Pointless thread which will be ridiculed but with recent improvements in tennis and basketball, I thought it would be interesting to rank sports according to how good Australia is at them, compared to the rest of the world. This isn't a ranking according to the popularity of the sport in Australia or the number of kids playing them. Some of it will be unquantifiable but you can guesstimate. And the sport has to be played at international level. Obviously I'll forget heaps of sports, so just add them.

New criteria. The sport must be played at Summer/Winter Olympics or have a huge place in Commonwealth sporting tradition and be very popular (cricket and rugby).

1) Cricket
2) Hockey
3) Rugby Union
4) Basketball
5) Swimming
6) Golf
7) Tennis
8) Canoeing (otherwise known as Kayaking)
9) Water Polo
10) Rowing
11) Triathlon
12) Volleyball
13) Cycling (track and road)
14) Football
15) Aths
16) Equestrian
17) Snow sports
18) Ice hockey

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 07:08:54 PM

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 07:18:55 PM

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 07:20:53 PM

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 07:32:29 PM

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 07:36:32 PM

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 08:21:31 PM

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 09:07:22 PM

Gets little publicity but we're 13th in the world at volleyball

36th ice hockey

Netball would be up there.

Darts, Archery and Shooting?

and Rowing, kayaking etc?

Hahah I forgot about hockey.

I've ranked tennis higher than I probably should have done but there's a lot of hope for Kyrgios. When you add Kyrgios to Kokkinakis and Tomic, we should rise up the rankings and one of them may have a reasonable chance of winning a grand slam in the next few years.

Basketball too, I've ranked maybe too high, but there's a reasonable of chance we'll medal at Rio.

It's probably harsh I've ranked ice hockey so low when they're ranked about twice as high as football (or something like that, at a guess). But the chance of Australia doing well against the ice hockey powerhouses is very slim. Whereas, should Australia qualify for Russia 2018, and get a non group of death, you'd hope they'd be a chance of getting out of the group (given last World Cup).

Need to have more than 6 or 7 countries playing any sport before qualifying for this list. (No swimming is not a world sport. There are about 2 or 3 countries that take it seriously. Us the US and maybe China.)

I love Australia but if you take off the green and gold glasses for a minute we are only good at sports no other bastards play. (Woohoo world champions AFL!)

There are about 3 or 4 sports where Australia punches above it's weight.

Field hockey. Men's and women's.
Waterpolo. Men's and women's.
Basketball. Women's.

Maybe Cycling. (Track cycling.)

That's about it.

Cricket, Rugby league, Netball, even Union to some extent are colonial hangovers that are only played by a handful of countries and yes we're good at those.

Everything else.... tell him he's dreamin'.

It is a massive myth that Australians punch above our weight in sport. The plucky underdog.

Look at how our Olympic medal counts have plummeted in just the last 2 outings now other countries have started taking it seriously. I mean FFS England beat us at the last big show.

Next Olympics we will be out of the top 10 and there'll be no coming back.

Cricket is massive. Have you any idea how many people there are in India who live and by die? Anyhoo the best countries (minus the Scandinavian countries) play cricket \:d/

How in heavens is swimming not a world sport? The world super powers take it seriously. Look at the G8 countries. The US, China, Japan, France, Germany Russia, the UK, etc. take it seriously. Ok the UK are usually shit at it (but the amount of money they spend on it is immense, by Australian standards).

Cricket is massive in about 5 or 6 countries. There are 208 or more countries in the world. Do the math.

My point still stands. Australia is good at sports hardly anyone plays.

Just think for a minute how good Australia would be in basketball if the 100 of thousands of Australian girls played that instead of netball.

Think of the talent drain that the AFL is with regards to Australian athletes on the world stage.

Swimming. You've listed 7 countries.

Take the blinkers off.

Pick just about any sport where more than, say, 2 dozen countries play seriously and we'll be nowhere near the top 5 with the exception of the few I listed above. There may be one or two others I've forgotten.

Lol England has 3 times our population....

New Zealand and Australia do punch above their weight.

I'm not bagging Australia out Crackers style I'm just pointing out the facts.

Uncomfortable they may be to the myth-makers but facts they are.

