the day ppl can quote these numbers and those numbers to suit whatever agenda they are driving. AFL is just not in our psyche. No one talks about it. Hardly anyone plays it and not that many watch it. Aside from the Swans. Having 30k people watching the only AFL game in town (at any level) is hardly something to get excited about in a city of 5 million. People talk about league, cricket and football. AFL is never discussed.

Oh my. It’s always interesting to read Nemesis’ declarations about what will happen in the next broadcast deal. He was bang on last time: - $100m p.a - YouTube and google - shorter term of the contract It was like he had a crystal ball.

Chris is correct , Aussie rules hardly exists in Nsw.

When did the AFL get 80K plus on numerous occasions in AFL in the last 10 years?

It’s not number 4 , maybe number 10 football. rugby codes soccer 6 a side , touch footy basketball , surfing , barefoot bowls have more participants.

It’s common for the local rules clubs to have over 100 names registered. This is everyone who has played senior footy in the last 10 years not current players That’s how the numbers get skewed Rugby and league are still very strong and have many divisions, women’s and men’s . In fact rugby union is facing a renaissance at club level . Both codes are also well linked with new Australians too. Cricket is coming back at kids level too Soccer dwarfs everything else however. It’s just hard to get massive numbers to watch A league. I asked my son , he said he and his mates play because it is fun , but don’t watch it on tv . ... soccer is definitely better to watch at the ground , and the A league needs to get more kids attending games .

#Post_hoc Cheers mate - good chat.

" the AFL has union and soccer covered across pretty much every measure in terms of measurable interest as an elite spectator sport in NSW and QLD." And all done outside of the public eye! How do they manage that? Drive around Sydney on a Saturday and Sunday and you are struggling to see anyone playing AFL. Someone labelled you Minimus Insight the other day and they were spot on.

Well lets not forget AFL invented professional sport in China.

I've seen A-League games shown in bars all over Asia (one of the cable networks shows it). But I've never actually seen someone actually watching the games.

FFA Curriculum is all games below under 12 are non-competitive, 6-9 no scores are kept. Ages 10 and 11 win/loss is recorded. The reasons, despite what the uniformed might say is to focus the coaches to coach correctly, and not to win. It is not anything about fragile kids etc. The reason is at that level there is no offside so it is very easy for a coach to put an attacker in front of the goals have a kid with a big boot kick the ball over midfield straight to the player and for that player to score 6 goals. It teachers none of the kids anything. The aim is to teach kids to have the ball at their feet as much as possible, the score matters for nothing, usually it's just the coaches ego. Interesting enough in the SAP pathway program, non competitive goes as high as under 12, in keeping with Europe After playing ice hockey for 15 years quad stretch on one leg on ice skates..........makes doing it on a football field a piece of cake

#Post_hoc If it's the Roy Masters promoted scandal of 2012 - then it was found that the AFL-NSW folk were using Auskick numbers to inflate playing numbers. It might be time to move on - the AFL has long since reported 'Auskick' under the 'program' label. As far as I'm concerned - when I do my comparisons - I'm taking modified/introductory with a grain of salt. By the way - do they keep scores for the 6 year olds?? I know in the past there were some jurisdictional variations on just how serious that 'competition' should be. The Auskick I did we always finished with a 30 min game at the end after an hour of drills and activities. In reality - all that really mattered was the hot chips at 10.30am on the Sat morning when it was all done - and the kids with red puffed cheeks were the happiest/most satisfied they were all week......even if they had to be somewhat dragged out of bed to get up there. Largely doesn't matter what kids are doing at that age - just get out and do something. A little secret - when I was coaching the older kids - in the age range where all the 'good' players were in junior club land - - I focused at the start with a warm up that included the standing one legged quad stretch (ankle pulled back up to your butt). By the end of the year the skills improvement was only so so......but by golly their balance was super and that transfers to any sport/activity they might take up.

I think you are widely mistaken if you think AFL is ahead of Football in NSW.

"In Sydney and Brisbane, it is way behind the other 3 codes and basketball as winter sports. It’s even smaller in the women’s." Imagine if you could back this up with actual research / numbers! According to the Ausplay survey Australian football is : -ahead of both rugby codes in club participants in NSW, both adult and juniors. It is ahead of basketball in juniors -ahead of union in QLD for both adult and juniors. Just behind league and basketball in juniors Obviously this is participation. While it is behind the NRL in popularity the AFL has union and soccer covered across pretty much every measure in terms of measurable interest as an elite spectator sport in NSW and QLD. All you have are fact-free assertions

Mini Roos on most occasions is there Juniors. 40 minute games Saturday morning, home and away, either 4,5,7 a side depending upon age. Training once per week The FFA has a small sided game Curriculum laid out for anyone to see. This is called miniroos. They also have a clinic based session that runs 10-14 weeks which are skill based first half and then a game (40 minutes long second half) this is usually for 3 to 5 year olds. The difference is training is done before the game as it has been seen to work better with that age group, and it is something that the junior clubs in Spain do. So unlike a school clinic miniroos is and should be counted. By the way it wasn't a technicality the AFL got into trouble because it was an out right fraud what they were trying to do, they got caught and rightfully so.