A walk in the park for Aussie rules
Phil Gould | February 20, 2008
If Australian rules succeeds in Blacktown, then the western suburbs of Sydney is vastly different to the place where I grew up many years ago.
There's no way we would have copped Aussie rules back then. It was a silly game played in Victoria by blokes wearing pretty singlets and shorts so tight they could turn a tenor to a soprano. Their blokes wouldn't handle playing on our footy fields of small rocks embedded in sun-baked dirt with no grass coverage at all. They could never stand getting tackled on that stuff.
For most kids in the western suburbs, Aussie rules didn't rate. All we knew was rugby league in winter and cricket in summer.
But times have changed.
The bold new plan to have a second AFL franchise playing out of Sydney should reinforce to the NRL (if it needed reminding) that these people are deadly serious about establishing Australian rules as the No. 1 football code in Australia. The decision to establish this new team in Blacktown, the heart of rugby league's traditional workingman's supporter base and the epicentre of all junior sport in our metropolitan area, should be seen by the NRL as a declaration of war. They had better react, too, or risk falling further behind.
Quite simply, the AFL's administration is smarter, better constructed, better organised and more progressive than the unwieldy and uneconomical structures responsible for running rugby league. The AFL is taking a long-term view with this strategy. The impact may not be immediate; however, the more people are exposed to Australian rules as kids, the more likely they will become fans later in life, significantly increasing their supporter base and viewing numbers on TV.
In time, this will affect ratings, sponsorship dollars and the total funding available to the various sports from broadcasting rights. There will be increased competition for the disposable income of fans and the advertising budgets of big business.
This is the real battle.
I doubt it will affect player recruitment. I'm happy with the numbers of quality kids attracted to rugby league and I doubt we'll lose too many potential players to other sports.
I still believe that soccer, Australian rules and rugby league each attract different types of athletes. The physical and psychological makeup of those who succeed at the professional level in each code is different, so on the score of player recruitment and development I believe the three codes can successfully co-exist in any market.
But the business of attracting a fan base is completely different. Consumers today are more selective. They want to be spoiled. They want the various codes to compete for their affection.
Back in the old days, high-profile footballers didn't come to your junior training sessions or walk into your school carrying gifts and freebies to buy your support. If you wanted to see the footy in those days you had to go to the game. No reserved seats or private boxes, either. Out on the hill or standing on an empty steel beer can to get a better view was the go.
Different world back then, though.
These days we demand the comfort of covered seating or sipping a chardonnay in the sponsor's private suite.
I never met any of my heroes in the flesh. But all we wanted to do was to play footy and be like them. Every day we played footy in the playground, before school, at lunch time and down the park after school. We just had to be home before the street lights came on.
These days, kids play footy on computer screens and the family gathers around the TV in the lounge room to support their team. Parents are more demanding. Beautifully grassed playing fields, free gear and equipment, visits from the game's stars - give me gifts, give me time; please spoil my boy. They demand it because they know they will get it.
NRL, AFL, A-League soccer, Super-14s rugby, one-day cricket, Twenty-20 cricket under lights and all to the best of the DJ's music; sporting administrators are fully aware that success today for their sport is a sales pitch and the competition is fierce.
The parents and kids of today have had a taste of variety and they like what they see.
That's why the AFL will succeed in the western suburbs today. No one handles the sales pitch stuff better than they do.
