AFL’s international growth the X-factor in Australian sport

• The Australian
• 12:00AM August 16, 2017
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• PATRICK SMITH

  

  Senior sports commentator

  Melbourne

  @Smithersss

  

That is based on several banks of evidence but there is none more compelling than the ARU’s handling of the fate of the Western Force and Melbourne Rebels.

To have so many players, administrators, families and supporters trembling to know if they would be the club that lost their head was obviously cruel but also an indication of a deep vein of ­incompetence.

ARU former boss Bill Pulver resigned on the announcement that there was no longer room or money to humour Western Force in Super Rugby. It was either the Force or the Melbourne Rebels. The Force have taken the first step to have the ARU decision overturned by taking action in the NSW Supreme Court.

Pulver said at the time of the Force’s Super Rugby termination that he had the spreadsheet that could come up with no other ­answer independent of how they churned the numbers.

Where was this all-seeing spreadsheet when the Force joined the competition a decade ago and the Rebels seven years ago? Because that is more specifically the problem for ARU. Why add the Rebels in 2011 if it has proved that a side introduced in 2007 had bloated the competition to its limit? Or was the decision to give the Force a licence ahead of Melbourne a poor decision in the first place? Whatever, rugby union is in a pickle but the Bledisloe Cup is coming. The perfect ­distraction.

Not that every other national code is without its problems. The FFA cannot expand but only ­because it lacks both the confidence and the money. The A-League base is not wide enough or strong enough to add extra clubs. Rugby league is still to settle on a leadership model and has a ­hungry player group scratching at the door. Football, too, needs to settle its basement.

Cricket squabbled over its ­millions before settling on a deal that will enrich the players but not necessarily the game. The deal ­between the cricket board and the players’ union has drawn a ­warning from former BHP Billiton boss Don Argus, who headed the influential review of the sport nationally in 2011.

Argus has told The Australian any sustainable pay model would be based on earnings rather than revenue and the deal done by the players and the cricket board had exposed the game as a going ­concern.

“If you were in business and you committed an expense to a revenue base you haven’t got, you could be in trouble with the ­regulators,’’ he said.

Which brings us to the AFL. It always does when we discuss the financial strength of sport in ­Australia.

Since the Rebels were established and joined Super Rugby the AFL has put new franchises into western Sydney and the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast have struggled to make much impact. Their best end-of-season position has been 12th in 2014. The next Gold Coast coach will be the third, following Guy McKenna, replaced at the end of 2014 and Rodney Eade, sacked last week.

GWS joined the competition in 2012 with Kevin Sheedy and Leon Cameron in agreed coaching roles. Four-time premiership coach Sheedy would manage the establishment of the team and coach the first two years, allowing Cameron to take over after that. Last season GWS lost their ­preliminary final by six points to eventual premier the Western Bulldogs and now sit second on the ladder.

The clubs are heavily supported by the AFL but according to the league boss Gillon McLachlan the extra match every week initiated by the expansion delivers the AFL up to $50m a season when you add up the broadcast money, advertising, sponsorship and other income generated by nine games a week.

Local expansion seems settled and limited to 18 teams for some time into the future but the AFL continues to flirt with international exposure. For obvious reasons.

The codes it competes with locally all have a strong international presence. They all have regular World Cups, none more vaunted than that of soccer. Play for an AFL club or for Australia in league, union, football or cricket? This is the AFL’s wonky knee.

This year the AFL sanctioned a match between Port Adelaide and the Gold Coast in Shanghai. Another one is scheduled for next year. Previously and every now and then it has taken the game to England, New Zealand and South Africa.

In November the AFL All-Australian side will play Ireland in two Tests of “international” football, a hybrid mix of the indigenous game and Gaelic football. You can never suspend belief. It is a forced and unnatural mix.

In Melbourne this week the Australian Football International Cup — untainted AFL rules — will finish. It has involved 18 men’s teams including sides representing Canada, France, China, India and Fiji. The women’s competition has eight teams.

AFL football is a cumbersome game to transport. It requires a large oval and 44 players. At its most complete, it is not a spontaneous game.

Because of that the AFL has shaped a form of the game called AFLX, which is played on soccer pitches and features 10 players a side with seven on the field. The rules include last touch out of bounds, no marks for backward kicks and set positions defined by 40m arcs.

The AFL is considering an Australian side playing against a team made up of Irish players who now play in the league as a curtain raiser to international Tests. Any shortfall of Irish players could be topped up from the international squad.

This is the AFL’s best vehicle yet to take the game abroad. It is also the best format to challenge the summer dominance of cricket’s Twenty20.

And there would be nothing sweeter for the AFL than to take its game to the world on the back of soccer fields. That’s an own goal of particular piquancy.
AFL’s international growth the X-factor in Australian sport

totally agree
rent seekers .

The AFL has its own revenue. It's a business. Woolworths brings in more money for the economy but you don't see the government paying to build a store for them.