This is, sadly, very true. We don't put enough money into Olympic sport at elite or grassroots level. You need do that to have a hope of competing with China, the US, Russia, the UK, etc. Gold medals are bought every bit as much as they're earned. The only hope we have is for individuals to have absolute rippers. If we ever want to do well again we need to put similar amounts of money into funding sport that the UK do. And in order to finance such expenditure, we'd need to copy their National Lottery system or something similar. But that's unfeasible because the morons in this country just use the Pokies (a substitute service). Or we need a US style college system, but we don't have the population base.

With regards to what sports?

NOTE: Pick a sport that more than a few countries play.

Why the hell are we funding a few, a tiny minority of athletes, to win a few gold medals. At a cost of millions too. Wouldn't that money be better spent, healthwise and community wise on programs for the grassroots particpants?

As wonderful as it is when we win an Olympic gold and there's a warm and fuzzy feeling in our lounge rooms fatty boombalada is hardly likely to get off his obese arse and start kayaking or take up clay target shooting.

I love the Olympics, I'll cheer for Oz everytime but you have to ask would the money be better spent elsewhere for the greater benefit. I think I read somewhere the cost per gold medal at the last Olympics was in the $17 million ballpark. (Or thereabouts.)

And if we do punch above our weight how is it that England beat us? I mean we punch above our weight right?

.

What blinkers? This isn't a debate about to what extent these sports can be considered global. It's a discussion relating to ranking sports according to how good Australia is at them. These sports are "international" by virtue of being competed in by a number of nations, either at the Olympics (the yard stick) or in the Commonwealth (which still has plenty of resonance in its respective countries)

By your criteria, the only truly global sport is football. Nothing else is truly global. That's fine, but other sports are still international and competed at a high level.

Cricket. As I say, how many people are there in India again? The fact of the matter is that, ipso facto, a large proportion of the globe have a keen interest in cricket. Cricket's popular (albeit not popular enough) in countries where we have long sporting and cultural traditions and rivalries. That's suffices. There's a reason why, for many of us in the UK/Aus/SA/NZ/India (and once upon a time the Caribbean), cricket's the most important sport in the world. Football being of equal importance, for me.

Swimming. I can list more countries. I repeat, the world's most powerful countries take it seriously. Lots of Eastern European countries with less money also take it seriously. It's competed at very high levels in a number of countries.

You're spot on about the AFL. We'd do sooooo much better at cricket and Olympic sports if there was no AFL. I personally know a few guys who did very well at nationals/internationals for Olympic sports at youth level but choose AFL because it pays considerably more and offers far more chance of playing. Gradually, football would be far better off if AFL wasn't there. One of my pipe dreams is to dream up a way in which the talent drain can be stopped.

So back on topic, we seem to do decently at track cycling.

Road less so but we have riders in some of the big pro teams.

The UK funds it. I'd have absolutely no qualms about seeing some hefty tax put on sports betting and used to fund sport at elite and grassroots level.

Golf???

Surely cycling should be a bit higher up and tennis lower....

I'm being a soothsayer :lol:

Great point about golf

surfen

White rich man's sport. But yes we do OK at golf.

Arhhh. Dilemma.

Golf isn't contested at the Olympics. But it's more than international enough and requires such immense skill levels, let's make an exception.

The title of the thread is Ranking men's sports according to how good Australia is compared to the rest of the world.

My answer to that is, if other countries are playing them then not very,

Don't get upset because I don't agree with your premise.

I think in sports like forumula 1, moto gp, tennis, x games, cycling, surfing. Australia stacks up very well


Edited by lukerobinho: 24/6/2015 08:33:51 PM

Good fun day, boring sport.

You're misinterpreting the premise. For argument's sake, Australia could be ranked 99th in the world at hockey, 100th at basketball and could be the 101st strongest nation at aths and the 102nd strongest nation at tennis. If we didn't play sports such as cricket, rugby, etc. and were no better at any other sports, then I'd rank it as:

1)Hockey
2) Basketball
3) Aths
4) Tennis

I'm sorry I've done a poor job at explaining that. But, suffice it to say, the premise of the thread is not about Australia being good or bad compared to the rest of the world (or the other countries which compete, if you prefer). It's about ranking sports according to how Australia fares compared to the rest of the world.

Let's put it simply....

Our population is the 52nd largest in the world.... In most sports, we rank higher than 52.

