23/5/03 It's official Australia is footy mad, and not just league and Australian rules. More and more Australians are turning to the world of line outs and penalty shoot-outs, with rugby union and soccer now almost as popular as the big two. The annual Sweeney Sports Report survey has found that 37 per cent of Australians are interested in union, just short of league's 39 per cent. Fourteen years ago only 15 per cent of Australians had an interest in union, compared with 34 per cent in league. Soccer is booming too from 28 per cent 14 years ago to 47 per cent today. The popularity of Australian rules is also up, to 52 per cent. Clearly, soccer has benefited from last year's World Cup exposure and high-profile Australian players. The director of Sweeney Sports, Martin Hirons, attributed rugby union's rise to a combination of factors: the game had gone professional, Australia had won the World Cup twice, sponsorship income had multiplied, league stars had been recruited and spending had gone up on grassroots development. "There have been enormous changes to league, too," he said. "League reached a peak in the mid-'90s, and the pinnacle was around the time of the Tina Turner campaign. League was really marketing itself as a sport then nationally, it was one of the first sports to do so. Then, all of a sudden, Super League came in and destroyed the fabric of the game. League must be wondering now where its growth is going to come from." The Sweeney survey, conducted by Melbourne-based Sweeney Research, measures the number of people interested in each sport not their level of interest and so does not necessarily reflect actual attendance and TV ratings On both these counts, league and Australian rules are still well ahead of their rivals. Mr Hirons said Australian rules remains "a success story of Australian sport", having expanded to a national competition while maintaining solid crowd numbers. "We're not measuring passion," he said. "Passion is about how often people go and how often they watch on TV. Australians are still passionate about Aussie rules and rugby league. It's unusual for many AFL attendance to be under 20,000." Mr Hirons thought rugby union's World Cup this year might well push it ahead of league in next year's survey. In other survey results, swimming is still No. 1 in Australia with 59 per cent, but that's a 5 per cent drop over the past year. Cricket moved to second place with 57 per cent, ahead of tennis which dropped to 55. Mr Hirons said: "Basketball was saying a decade ago it was going to be Australia's No. 1 sport by 2000. Today, the bottom has fallen out of the game."
