Get Rid of The Donkeys
Coach
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A pathway to the Storm and Kangaroos.
Who wants to play for the Rebels and Wallabies these days?
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A pathway to the Storm and Kangaroos.
I find the whole code wars thing so frustratingly short sighted. Very few people seem to be looking at the big picture.Interesting articLe that shows why nrl are desperate to protect queensland. Being so far behind afl they can’t afford to lose any more ground.
Rugby league's part-administrator, part-commander-in-chief was talking on Nine Radio in May about the AFL's steps into Queensland.
Most dramatically, Brisbane hosted much of the AFL season last year as COVID-19 gripped Victoria.
"Look the AFL have done a wonderful job," he added.
"They've held our hands. Made us feel warm and fuzzy while they've invaded us."
The comments came as a new book titled Code Wars lands on shelves.
Its author, Dr Hunter Fujak, has spent the past seven years studying the dynamics of football in this country.
He's in no doubt which code is currently on top.
"The AFL is winning the code wars," he says, "followed by rugby league, soccer and rugby union bringing in the tail."
Dr Fujak cites the fact that one in five Australians are interested in AFL and no other football code. He points out AFL brings in more revenue than anyone else each year. And he highlights clubs in the AFL are largely profitable.
But don't tell those in charge of the other codes, who continue to battle like the score is nil-all.
While other codes have presence in the AFL states of Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia, Queensland — as the fastest growing state — has become the front line in the footy code wars.
"We've seen the AFL make really strong gains in Queensland," Dr Fujak says, "television audiences in Brisbane are very strong and rugby league audiences are declining."
The NRL will announce plans for a new team in Brisbane in the coming months and not only is the senior men's competition expanding.
The NRLW is set to grow to seven teams this season, with the Titans becoming the second team in South-East Queensland.
In response to V'Landys' talk about invasion, chief executive of the Brisbane Lions AFLW team, Breaanna Brock, is steadfast.
"What can I say? AFL's the Indigenous game of Australia right.
"We invented the game here. It's native to Australia. It should be everywhere in Australia."
The Lions are reigning AFLW champions, with a team made of mostly Queenslanders.
"My previous role to this was working for AFL up in Queensland and my role was to grow the game for women and girls," Brock says.
"When I started in 2013 we were starting at around 40 to 50,000 participants, well that's up to 120,000 now."
Eugenie Buckley from sports consultancy Suiko knows Queensland well. She has worked in cricket and rugby and been chair of Netball Queensland.
She was also CEO of A-League club Brisbane Roar during the club's most successful period.
"It is a code war because there's only so much talent in Australia," she says.
Dr Fujak's research shows why junior participation is so important to those in charge of the codes.
Put simply, playing sport as a junior — for example the AFL's Auskick program for primary school age children — leads to more consumption as an adult.
"If we use Auskick for the AFL as an example, a child who has not had exposure to Auskick as a child, on average watches 3.7 games of AFL in a season. A child who has played Auskick goes onto watch 8.5 games."
Brock is committed to keeping girls playing Australian rules, and has sought to remove a gap that has traditionally existed in Brisbane girls' competitions.
"It meant adding in younger and younger age groups."
"So that then became an under-15s competition, and under-13s, an under-11s, and this year we've just introduced an under-9s competition."
Programs like Auskick and clubs in developing markets of the Gold Coast and Western Sydney, receive subsidies from AFL headquarters.
Dr Fujak argues they could even be going further.
"The AFL could quite literally offer families a $200 cash incentive to have them play Auskick.
"Then that child would grow up to be an adult consumer who's a much bigger fan of AFL, and the lifetime value of that fandom would probably pay off their $200 investment."
The AFL is certainly best placed to spend. Right now no sporting body brings in as much money each year.
Dr Fujak believes the code wars matter because it's a question of survival.
"What we might see is increasingly one code dominate at the expense of the rest," he says.
"We might come to a point where in fact one code reaches a financial strength to be able to really snuff out another code."
