I raise this thread in response to some of the other posts, where the AFL crowd. eg. Mike Sheehan laid into football when he described the first leg of the Intercontinental playoff between Australia v Hondouras, as "rubbish".

As much as I would like to see football become  Australia's number one sport (at all levels, not just the amateur participant numbers), realistically it's not going to happen in the near future, and most likely not in our lifetimes.

In terms of TV rights, corporate sponsorship, media coverage, and average crowds, AFL reigns supreme, with NRL second, football third, and Rugby Union last (Rugby Union is a mostly elitist sport confined to snotty nosed private schools).

After Australia had  successfully qualified for the 2006 World Cup, Mike Hill wrote an excellent article called, "can you smell the fear?", which was in response to the AFL/NRL crowd rubbishing football, which seems to happen quite frequently around important World Cup qualifiers, and when the World Cup starts.

My view is that the AFL and NRL don't really fear football, as they have most of the mainstream media behind them, plus the lions share of corporate sponsorship and bigger crowds, however with NRL, the rapidly declining junior participant numbers must be concerning the NRL hierarchy. In all probability both the AFL and NRL, see football as a nuisance, competing for corporate dollar, but not a real threat.

What's your view?

They definitely see it as a threat, they were terrified of us getting the 2022 world cup, worried about football being the biggest participant sport in this country by a considerable margin and the worldwide influence of the game. This is why you see the AFL creating AFLX, trying to get some interest in their game internationally because they know the range of the sport is very limited. When you see when the big european clubs come over and they sell out their stadiums with ease which they can only do a couple times a year they know the support of football in this country is there. The issue however is that popularity hasn't transpired to the local game so they try and talk shit about it in the media and other schemes to keep control.

It may take 10-20 years but i really think it is inevitable that football will be the most popular sport in this country.

Aflx has nothing to do with our game or perceived fear, all sports are seeing a major opportunity over summer after the success of the bbl. Aflx and aflw are just short term sugar hits to keep bogans occupied during summer. Aflx is a joke and yet they will still fill stadiums.

What should be our concern is that we try and sell our game to the bogan masses whilst kicking the traditional elements of our game who actually love the sport. Take this weekend for eg victory and city are both interstate...a 2nd division match out at lakeside this weekend would have been handy...but nup lets just sit back and watch everyone else make the running.

Your half right ....

Where you are right is we should promote and sell to our own Football culture.... 1 trillion % agree...

Where I think you are not necessarily wrong, but hhhhhmmmm where you betray Football is where you say try and sell to the Bogan masses.... 

IMO the greatest assets and cultural Football has is its willingness to accept anyone who wants to play or watch...

Where FFA have totally failed nay to easy ... where professional Football in Australia both NSL and FFA and PFA and some leading journalists is an inability to defend and explain Football culture ...

We don't defend nor do we try and explain Football cultural... never have .... only Simon Hill IMO has achieved this ...

Social media sites  become in time a mire of name calling and personal opinions ...

Ange also has made great gains in this area...

IMO Bogans are welcome no one comes and from the first game becomes hard core rusted on.... that means accepting of their lack of knowledge and educating them ... but true Football culture accepts all ... even mullet hairstyle bogans...  but and this is the kicker accept on our terms ...

I'd say in any business you are always aware of competition (That's what sport is a Business) but they know footballs FFA is shambolic and the media will take every chance it can get to hate on football. 

And AFL executives can sexually assault younger staff members and the Media will still say the AFL is the shining light for women in sport these are a 'once off situations'. Football has put money time and effort into our women for almost a decade we have one of the best female national teams in the world but the media will talk about anti social behaviour because someone light a flare 

Well, davstar, going by your avatar I'd assume your respect for women is impeccable 

Are you saying me Avatar implies a lack of respect for women? I support the idea of women dressing the way they want i mean no disrespect - but if you are implying my Avatar is disrespectful i'd argue it is your own prejudice of a society that slut shames women - which really says more about you then me 

To my original point i love AFL don't get me wrong but the bias towards it in Victoria especially is unfounded. Literral the amount of scandals swept under the rag is a joke Ben Cousins drugs, Barry Hall assaulting a player, Essendon FC (enough said), Ricky Nixson, St Kilda School girl etc 
Flip-side that too football and you have the media crucify it for fans chanting too loud

It's ok Davstar I rate your avatar

Does Greg Baum write his article a week before or week after we qualify for the world cup?