We are one of the world leaders in triathlons

Lets put it simply.

On a per capita wealth basis we are numero uno.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult

We do pretty piss poor.

Ripper. We can afford to put more money into elite sport :d

Marginal sport at best.

Any sport where you can drink beer from a beer cart is either the greatest sport in the world or no sport at all.

Original post has been significantly altered. (Which is fine. I understand you are trying to clarify what you meant.)

My comment as to Australia being poor at sport on the world stage still stand though with regards to sports that a lot of countries play.

I note that the premise has changed to include Commonwealth countries so my comments prior to this will read skew-if.

Its just funding.

We've cut our funding dramatically and a lot of coaches on different sports moved to the UK to prepare GB for the London Olympics hence our decline and their ascent.

If you wanna win gold medals then you just have to fund them.

Me? I would prefer they would put that funding into football. We've done the whole olympics thing. I'm over it.

$17 million dollars is not a lot of money. Its less then a dollar per person, per gold medal over a 4 year period.

:lol: =d>
In all seriousness though, Im happy to call golf a sport, I just would have to be paid to watch it.

For what it's worth, it hasn't really changed. We've just been sidetracked by your questioning as to whether or not Australia punches above its weight. I think you were labouring under the misapprehension that I was suggesting Australia punches above its weight in sport. That has no bearing on the ranking of sports (not ranking of Australia, mind) according to how Australia ranks in them compared to the rest of the world. That being the purpose of the thread.

Having said that, the title thread was somewhat poorly worded so I do apologise. And the discussion of whether or not Australia punches above its weight is an interesting one :d

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 10:01:37 PM

Excellent causal analysis. Mind you, I still wanna do well at Olympic sports. Football too. Fund both heavily, say I :d

I'd prefer they spent the money on facilities for the poor and disadvantaged and got them playing sport.

EG: So I don't have to buy the African kid in my kid's team a pair of boots because he couldn't afford them after he paid his rego.

Everything that is wrong with the elite athlete programs in Australia can be summed up by the following sentence.

The more successful we are at a particular sport the more funding they get.

Now think about that for a minute...

Is that the right approach? Shouldn't the sports we are crap at get more funding so, you know, we can get better at them.

I'm not saying don't have an elite program. Let's just tone it down a bit.

Yeah it's bugger all. As you know a reasonable amount about why Team GB is doing well, no doubt you know a little about UK Sport and the National Lottery. The National Lottery is why Team GB did so well in London 2012.

Unfortunately owing to existence of Tatts Group here and popularity of those godawful Pokie machines, I can't see a government backed lottery system working in Australia. However I'd like to see sports betting agencies like TAB, bet365 and Tom Waterhouse taxed substantially more. Better still, the Pokies could also be taxed substantially more. The ill-gotten gains of betting agencies and the Pokies could be redirected to Olympic sports and football at both grassroots and elite levels.

My personal belief, is that sports should receive funding based on their popularity and international importance. For example, I don't think there should be any funding for AFL, as this serves no international interest. We also shouldn't be funding sports that are not popular as it is a waste of money. For example we shouldn't all be clambering to start funding European handball for example just because we are not good at it.

Without elite sport programs, you won't win anything though.

Football however, should receive the most funding. It should be measured in the billions of dollars. When I'm in charge of this country, this will occur.

Taxing the shit out of gambling would be a good approach.

I hear you but to perhaps distil what I am saying above I am not talking of funding curling for example.

What I am saying is that if Australia does really well at the Olympics then funding is increased. If Australia is shithouse at the Olympics in Athletics/track and field then there funding is cut.

Can you see the problem?

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/08/14/3567481.htm

Over the last four years funding from Australian Federal Government has been to the tune of "[size=7]about $588 million dollars for Olympic sport[/size]," Dr Connor says.

That's a lot of cash U.

Could knock up quite a few tennis and basketball courts for that.

Edited by MUNRUBENMUZ: 24/6/2015 10:20:38 PM

Tone it down from where it is now?

We already give precious little to elite sport compared to the UK, among others. If that sacrilegious Crawford Report gets implemented properly, the AFL will get more money, football will suffer and every Olympics will look like the Montréal Olympics. Utterly embarrassing.