The AFL are greedy rent seekers that don't deserve shit from the tax payer

Nor do they need to rip off pensioners with poker machines but that is another dimension of their greed 

well the reality is that AFL deserve the most funding because the bring in the most dollars for the economy. the problem is where does it end? governments around Australia spent $3 billion dollars on AFL infrastructure between 2003 and 2015. Then add the new Perth stadium and Geelong upgrade and you have to question whether the amount of government spending is justified (and fair).

Read the article, they want 300 million from the government for Etihad aswell

actually they do own Etihad. 

Nobody seems to ask the question why a sport with a 2 billion rights deal seems so poor that it can't afford its own stadiums.

Fucking rent seekers

We need to be moving away from multi purpose stadiums and building football specific stadiums. just look at the state of Suncorp, Allianz and ANZ? Even AAMI Park had deterioration issues in early 2016 with so much traffic. I for one won't shed a tear of the Melbourne Rebels are booted out of Super Rugby. Concerts also need to be pissed off.

I know its easier said than done of course because government handouts always come with conditions (and the conditions usually includes some type of ground sharing). That's why I strongly advocate that all expansion teams from here on in should only be admitted if they have plans to build a football specific stadium.  

Maybe the mods can move it to Extra Time?

Football stadiums are multi-purpose and they always have been. Football, RL, RU and other big participation sports like touch football all use them. Even smaller sports like gridiron or gaelic football use them.

I thought it would've died after pips got banned

AFL viable from Govt funding. Their help with stadiums is direct correlation to attendance growth. Ministers sit on boards either before or after. Huge political sway.

I've been reluctant to let the cat out of the bag, but after the article this morning I think it's time we pressured Ffa and all the member federations to pressure state and federal governments for a fair share of funding. The 'cat' so to speak is Aflx. If that sport gets up and running, we can easily argue that rectangular stadia are multipurpose venues like afl try to do with the oval shaped grounds. We therefore should get more govt funding if you can play all 4 football codes on a rectangular ground

Why is this still a thread, couldn't give a hoots about AFL here 

Article from above

Richmond, Carlton pitch for multimillion dollar stadium upgrades

July 12 2017 - 8:10PMJuly 12 2017 - 8:10PM

Traditional AFL rivals Richmond and Carlton are each pitching for multimillion-dollar government support to transform their old home grounds at Punt Road and Princes Park.

The Tigers and the Blues have submitted blueprints to the Victorian Government in a move that could form part of Premier Daniel Andrews' 2018 election strategy, along with a largely taxpayer-funded $300 million upgrade of Etihad Stadium.

Those blueprints feature in a series of stadium and precinct proposals expected to significantly alter the face of elite and community spectator sport across Victoria and, specifically, inner-city Melbourne.

And in a separate development, the AFL has begun detailed research into the future of its new national women's league, with Carlton's Ikon Park emerging as the proposed home of AFLW, potentially boasting an upgraded 20,000 to 25,000-seat stadium, with 70 per cent of that being undercover.

The prospect of Carlton's old home again hosting AFL games remains on the table.

The AFL is expected to have to wait for several months and, potentially, until next season to learn of Etihad Stadium's fate after the government deferred its call on the upgrade. The government had initially suggested its costing would be released this month.

Collingwood's proposal for a new $1 billion stadium close to the MCG has been taken off the table.

Richmond chief executive Brendon Gale confirmed the club would submit a new master plan for the Punt Road Oval by the end of 2017. This would provide a new and more attractive gateway to the MCG, along with comfortable seating for 8000 supporters.

"We need to continue to invest in this south-east entrance into Yarra Park from an aesthetic point of view," Gale said.

"Given our location within one of the world's great sporting precincts, you're looking at a tired railway station; you cross the road with your heart in your mouth and nothing improves when you enter the outskirts of the stadium. It makes sense to invest given the location alongside the MCG. We believe there's a place for AFL Women's, an elite training facility, VFL football and under-18s.

"We need to ensure it remains a really rich community hub for a whole range of community and second-tier activities that it really doesn't make sense to stage elsewhere."

Richmond, having met and been invited to submit to the Andrews' working party, has engaged the same firm of architects which oversaw the last redevelopment of the Tigers' home base to help form a fully-costed master plan.

It makes sense to invest given the location alongside the MCG. We believe there's a place for AFL Women's, an elite training facility, VFL football and under-18s.

The AFL, now attempting to negotiate new agreements with Etihad Stadium's frustrated tenant clubs, had hoped to learn the fate of its planned Docklands' upgrade this month. However, it is now understood the state government has placed a wide range of options on the table, including the overall future of the 17-year-old Etihad Stadium as an elite AFL venue.

Proposals have also been put forward by a number of AFL clubs, including the Western Bulldogs on behalf of the Whitten Oval and the club's new home venue at Ballarat.

The Victorian Government's funding decision could now form part of the Andrews Government's 2018 election campaign.

The government working party, chaired by Premier Andrews and including Treasurer Tim Pallas, has been established to look at multi-sport stadia and precinct funding across the state.

The committee has invited submissions from the MCG, the AFL and its Victorian clubs, the National Rugby League, Football Federation Australia and the Australian Rugby Union, along with representations from netball, hockey, basketball and tennis

if they can con the state govt .....

Whilst i am a follower and member of both codes, i'll be ropable as a taxpayer if these upgrades get through.
You seriously cannot justify these investments with the occasional VFL or Womens game. 