There is your answer.

Baumy/Sheehan  know what  their doing. They do it to appease their masters at afl hq.  Headquarters are so paranoid about football/basketball that they'll  try everything in their power to grab headlines during their off season  (ie afl clubs looking  at buying an nbl licences)

Don't worry the AFL blown in only responds when its a good argument as he attempts to , derive the conversation to me he seems to only want to abuse, criticise and confuse... 

What they don't realise is AFL of all the major sports in Australia is the one at most risk .... 

They see strength in media deals and mass almost total media blackouts in their homeland states... 

I've never seen it as AFL & NRL vs Football. To me it has always been the sport of AR vs everything they see as a competitor (there are newspaper articles from ~100 years ago talking about how Aussie rules is about to rightfully take over NSW/QLD/NZ). It's not normal behaviour and the only comparable situation I can think of is the way RU goes after RL but that's on a whole other level.

The AFLX/WAFL are just last throws of the dice by a small corner-store in a regional town (that is apparently known for refusing service to local black customers...) trying everything it can to fight a new Woolies&Coles shopping centre opening up down the street. 

The AFL also sees a fair amount of strength in its attendances and by association, members. Which determine a whole range of other incomes from signage, pourage, stadium returns, catering income, parking revenues, and onsite merchandise sales.

Until this year the league made almost as much from non broadcast sources as it did broadcast sources.
For the clubs, broadcast revenue is about 1/4-1/5 the total revenue on average and even less for the top clubs who bring in more from other sources.

Ripping off pensioners with poker machines

The AFL is making $400  million per annum on the TV deal, that would would be well over half of all their annual revenue.

Wookie

Without doubt the AFL is the best managed sport in Australia, and as you suggest the best supported..

However that does not mean it operates without risk or has potential future issues.

The AFL biggest single issue IMO is that it is essentially a one country sport played essentially in the southern states....

There is nothing to help AFL if they have two to three bad years in a row. Whats seen as a strength could become a weakness tomorrow.... BTW I am not suggesting this will happen but that it could and thats my point.... even league today has 12 million people in the PI nations to support it if things go bad.

Never said it had no risks, Im saying that the risk you assigned to it isnt as great as you are making out. FFS theres nothing to help any code in Australia if they have several bad years in a row. The AFL can at least say they are sitting on an asset worth hundreds of millions of dollars that they own freehold.

That deal literally started this year.

In 2016, the AFL (HQ) generated $542,856,000, of which $264,154,000 came from Broadcasting (and AFL Media) - 48% of total revenue.

After contra is removed, revenue from the new deal will add about 120 million to the AFL cash flow, but then the AFL can now add Docklands revenues in their entirety (80 million pa) and other revenues they probably expect to rise.

yeah like the NRL doesnt set the gold standard for this and we never hear about the Panthers Group, or the huge Raiders, Sharks, Easts or Eels set ups. No sir. Its only the mean old AFL - performing a business that is perfectly legal and would not be any different if operated by Woolworths or ALHG or some other such group.

I've followed football my whole life.
And I have a mullet.
The two work beautifully together.

Gotta say, bagging the AFL is fun, but pointing the finger at them for pokies revenue isn’t that right.

The NRL is the king of pokies. I doubt a single Sydney NRL club could survive without their massive pokies coin.

The AFL isn't so much concerned with football becoming the number 1 sport in Australia as it is it becoming a sport with a much more significant share of the market than it does now. Obviously it's not a zero sum game, but the increased competition for sporting fields combined with footballs' massive participation base must be a great source of concern for them.

Wow, Wookie and his alts are in damage control :) I wonder how many forums he has accounts on just so he can stoically defend his cult when some less than stellar news comes out.


