I actually think a lot of Australians enjoy soccer, however the problem for soccer in this country is that we rarely get to see soccer of the highest quality played in Australia. There is perhaps on average 1 game a year in this country of top level soccer, maybe less.
I do agree with some of the posters there is no doubt soccer has made positive progress, but I will still place it well behind rugby union.
Soccer and rugby union have a similar problem in that no free to air commercial station is really interested in showing their major club/province competition. So the amount of money they can earn is limited.
Soccer has an additonal problem, the A league in comparison to other leagues is not strong, wouldn't be in the top 10 maybe not even in the top 20 leagues in the world. The 3 other major sports all have the advantage of having the world's best competition run in Australia.
On the crowd front A league crowds were solid, average of 11000 for the season is solid support, its whether that can be maintained is another question. Only the 4 teams averaged over 10000, brisbane, sydney, melbourne and adeliade and you hope see given the population they are drawing from. Perth, newcastle and CC averaged in 8-9000 mark and obviosuly NZ were a failure with under 4000.
Will it maintain, well depends on a few things. If the A league can get steady flow of older star australians and odd overseas (AKA yourke) to play in the league then probably yes. You need to have names people know to attract fans. They need the socceroos to play well in the world cup, if they fall in a heap and get flogged it won't help the a league because people people won't be as willing to stay up late to watch other teams.
But I will say by having that 17 mill, they have at least a base to work from even if it is relatively small in comparison to other codes.