Expansion, private equity and female investment the new frontiers in footy code war
Some believe the contest between Australia's football codes is a matter of life and death. Others argue it's even more important.www.abc.net.au
Lol play one or two games a year if lucky for the Roos in front of 20k or proper World Cup, olympics and proper tours for wallabies in big stadiums, good luck selling that as a reason!
Good to see, about time!
Which sports? Epl, nfl, f1 etc are tiny in comparison and unlikely to ever draw massive audiences due to lack of opportunity to actually see the team play.
Kids couldn't give a f**k about playing for the Wallabies at an Olympics or World Cup. All they care about is the prestige and riches that come with playing a mainstream sport. Union is a minority sport in Australia.
These sports are burdened by having their best leagues held on the other side of the world at poor viewing times. A-League and NBL are ignored by kids because they're second rate to their international competitions.
Exactly the short sightedness I was talking about.
American football will never take off here as anything other than a special event once a year sport. Kids like sports where they are involved in the play. In a gridiron team players other than quarterback hardly touch the ball. That is why so many kids play basketball and soccer - yet these are still minority sports (soccer is relatively popular in Sydney, but nowhere else) in terms over eyeballs on TV, bums on seats and corporate dollars. Australians already have the opportunity to watch gridiron on TV, and apart from the Super Bowl, virtually nobody does. It would be the sport that AFL and NRL are the least worried about. AFL used to think soccer was the threat - that is why they wanted Docklands made into an oval. That seems rediculous now. When the A League started Victory were huge. Instantly three or four times bigger than Storm and as big as the smaller AFL clubs. Their support has been halved by the introduction of new clubs in Melbourne and halved again due to the fact that soccer is boring. Victory is now on a similar level to Storm, and still shrinking.
As someone who watched and played AF in UK I can tell you it is tiny, even smaller than RL in UK! I went to all the London Monarchs games back in the last NFL failed attempt to grow the game in Europe at a professional level. The tv rights, merch sales etc would be inconsequential to a sport as big as NFL in its home country. The only sport with any hope of taking over globally would be football as it is already the main sport in many countries and of interest in others, but as all the power and money sits mostly in Europe its highly unlikely there will ever be a global take over in every country, take a look at the furore at some clubs trying to form an elite European league this year! Its very nationalistic based. Its incredibly hard and expensive for any "foreign" sport to take over from historically strong indigenous sports and I very much doubt we will see it in our lifetimes here.
Yes, I absolutely agree with that. Make it the cool sport to play within those communities and it will inevitably grow from there. The Storm are already well known in Melbourne, even by AFL fans so as the generations go on, they will carve a good support and participation niche that could rival the lower AFL clubs.
I just used the NFL as a singular example to simplify the argument, hoping we wouldn't get caught in the weeds of talking about every individual example. But as I said before-
Basketball in particular is a great example. It's growth internationally over the last half century, particularly the last 30ish years in places like Asia and South America in particular, has been phenomenal and should scare the shit out anybody who is paying attention.
Yes growth but it’s tiny. It’s hard to play, incredibly expensive to have the equipment and isn’t an easy sport to take up on mass. It will never be a major participation sport. Even in America the amount or people who play the sport is tiny and after high school age even more so. it will also be a niche sport which is mainly based on one league being a tv product.
Don't kid yourself, the media tracing out the narrative about a terrible QLD, is anything but, that squad is pretty good, QLD depth isn't an issue, NSW are currently just got a smarter coaching crew, picking the right and more consistent and effort based squad, rather than then the flashy names of the past...
You didn't even really read what I posted did you lol.
I already gave you two examples where the NFL did it without even really trying; they've effectively neutered the CFL, and though Liga MX is doing better than the CFL, they're succumbing as well. There're plenty of other non-NFL related examples as well- soccer in Japan and South Korea, basketball's growth in South America, everything that's happening in Africa and China that's too complex to get into.
