Rugby league v the rest

[Giallorosso]

Rugby league is out on it's own at the minute as Australia's no 1 team sport but does anyone think that league faces a challenge from football(the world version not AFL) as the no 1 team sport in Australia?

With Frank Lowy and John O'Neill,at the helm football has a lot of potential especially with the new A-League and the fact that the Football Federation of Australia is now a member of the Asian Football Confederation which will show a lot of Australian's the huge size of the world game.

I'm a fan of both games and would love to see football do well in Australia but not at any cost to my beloved rugby league!!

 

[aussies1st]

Currently Rugby League has nothing to worry about but i wouldn't mind if soccer took over as no 1 sport if Aus won the world cup. Then Aus would become the dominating sports nation

 

[Game_Breaker]

Ive always thought that soccer will be force in Australia, but the Australian culture just wont allow it to be the no. 1 sport

 

[flamin]

^^^ I agree.

 

[jimmythehand]

not when you have ethnic groups that make it fearful for families to go to games. oh hang on that happens in rugby league too.

 

[RABK]

Currently Rugby League has nothing to worry about but i wouldn't mind if soccer took over as no 1 sport if Aus won the world cup. Then Aus would become the dominating sports nation

We already are the worlds most sports dominating country.

I saw a site with stats and a system for working it out. The system involved using the number of olympic medals won and the population of that country.

I believe it may have been for every medal won per 1,000,000 people. Australia finished on something like 4 and the nearest nation was Korea on 2. Even america was only just on 1.

 

[Sun_Down]

I will be sure to check out a QLD Roar game and may follow to an extent,I hope it goes well, cannot see it being huge anytime soon though.

 

[wittyfan]

More and more kids are playing soccer so it will be interesting to see where soccer is in 20 or so years.

 

[aussies1st]

We already are the worlds most sports dominating country.

I saw a site with stats and a system for working it out. The system involved using the number of olympic medals won and the population of that country.

I believe it may have been for every medal won per 1,000,000 people. Australia finished on something like 4 and the nearest nation was Korea on 2. Even america was only just on 1.

We probably are but if we got the soccer world cup we would finally have a cup that everyone in the world recognizes

 

[Raider_69]

Soccer i dont think will ever trouble league for being australia #1 sport. Australians as a whole just arnt that interested in soccer. Australian sports lovers are more interested in some good collisions and some physicallity in my experience, soccer doesnt provide that. League, Union and to a lesser extent AFL provide that and thats why IMO they will be forever the top 3 sports in this nation... soccer will be a distant 4th

 

[tiburon]

More and more kids are playing soccer so it will be interesting to see where soccer is in 20 or so years.

Still nowhere as now. You can only make it big as a player if you've got a EU passport or are outstandingly good plus you have to leave Australia. Our other sports here mean you can play & live here still.

NRL has nothing to worry about from soccer, it will draw some fans at the start but I think it will all die down. Soccer fans keep holding up Yorke & Archie Thompson as these great draws but neither means anything. People will go to see Yorke because of his past but he's not the player he used to be (his last club Birmingham was offering to pay clubs to take him) & the only reason people know Thompson is because he scored all those goals against Fiji or whatever.

The A-League reminds me of the American MLS a new league being set up in a place that usually rejects soccer; the big difference is that the MLS had Pele and Franz Beckenbauer (both soccer legends) as their draws. The MLS has grown but nowhere near the level of any of the other big 3 American sports, the same will happen here I feel but to a lesser degree.

 

[aussies1st]

The A-League reminds me of the American MLS a new league being set up in a place that usually rejects soccer; the big difference is that the MLS had Pele and Franz Beckenbauer (both soccer legends) as their draws. The MLS has grown but nowhere near the level of any of the other big 3 American sports, the same will happen here I feel but to a lesser degree.

Good point you never hear of the MLS when soccer leagues are mentioned. However we always hear about the Superbowl, NBA and baseball. You could also had ice hockey to a lesser extent

 

[Striker]

I wouldn't be so sure raider_69. Once we start playing asian teams regularly home and away either in world cup qualifiers or club champion league style matches the television audience will increase and slowly will the crowd numbers. The A-League will be a strong setup and as it will play the major part of the comp over the summer it will only have to compete with cricket which is not as regular as a the a-league round would be. I predict only about 5 years and we'll see a major interest increase in the game. Personally i think it will be union that will suffer the biggest hit as its international interest will be directly affected.

