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Joined April 2012
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When you say ‘enjoy watching’, I assume you mean “enjoy obsessing over every tiny detail of attendances, TV audiences and then rehashing them endlessly on various forums using different user names”?
Football evolution: AFL and football's common ancestor
As a point of ornithological order note that a number of different birds such as the owls (Order: Strigiformes) lay almost perfectly spherical eggs. Make of this fact what you will.
Football evolution: AFL and football's common ancestor
Very interesting article, I wasn’t aware of the links between Australian Football and the ‘Sheffield’ rules, so thanks for the enlightening read. When thinking about the origins and evolution of the various football codes I’m reminded of Stephen Jay Gould’s description of biological evolution. He argued that the notion of a ‘ladder’, or linear progression in evolution where one life form leads to another and then another is essentially false. Rather evolution is like a spreading bush, where various branches and twigs interlock and spilt off in multiple different directions.
I suspect the origins of Australian Football for example, can be traced to multiple sources including the various games played in the English public schools, the Sheffield rules, Gaelic and games played by local Aboriginal people such as Marn Grook. History is never quite as neat as we like to think.
Football evolution: AFL and football's common ancestor
Now there’s something that could liven things up!
Football evolution: AFL and football's common ancestor
Interesting results, no doubt each will interpret them according to their own viewpoint. I’d say the two stand-out results are the 750K for the NRL in Melbourne, and 313K for the AFL in Brisbane. The latter figure is nearly the same as the Perth and Adelaide AFL audiences which is particular impressive given the lack of QLD involvement.
Grand final TV: AFL beats out the NRL
Pretty good analysis Sheek, I particularly like your selection of the time period 92 – present day based upon the fundamental geopolitical events that took place (or at least were initiated) immediately preceeding the Barcelona games.
I agree with your overall conclusions that a) Australia has done very well over this period; and b) we’re likely to struggle to attain that level of success in the future. Put simplisticaly we have three strategic options moving forward as follows:
1) The acceptance strategy. So we finished 10th on the medal table – that’s actually pretty good, let’s be happy there and learn to appreciate the value of a gold medal rather than expect them as a matter of course.
2) The focus strategy. Let’s select a few sports we know we’ll continue to enjoy comparative advantage – i.e. – swimming, sailing, rowing (the rich white sports) and throw all of our money at them, pretty much forget about track & field (too competitive) and the team sports (not enough gold medals on offer).
3) The credit card strategy. If the Brits spend $1 billion we spend $1.5 billion. If we have to sacrifice grass roots sport in order to achieve this success then so be it. What matters is the medal tally.
Personally option 1 is my preference. Just as long as we beat NZ…
2012 London Olympics ends well for Aussies
If only there were some form of international competition held every four years where prizes were given out for the best in each field. We could then total who had won the most of the first place awards at these events and then use that to determine who is the greatest athlete. Admittedly that would only work for those sports actually represented at this international competition, but no reasonable person could argue against such an objective measure.
Greatest Olympian Ever should not be defined by medals won
Or maybe throwing different shaped objects, like a sharp pointy thing, a small heavy thing and a round flat thing, that’d be crazy! Oh wait…
Greatest Olympian Ever should not be defined by medals won
Sheek – I agree with you on this one. Claiming that two different events requiring substantially different skill sets are in fact effectively the same is indeed ignorant. Similarly, claiming that it’s somehow intrinsically more difficult to win across multple disciplines in track & field than in swimming is also ignorant.
Greatest Olympian Ever should not be defined by medals won
Whereas two track sprinters would definitely say to each other ‘let’s place a set of evenly-spaced obstacles for us to jump over whilst we’re running. Makes complete sense. Bolt has the opportunity to compete in a wide range of running/jumping events, but lacks the all round ability to match the achievements of Phelps.
Greatest Olympian Ever should not be defined by medals won
There are 2 ways of running 100 metres – with and without hurdles. If Bolt is so good why can’t he win both of those – same basic activity with a bit of jumping involved. Throw in another four different jumping events and any track and field athlete as good as Phelps should be able to gather at least 6 medals in a single Olympic games, realistically 8 when you include the 200 metre sprint / sprint with jumping.
Greatest Olympian Ever should not be defined by medals won
The author complains about athletes crying yet this entire article reads as a giant sook about people not showing precisely the ‘correct’ emotions at a given moment. Guess what? We’re humans, not robots. Sometimes people react to stress & disappointment gracefully, sometimes they get angry and sometimes they’re speechless. For all the criticism Magnussen has copped for his reaction post the 4×100 relay, what did he really do that was so objectionable – did he rant and rave, blame his team mates, accuse the opposition of cheating, blame the time keeping system? No, he was simply shocked and lost for words. Oh, and apparently he didn’t stand in the correct fashion either. Seriously, get a grip and find something worthwhile to complain about.