Sydney Leagues clubs are generally inside their own club districts, the AFL seems to specifically target the poorest/most at risk areas when building their pokie palaces, far from where the team plays. I'm sure you're aware of what they've done in SEQ.

Sheehan and Baum should have just been ignored.  It was nothing more than a distracting tactic to move attention from celebrating WC qualification.  Hill - who really should know better by now- should have just STFU.  Stop talking about them and focus on talking about us and the socceroos and the WC.  There was a time and place to bite and this was not it.

How we get sucked in every bloody time that we have to defend our game, our culture with this shit shows just how insecure football really is.

what have they done in SEQ?

How we get sucked in every bloody time that we have to defend our game, our culture with this shit shows just how insecure football really is. 

true

agree 100%.....the more we listen to these morons the more they will do it ...they are after computer clicks ...nothing else..and they know they will get them every time they sprout this shit...."slow news day at AFL land so lets bait the soccer dickheads" ...and like thousands of tuna we take the bait every time.  

No they dont. Football will always be subordinate to NRL and AFL, unless they manage to find a way to attract world class talent here. Rather than competing with NRL and AFL, we should reach out to their fans and position soccer as a summer sport alternative, and if possible try to forge alliegences with those codes. Didnt Parramatta Eels tinker with the idea of entering the NSL at one point?

Edit: Eels owned Power, proof soccer and footy dont have to be mutually exclusive

Carlton and Collingwood owned teams as well in the NSL era, both were abysmal failures.

Growing up and living most of my life in Victoria, I can only really speak on AFL.

As far as I can see, it's not only an issue of the AFL being fearful of football, but rather it is part of the whole culture of Aussie Rules that football must be denigrated.

As kids growing up in the 70's and 80's in Victoria, we were taught/indoctrinated by our families (those with anglo celtic backgrounds), the anglophile media and wider cultural interactions that this Victorian sport of Aussie Rules was the 'be all and end all' of sports, and nothing else could come close to it, except maybe cricket over summer. That attitude was all pervasive. Part of going along with that was having to eschew any support for 'foreign sports' including sokkah, and for Victorians, that also included  'Rugby' (as both union and league were referred to). Shit, I didn't even know there were 2 rugby codes til I was about 20.



It seems to me, supporting Aussie Rules and criticising other sports actually had a lot to do with defining a 'cultural identity' of what it meant to be Victorian, and Australian, and I'm assuming the same thing occurred with Aussie Rules in TAS, WA, SA and Rugby League in NSW, Qld. I reckon both Ausse Rules and Rugby League actively encouraged denigration of sokkah as the outsiders sport, what with all those new australians playing it and ethnic clubs. I reckon that a lot of this was heightened from the 1950's-60's as part of the backlash to the post war migration boom which brought so many greeks, italians, croatians etc to melbourne, and I'm extrapolating that to other cities. Tell me if I'm wrong. 

The AFL and NRL were still generally semi professional and suburban without national competitions, up until the 1990's. Before that time, I don't think it was so much 'fear' of other sports from an economic point of view, but as I've said above, a cultural cringe, a part backlash/fear response against post war migration, and the need for each state/major city/area to validate it's own culture and say we are better than elsewhere, and our unique homegrown sport is part of that, therefore that sport must be better than other sports. This last point is particularly the case in the "Who's better, Sydney/Melbourne?" argument that used to always be talked about. 

As such, I genuinely believe that it became part of the psyche of those following those sports that they should talk down sokkah. I reckon this is the case even with people that were exposed to football as kids. I'm sure everyone in their 40's onwards knows someone who as a kid of migrants didn't follow football like their dad, but became an avid AFL/NRL fan, and now criticise the round ball game. 

I think that after the AFL and NRL became professional and national, yes, there was a more heightened commercial imperative to suppress football, and of course, a degree of genuine fear that football will take some revenue and support away from their sports. I think that has only increased since the A league and the socceroos continued qualification for world cups. It has also become incredibly sophisticated and well disguised.

^^^^^^^

Mark thats a great post .... and should be an article as it effects so many things...