 

[ozbash]

soccer is the #1 growth sport in nz.

 

[flamin]

I wouldn't be so sure raider_69. Once we start playing asian teams regularly home and away either in world cup qualifiers or club champion league style matches the television audience will increase and slowly will the crowd numbers. The A-League will be a strong setup and as it will play the major part of the comp over the summer it will only have to compete with cricket which is not as regular as a the a-league round would be. I predict only about 5 years and we'll see a major interest increase in the game. Personally i think it will be union that will suffer the biggest hit as its international interest will be directly affected.

Definately agree here. League and AFL are much stronger domestically than union and union only creates real interest in the RUWC and when the wallabies are playing. If soccer does succeed in Australia it will take a great deal of gloss of international rugby union and the wallabies.

 

[ucantseeme]

these soccer A-league games are being shown on fox sports along with NRL, i wonder how soccer vs league will go in tv ratings on fox

 

[Giallorosso]

As we all know football is by far the biggest team sport in the world especially in Europe,South and Central America,Africa and now over the last 10 years Asia.It's growth in Asia our door step has been staggering and the huge potential market for football that Asia has become means that football is cementing it's position as the biggest sport in the world more and more every year.I reckon the Rugby League authorites in Australia would love to have 10% of footballs popularity in Asia and beyond, at the minute it doesn't have 1% of the international appeal that world football has.


Wether Australia and Australians decide to join the party is something that will be debated for the next few years I'm sure and the way I see it the biggest thing that football has going for it is the international side the socceroos who have the potential to become Australias number one sports team bigger than cricket and much much bigger than 'rugger' union.The Asian Champions Legue also offers huge potential for some of the A-League clubs but I don't see the A-League breaching the NRL's position as Australia's best and most popular sporting comp well not for the forseable future anyway.


I love my league and I love my football but i hope neither sport see's itself as a rival to the other if you know what I mean!!

 

[iggy plop]

Rugby league is out on it's own at the minute as Australia's no 1 team sport but does anyone think that league faces a challenge from football(the world version not AFL) as the no 1 team sport in Australia?

With Frank Lowy and John O'Neill,at the helm football has a lot of potential especially with the new A-League and the fact that the Football Federation of Australia is now a member of the Asian Football Confederation which will show a lot of Australian's the huge size of the world game.

I'm a fan of both games and would love to see football do well in Australia but not at any cost to my beloved rugby league!!

Soccer is being played in the Cricket season for a reason.

It simply cannot complete with league in the winter.

Enjoy the heat Soccer mongs!

 

[Kurt Angle]

As far as any growth goes, Rugby League in the long run has the least to fear of the 3 codes rivalling soccer. Soccer by all rights will grow at the expense of Rugby Union and AFL before Rugby League.

It is plainly clear that high quality, marquee soccer IS popular in Australia, the japan world cup proved that. However the new FFA has one HUGE liability, and his name is John O'Neill. He is a RU tragic and he also suffers a pathological hatred/fear of Rugby League.

Even the new marketing campaigns of the A-League have been marketed at RL strongholds. Quite clearly FFA's golden goose is the socceroos, we have seen them draws big crwods vs Brazil and France and it should be a top heavy organisation, with the national side being so popular they will subsuduse the levels below it. The bandwagon currently supports the Wallabies, a well marketed Socceroos would just be them in a higher gear. If support was drawn away from the Wallabies to the Socceroos, the ARU would not be able to recover. O'Neill will never allow this, and it will prevent the FFA playing one of their strongest cards.

Likewise in terms of athletes, a popular soccer code will draws a lot of AFL players, most of their stars could make good soccer players. Webcke, SBW, O'Meley, etc... were never going to be soccer players. But as we know the AFL markets are insular and parochial and don't like outsiders. The best way for soccer to penetrate these markets would of been to jon forces with another code to hack into this market. This means Melbourne, this means team up with the Storm.

Backward, RU-esque O'Neill again can't bring himself to do this.

He will instead go after RL, and like and the others that have tried a hostile approach to RL, will end up failing.

 

[Hoops]

Rugby league is out on it's own at the minute as Australia's no 1 team sport

:lol: :? You've got to be joking, what do you base that on.