Why I'm sick of Australian swimmers and their tears
You make a compelling argument, but isn’t the nature of the contract signed between the skilled labour and the principal contractor also a key consideration? I think you’ll find this will specifically include a range of behavioral clauses that are unlikely to feature in regular employment contracts. As one of the other posters mentioned, often the suspensions / terminations issued by sporting clubs relate to beahviour surrounding the offence in question.
For example, a player stays out until 7am, gets trashed, shows up at training hung over and in the midst of all that is alleged to have punched his girlfriend. The guilt or otherwise of the player in relation to the alleged criminal offence will be determined by the courts, but the other facts are not in question and represent potential grounds for suspension or dismissal based upon the contract signed by the player.
Punishing off-field incidents: you can't win
I normally love a good code-war as much as the next misanthrope, but the amount of time and energy people allocate to arguing what the TV rights for the NRL / AFL / A-League MIGHT be in the future is truly bewildering. Listen up people, this is NOT something you need to debate because it’s not a subjective matter. The NRL will sign a TV deal and it will be worth something between $1 and $1 trillion. And we’ll know exactly what’s it worth when they sign it. None of us have a clue what that number will be and none of our opinions matter in the slightest.
It’s about as sensible as arguing about what the temperature will be next Thursday and thinking that if you make a particularly compelling case for 19 degrees there’s a chance you’ll change the climate through the sheer brilliance of your rhetorical put-downs of those idots who think it’s going to be 23.
Why NRL TV rights deal won't match AFL's
So you reckon punching Neville Bruns was worth 25+ years in the slammer? Tough call.
Who are the real cowards of the AFL?
I’ve been somewhat taken aback by the massive overreaction to this incident also. When watching the game I didn’t even think Hunt pulled out of the contest – rather he seemed caught in two minds about what to do. It’s not like palming the ball away was inherently less risky than trying to mark it, to me it looked like a player trying to reconcile instructions he’d been given by the coach with his immediate instincts, taking too long to think about it and then stuffing things up. But it genuinely didn’t look like he ‘shirked’ the contest.
And as for that dog Lloyd, anything he says should be treated with the utmost contempt, for all his squeaky clean image he was a gutless, nasty sniper on the field and cleaned up plenty of players who weren’t in a position to protect themselves. The fact the he dares to talk about ‘courage’ is the real scandal in all of this.
Who are the real cowards of the AFL?
Tim – not sure where you’re getting your information but you really are quite deluded. I’ve been in Melbourne for several SOO games and the fact is the game always attracts a good level of media coverage. Is it as much as it gets in QLD and NSW? Of course not, bu that’s a pretty silly comparison.
As mentioned in an earlier post, whether or not the boost in coverage is worth the loss of a game once every three years from the ‘traditional markets’ is open for discussion but tha argument that noone in Melbourne cares about the game is simply false. So rather than making unsubstantiated statements about how few Victorians will be in attendance (“it’s estimated…” by who exactly – any sources for that claim?) at least base your argument upon some semblance of reality.
The fact is it does boost the profile of the game in Melbourne and does get plenty of attention which in turn generates higher TV ratings, which in turn will contribute to a better TV deal for the game. Is this stuff really so complicated to understand?
Make this the last Origin in Melbourne
If half the people have no idea, that still gives you around 2 million people who do. And 30 seconds on the news is about 29 seconds longer than league normally gets. Focus on the positives!
Make this the last Origin in Melbourne
Not sure where people are located when they tell us the SOO generates little or no interest in Melbourne. Sitting here in the eastern suburbs I can tell you that the interest, whilst not massive, is genuinely there. People talking about it at work, planning to watch the game at a pub etc. I can’t answer the question as to whether or not it’s worth the sacrifice of Sydney or Brisboring giving up a game, but please don’t fall for the parochial nonsense that there is no interest in the game down here.
Make this the last Origin in Melbourne
A fair amount of fear and hatred here this morning, looks like the Giants are having an impact after all.
Giants prepare to christen new AFL home
Or alternatively, when will soccer fans lose the victim mentality and accept that a couple of sensationalist headlines and a storm in a tea cup piece of manufactured outrage doesn’t reflect ‘mainstream’ Australia?
Why is mainstream Australia scared of active fans?