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/richmond-carlton-pitch-for-multimillion-dollar-stadium-upgrades-20170712-gx9yfk.html

@strayan

Anyway.... does anyone have any footage of the version of ALF 

Cheers
completely forgot about Japan and their interest in Union.  I think also Singapore has a growing interest in Union as well

Spoke to someone working in AFL Queensland recently - they are struggling in areas with clubs unable to attract kids or field teams
Said they all go to sokkah and other lifestyle things (on top of tradtional rugby/league). Said a noticable diference in many kids though is a drop off in sokkah when teenagers etc, but when verging at elite level continue in other sports. 

Why would a Crows fan bother buying a membership when they know the league is just taking it away and giving it to every other club. Fucking socialist bullshit

Not a bloody lot in many cases. The problem the AFL faces in its traditional rural heartlands is not that the sport is directly in decline, but the towns themselves are. They can't get numbers up for games because the town populations are dwindling and they can't find enough people on a Saturday who aren't massive smackheads or doing a stretch in Sale for learning the missus. Channel 7 money doesn't fix that. Hence why the AFL has this media strategy to look as strong as possible and extract as much rent from the taxpayer as possible while they're still believed because they know the clock is ticking fast.

"We got a 2 billion TV deal, we got a 2 billion TV deal"



 Yeah, you've just spunked a billion on gws, the suns (bills growing daily), the women's league, AFL x and expansion into China and other lands, bailouts - half the clubs are at a loss and only make money because of pokie machines and your grassroots clubs are closing for lack of numbers plus the remaining cash is dependant on commercial TV advertising vaiabilty and sales - that's why your leaders are pathologically obsessed with increasing its audience 

the AFL have handed GWS at least $20 million per season and that is on top of the $200 million they spent to start up. They also spent $100 million to start up the Suns. Add the Suns annual distribution and we're talking about well over half a billion dollars they have wasted in 6-7 years. Can you imagine what they could have done to things such as grass roots and infrastructure with that sort of money? They may have even been able to make some inroads in Football's participation numbers. The AFL continuing to divert/waste funds for useless causes is great for Football.

The AFL has also allowed GWS to assemble one of the best squads of all time that will be unbeatable in 12-24 months and will win numerous flags. How will traditional AFL supporters feel about this? Especially if your team hasn't won a flag in your lifetime and you see these new boys handed everything under the sun to ensure they succeed? well you're gonna get angry and disinterested aren't you? This is also great for Football. 

Football has not even made inroads in China. There are lots of reports and studies about just how little it's played by the community. 
Also anyone who has travelled much through parts of China knows football pitches, junior clubs or places to play are rare as hen's teeth. 
If their constant and pathological obsession with being accepted overseas is nothing more than a junket, they live in an even bigger bubble than we think. 

I know for a fact that women - most notably muslim women - have been paid to play Aussie rules in Western Sydney (despite never played before) and pose in pictures. 

Japan however is heavily involved in Rugby Union, as evidenced by them hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2019, as well as competing in previous tournaments. They even have a team in the Super Rugby competition. Sure, they might be rubbish, but the interest and, perhaps more importantly, the investment, is there. Rugby Union is a good complement to football as they both use similar facilities, which Governments love haha.

Rugby Union is an interesting one in terms of its' popularity - it is very much a 'wealthy' game, and thus really only takes hold in countries with 'First World' standards. Exceptions to this rule would be South Africa (however they have a large English influence, and most of the wealth in that country is concentrated in this population) and Argentina (not saying Argentina is a third world hell hole, it's definitely one of the richer Latin American countries - just not on the same level as other Union playing nations perhaps?). It's also no surprise why its' also popular in Hong Kong, even if it's the shortened version of Rugby 7's, due to the history of that place with a large, wealthy populous (even by Western standards Hong Kong citizens have always been quite wealthy) as well as the heavy British influence. With that said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it takes off in China, even if it plays second fiddle to the likes of football - they've got a rapidly burgeoning middle ad upper class that wants to indulge to pleasure activities, and Rugby Union is well placed to do that with a strong international presence (imagine the Wallabies playing in Beijing in front of 80k+ spectators - Kochie could only dream of those sort of numbers for Port Adelaide and the AFL haha), whilst being remarkably different to football. Gives those people who love a bit of biffo an outlet haha.

tl;dr

Whilst Rugby Union may not be popular in China currently, it will get more of a foothold than AFL ever will.

so true

good luck trying flog ALF to the SEAsia and Chinese with this thuggery....
what surprises me , Rugby ( union ) has not made inroads into China ( although in HK it is popular with the Rugby 7's )
SEAsia have not taken to rugby at all.

Asia has not taken to american football either
Basketball , is popular in china 

So what risk and market analysis has Kochie and the ALF heirachy completely ignored , if they think ALF is going to make it in Asia
Given the failed attempts with South Africa and New Zealand
Or are they going down that whole " come to australia , buy real estate cheap and real Aussies play footy not immigrants game " motto

Another winner - from your friendly Australian rules -  No red cards cause we'd look like thepussy sokkah mob