There's this perception in this country (and I'm not accusing of you having it) that all Olympic athletes are spoilt brats who waste tax-payers money, do nothing and probably party too much. This is tripe. Those athletes who don't have endorsements (i.e. the vast majority) usually have to live with their parents and, on top of strenuous training requirements, have to work additional hours in (often) minimum wage jobs. It's also bloody hard for them to study at the same time. This is their only hope of training sufficiently to have a chance of getting a place in an Olympic squad and medalling.

It's very harsh. If we tone it down anymore, it's going to be intolerably harsh. But, sadly, tall poppy syndrome prevails in Australia.

We already give elite sport precious little funding. It deserves more, not less.

I see what you are saying and agree it is a counterproductive approach. Based on my system, Athletics should receive lots of funding due to its international significance.

I missed a word which makes what I was trying to say more clear.




Urgh. Spelling errors. I hate them.

Edited by MUNRUBENMUZ: 24/6/2015 10:26:18 PM

From the $588 million they spent on the 2012 Olympics.

Can you explain to me why an elite swimmer is a more worthy recipient than some poor kid who can't afford to play soccer because the rego fees are too high.

Thanks

I don't reckon its that much money.

We can afford it.

We probably have enough courts, but I see your point in funding sports at the grass roots, and its importance.

I understood what you meant.

insurance costs are killing sports at grassroots in this country

well that and the FFA

In the overall scheme of things, given what we spend on other rubbish ($70 000 bookcase?), it may not be much but someone should sit down and say are we getting the best bang for our buck here.

Benelsmore would love this. Maybe they need to do a cost / benefit analysis?

Look, in all seriousness. They can't go down from that figure because Australia is really struggling to compete with that amount of funding as everybody here agrees. Given that there are lots of areas where successive governments have not funded infrastructure and services sufficiently (i.e. the shortchanging of universities), I acknowledge that it's pretty tough suddenly to up the amount of funding for elite sport unless a new way to finance it can be found.

The UK has been wise enough to look at the AIS for inspiration in producing the world's best athletes. It's time we looked to the UK for inspiration in financing the production of the world's best athletes.

Tax the shit out of sports betting agencies, Pokies, etc. and use the profits to fund sport at both elite and grassroots level. Heck, some of the profits can be used to fund the arts and culture, as well. That's what the UK's National Lottery is used for; sport, the arts and culture. But tax the shit out of the gamblers.

As you pointed out, Australians are the wealthiest people in the world. We can't neglect other causes but we can be smart enough to divert profits from things like gambling agencies to elite and grassroots sport.

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 10:37:46 PM

Can you explain why an elite swimmer is a less worthy recipient?

You're creating a false dichotomy. With an appropriate funding model both can be provided for. Other countries do this, no reason why we can't either.

Why is it so important to you to have successful athletes? How exactly, besides sticking it up the poms and the seppos, does winning gold medals change your life for the better?

Again I ask you. What's more important? Little Johnny being able to afford to play soccer on the weekend and away from his X-box or some swimmer put up in the AIS on a scholarship costing you and me our hard earned?

Personally I'm cheering little Johnny on.

And while I'm at it a HECS style system for those that suckled from the taxpayer teat and managed to make a half decent living out of it.

Thorpie was worth millions. Let's have some of that back.

Yes, yes, yes, with an appropriate funding model everything would be sunshine and lollipops and gold paved roads but we don't live in Happy Happy land.

Given the choice of funding a couple of dozen swimmers to the tune of $39 million dollars for 4 years or paying $200 a year rego for 19 500 children for 10 years straight I know what I'd pick.

plus swimmers are a bunch of drug cheats

Fair question.

There are a whole host of reasons.

For one thing, you want to encourage Little Johnny. Good on you. But do you want to tell him he has no hope of ever playing football in the English Premier League or making the Olympics (let's suppose he does track and field, as well as football). I don't think that's fair on Little Johnny. One day, Little Johnny may have a chance of becoming an elite athlete. He should be nurtured and encouraged. He shouldn't be told, oh well you got to enjoy playing sport as a kid, but you're not to be given a proper chance of continuing as professional. How exactly is that fair on Little Johnny?

I believe in a holistic approach to most things in life. I don't think it's right to neglect elite sport while pumping up grassroots. It's unbalanced. Similarly, it's just as wrong to focus entirely on elite sport and to ignore grass roots sport. There needs to be a balance.

For another thing, we've been talking about difficulties with immigration, integration and multiculturalism on another thread. I personally find patriotism distasteful unless it's in the context of sport. When Australia do well at football or basketball or some sport in the Olympics, it's a banner that everyone in Australia, no matter what their background, can get around. I think this should be encouraged. International sport is one of the best ways we can do this.

For another thing, we genuinely feel better when our country does well in sport. Don't get me wrong, we all have real problems in the real world that sporting results cannot change. When Australia made the Last 16 at the 2006 World Cup, that doesn't stop cancer, or poverty or inequality of opportunity. True. But it sure as hell made a lot us feel pretty good. We're a sports-mad people. The fact that there are so many people regularly writing on a football forum attests to that. We feel better when we do well at the Olympics or in the football. There's no shame in admitting that.

For another thing, sport reflects national success. Yes there are other things which matter more. But most of the successful, happier countries in the world are good at sport. There's a reason that Malcolm Fraser was so disgusted by the showing at the Montréal Olympics that he immediately went about having the AIS set-up. I don't think we should neglect it. It's great to do well in international sport and it's embarrassing to do poorly.

Finally, cost-benefit analysis (in broad terms). We're the wealthiest country in the world. It's not going to cost us too much to fund elite sport adequately. If we produce an appropriate scheme which parts the gambling companies with much of their ill-gotten gains and diverts them to both elite and grassroots sport, how exactly is that hurting us?

Jealousy and tall poppy syndromes help nobody.

This is just absurd. The vast majority of Australian Olympic athletes have no endorsements and really struggle to make ends meet. They often have to live with their parents well into 20s and work in crappy jobs, in addition to the regular training they do for their sport. They have no life. You're totally misrepresenting the situation.

I said before that I wasn't accusing you of having tall poppy syndrome, which afflicts so many of my compatriots, with respect to Olympic athletes. But now it's not far off the mark.

Dumbest argument ever.
There's a lot more opportunities to make a living as a professional footballer than any other sport.

Australia loses its collective mind and jizzes all over the place when we win gold medals. The reaction is literally priceless.

there's a difference between the media and the man on the street

Left field extension of those ideas: speedway racing

Can't see how this is unfair. A nurse pays HECS why can't some elite athlete pay back their AIS "debt" should they pass a certain threshold?

As for "happiness" Bhutan is the "happiest" country in the world. How'd they go in the Olympics last hit out?

Australians love sport because we've decided it defines who we are. We crap on about being the underdog (despite outspending many other advanced nations) because it makes us feel better about ourselves when we stick it up the Poms or the Americans. It's the same small man syndrome QLD employs every year in state of origin. "Bloody NSW think they're better than us blah blah".

France has had 67 Nobel laureates.

Germany 102.

UK 115.

USA 353.

Australia. 13.

It'd be good to be proud of something else besides sport. (And to go full circle. Sports that no one else plays.)

I've never understood the 'sports nobody else plays' bullshit argument. I'd like to see the list of sports that everyone plays. I'd think once you get past football it's pretty bloody short.

Cycling has been criminally underrated on this list. We might not have the depth of pro cyclists that other countries have, but we do have a pro tour team and usually have a rider pushing for either GC and/or sprinting honours at grand tours these days. Plus we have some of the best track cyclists around.

What, pray tell, are you trying to prove?

Absolutely agree that we should be doing better in terms of things like medical/scientific research. But for that the universities need more money.

Actually, if you truly want to see Australian universities produce a bunch of Nobel laureates, the fees for university students will need to be deregulated (is it so surprising the US has 353 Nobel laureates?). Universities in Australia don't get enough money to produce that kind of research.

But again, you're guilty of creating a false dichotomy. I want Australian universities to to be at the forefront of medical and scientific research and for Australia to win a bucketload of gold medals. The two aren't mutually exclusive. I've set out a model by which sport can be funded without hurting other services.

You're guilty of using false equivalence too. Training at the AIS/VIS/NSWIS is not a degree. If you're training for, say, steeplechase, you're not going to leave the AIS/VIS with qualifications by which you can reasonably be expected to make an income once you have finished competing in the sport. Moreover, while you are competing in the sport you're not going to make much money either. This begs the question how the hell are AIS scholarship-holders expected to pay back HECS?

Nurses are undertaking a degree which is expected to get them a job with an income whereby the can gradually pay it back and still make enough money to live on top of that. Can you see the difference?

Most people at the AIS don't have endorsements and have to pay their own way for heaps of things as it is. You've deluded yourself into thinking that because some of them are in TV ads, all of them make a bucketload of cash. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Australians love sport because we're human beings and human beings like to win at things. Sport is a healthy platform by which human being can compete.

In case you haven't noticed those other nations you've mentioned (Britain, the States, France, Germany, etc) also love sport, also love to win and with Britain and the States, at least, spend more money on elite sport than Australia does. The USA doesn't have an inferiority complex, they like to win as well. I admit that many Australians have inferiority complexes. But even if nobody had an inferiority complex, we'd still want to win in sport (just like people in other countries do).

When Australia does well at something like the World Cup or in the Ashes or in the Olymipcs, you can tell that a good many people are really happy. It's almost palpable. Maybe that's sad, but that's the way it is. The same in Britain. When England won the Ashes in 2005 people were just about singing in the streets.

It's obvious that you're falling for that which you're accusing others of. You're saying that we care about sports that nobody cares about. If we're not out to impress anybody, why would we care that nobody cares about them? The fact of the matter there is an element of international one-upmanship in international sport and that's fine. It's the last healthy form of patriotism. And secondly, you're mistaken about nobody caring about some of those sports.

Try telling the billion people in India that cricket doesn't matter. Cricket matters to Australians and the English, as well. We don't care if people in China haven't a clue what it is. In the context of the Ashes, only Australia and England matter. It has been that way for over 130 years. And for the 130 years for many people from Australia and England, both in the highest and lowest classes of society, it has been the most important sport in the world. In the context of cricket more generally, only the handful of nations that play it matter. Other countries are welcome to follow it and to try and get involved. But if they don't want to, it's their loss, that's all there is to it.

Try telling somebody who gets up at 5am 5 days a week to train as an Olympic rower that rowing doesn't matter.

As for sports like swimming, which you've derided, I've demonstrated that plenty of countries care a lot about swimming (as evidenced by amount of money they spend on it and the nature of their competitions). Australia, USA, China, Russia, France, Germany, UK, Japan, Italy, Netherlands are some of the most powerful nations in the world and they care about the sport. Just because not every African country competes, it doesn't reduce its right to be regarded as an international sport.

As I've said all along, by your criteria, football is the only global sport.

Edited by quickflick: 25/6/2015 01:30:01 AM

Edited by quickflick: 25/6/2015 02:19:47 AM

Less government money for football and athletics, more for table tennis and starcraft.

Munrubenmuz

Feel free to respond to post which comprehensively listed reasons why funding of elite sport is important :d

Or you can just cherrypick things and go around in circles and claim, erroneously, that the wording of the initial post has been significantly altered. When in fact the only alterations have been to the list and the requirement that the sport be played in the Olympics or have a Commonwealth tradition.

Edited by quickflick: 25/6/2015 02:26:56 AM

Fair point about the cycling. Cycling would have made the top ten if the list was for men's and women's sports, but it's just men's. At London 2012, we were good in men's but not great. For women's we were outstanding. Even still, when you look at some of the guys doing road cycling, maybe it should still be in the top ten. I'll have a think.

Trouble is for some of the other sports, we're either the best, won gold medals for at London or likely to medal at Rio.

I have to admit I played it down a bit when I mentioned it. Partially because every suggestion was getting shouted down as "no one plays it" or a "rich white boy sport". :lol:

Australia is the 6th or 7th strongest nation in men's road cycling.

@ quickflick.

I don't have enough time to rebut your argument at length because you are either wilfully (or ignorantly) not comprehending what I've written.

I have repeatedly said I do not want to stop elite funding. (You seem to think I want it canned.) I said it should be toned down and some hard questions need to be asked as to whether we, as a country, are getting the best bang for our buck or the money could be spent better elsewhere.

It seems you are happy to fund elite athletes to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to feel warm and fuzzy. Good for you.

I'd rather little Johnny and Jane have the facilities and the means to play sport.

To you it's not an either/or proposition. Unfortunately for your position it is exactly that. There is not a bottomless pit of money and hard decisions are made when it comes to funding.

As I said before given the choice of funding a couple of dozen swimmers to the tune of $39 million dollars for 4 years or paying $200 a year rego for 19 500 children for 10 years straight I know what I'd pick. (But that's just me.)

As for your abhorrence at having a HECS style repayment system for the AIS again you have shown you can't read. I said for those athletes that cross a certain threshold. What the hell is wrong with recouping some of that from those that do well out of it. A nurse would have to work for 83 years (@ $60k / year ) to earn what Michael Clarke is on per year now. Not to mention for example a bloke like Bresciano and the dozens of others earning millions that passed through the institute of sport at some stage.

And also (I think) the US government doesn't fund an AIS type setup in America. So take them out of your argument.

Again a comprehension fail.

Go back to the first page. I said Australia punches above our weight in the following (global) sports:

Field hockey. Men's and women's.
Waterpolo. Men's and women's.
Basketball. Women's.

Maybe Cycling. (Track cycling.)



Edited by MUNRUBENMUZ: 25/6/2015 02:17:25 PM

Just out of interest exactly how many federally funded AIS type setups are there in Africa, The Americas and Asia?

The cream rises to the top QF, but you can't make cream without milk and grass. Funding for little Johnny and Jane so they can run around is the "milk and grass" from where the cream comes from.

I know, I know. Fund both.




Edited by MUNRUBENMUZ: 25/6/2015 02:17:52 PM

That we should have a hard look at whether we are getting the best bang for our buck funding elite athletes.



No argument.



Maybe. Could be here all day if you want to argue deregulation.



They are mutually exclusive unless there is a bottomless pit of money. There isn't.

Maybe, gambling could be taxed more. It is already heavily taxed.



Once they cross a certain threshold of earnings. Simple really. (I don't see how you can't see this.)



Sure can. One's a valuable member of society that will contribute to the betterment of it for the next 40 years. One got to do what they love for a short period of time paid for by the taxpayer. That bit is very clear.



No argument. Refer "threshold" proviso.



My argument exactly. It is healthy. And the more people that can do it the better. Thanks.



The US doesn't fund an AIS setup.



Ergo is the reverse is true? Do we sink into a depressive funk because we lost a series or were booted from the World Cup? Is that a good thing?



I'm not telling anyone it doesn't matter. I'm saying Australia winning a gold medal in trap shooting does not make my life better by one iota. Does it make your life better?



I never derided swimming. I said not many nations take it seriously.



Not true. See page one.

Seems I did have time after all.

I think we should cut all sports and arts funding. Only focus on things that have a direct financial benefit to the tax payer

The fact is little Johhny or Jane don't want to play sport without heroes to look up to.

And you clearly don't understand cycling if you think our track squad is better than our rode team.

Little Johnny and little Janey are going to grow up to be a member of the most, or second most, obese country on earth. I hardly think whatever we are doing now is working out peachy keen.

Re: Cycling. I'm going on medals at the WC's and Olympics.

I know your tongue is firmly in cheek but I think I read somewhere that more people go to the arts (museums, concerts, shows) than attend sport.

Maybe we need a string of "elite" art academies.

Because pretty pictures make me feel good and stuff.

are formula 1 & moto GP/Superbikes sports by definition? if they are change your criteria

"A sport is an organized, competitive, entertaining, and skillful activity requiring commitment, strategy, and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by objective means. It is governed by a set of rules or customs "

There actually is no definitive answer as to what is a sport.

Hahah, I know. I made that criteria to avoid having sports like darts and snooker included, but then realised that it would preclude golf, F1 and MotoGP. Need to think of a way in which it can be reframed. Sorry.

Our handball team is currently playing in an emerging nations tournament. Today or tomorrow we're up against Great Britain. Bit of a fiasco with our last WC qualification ruled out. Read up about it.

these people might not have been born fat, but they're fat on the inside and if they decide to go transweight when they get older its because they're discovering their inner self

please be more accepting of these generous donors to the consumption and pharmaceutical industries

Shit, it's like you need to insert conspiracy theories into everything you say whether you're being sarcastic or not.

Have you not been taking the pills this week?