Australian rules football in Australia

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Australian rules football in Australia
Contesting for possession in an indigenous community Aussie Rules game
Governing body	Australian Football League
National team	Australia
First played	1858, Melbourne, Victoria
Registered players	539,526 (total) 120,000 (adult)
Clubs	2,548
Competitions
National
- AFL
Club
- SANFL
- VFL
- WAFL
- Queensland State League
- NTAFL
- Northern Tasmanian
- O&M
- Sydney AFL
- AFL Canberra
Audience records
Single match	121,696 - 1970 VFL Grand Final
Season	6,283,788 - 2005 AFL season

Australian rules football in Australia is a popular spectator and team sport which originated in Melbourne and has become an important part of Australian culture.

The sport is played in every state and territory of Australia and is particularly popular in Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania.

In the states where it is not as popular as other winter sports, New South Wales and Queensland, it is rapidly growing.

Australia is currently the only nation in the world where Australian rules football is played professionally.

[edit] Popularity

The sport has attracted more overall interest among Australians than any other winter sport for at least several years.^{[1] [2]} A recent survey has suggested that the sport recently took over from swimming as the most popular sport in Australia ^[3].

It is particularly popular amongst indigenous Australian communities. Approximately 10% of all AFL players are of indigenous origin.

[edit] Audience

Attendance

Football is the most highly attended spectator sport in Australia: government figures show that more than 2.5 million people (16.8% of the population) attended games in 1999.^[4] In 2005, a cumulative 6,283,788 people attended Australian Football League (AFL) premiership matches, a record for the competition.^[5] A further 307,181 attended NAB Cup pre-season matches and 117,552 attended Regional Challenge pre-season practice matches around the country^[6].

As well as the AFL attendances, strong state competitions also drew crowds. Although crowds for local leagues have suffered in recent years, they continue to draw support, particularly for finals matches. The South Australian SANFL drew an attendance of 303,354 in 2005, the Western Australian WAFL drew an official attendance of 202,797 in 2004 and the Victorian VFL (including a Tasmanian side, the Devils) also drew strong crowds (but with no available attendance figures).

As of 2005 the AFL is one of only five professional sports leagues in the world with an average attendance above thirty thousand (the others are NFL and Major League Baseball in the United States, and the top division soccer leagues in Germany, and England). (See also: Sports attendances.)

Television

Since the advent of national television ratings, the AFL Grand Final has reached the top 5 programmes across the five mainland state capitals in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Australian rules football has achieved a #1 rating in the sports category in both 2004 and 2005.

The 2005 AFL Grand Final was watched by a record television audience of more than 3.3 million people across five of Australia's most highly populated cities, including 1.2 million in Melbourne and 991,000 in Sydney.^[7]

Some regional leagues attract a national audience through free-to-air broadcasting on television networks such as ABC2. OzTAM began measuring these audiences in 2006. Other regional leagues get local audiences via networks such as the ABC.

[edit] Structure and competitions

An Australian Football League match at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast. Adelaide's Matthew Clarke and Melbourne's Mark Jamar contest a centre bounce. The man in the green shirt is a central field umpire.

The most powerful organisation and competition within the game is the elite professional Australian Football League (AFL). The AFL is recognised by the Australian Sports Commission as being the National Sporting Organisation for Australian rules football. There are also seven state/territory-based organisations in Australia, most of which are either owned by or affiliated to the AFL. Most of these hold annual semi-professional club competitions while the others oversee more than one league. Local semi-professional or amateur organizations and competitions are affiliated to their state leagues.

[edit] Australian clubs and competitions

Players contest a mark at the 1933 Australian Football Carnival, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The teams are Victoria and an unknown state (possibly Tasmania). (Photographer: Sam Hood.)

In 1877, the game's first league, the Victorian Football Association (VFA) was formed. Gradually the game – known at first as "Melbourne Rules", "Victorian Rules" or sometimes as "Australasian Rules" – began to spread from Victoria into other Australian colonies in the 1860s, beginning with Tasmania (1864), Queensland (1866) and South Australia (1873). The game began to be played in New South Wales in 1877, in Western Australia in 1881 and the Australian Capital Territory in 1911. By 1916, the game was first played in the Northern Territory, establishing a permanent presence in all Australian states and mainland territories. In Newcastle, New South Wales the Black Diamond league was founded by Victorian goldminers and the Black Diamond Challenge Cup remains Australia's oldest sporting trophy.

The precursors of the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) and the West Australian Football League (WAFL) were strong, separate competitions by the 1890s. However, factors such as interstate rivalry and the denial of access to grounds in Sydney caused the code to struggle in New South Wales and Queensland. A rift in the VFA led to the formation of the Victorian Football League (VFL), which commenced play in 1897 as an eight-team breakaway of the stronger clubs in the VFA competition. By 1925, the VFL consisted of 12 teams, and had become the most prominent league in the game.

The first intercolonial match had been played between Victoria and South Australia in 1879. For most of the 20th century, the absence of a national club competition – and the inability of players to compete internationally – meant that matches between state representative teams were regarded with great importance. Because VFL clubs increasingly recruited the best players in other states, Victoria dominated these games. The introduction of State of Origin rules were introduced in 1977 saw Western Australia and South Australia begin to win many of their games against Victoria.

In 1982, in a move which heralded big changes within the sport, one of the original VFL clubs, South Melbourne Football Club, relocated to the rugby league stronghold of Sydney and became known as the Sydney Swans. In the late 1980s, strong interstate interest in the VFL led to a more national competition; two more non-Victorian clubs, the West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears began playing in 1987. The league changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) following the 1989 season. In 1991, it gained its first South Australian team, Adelaide. In the next five years, two more non-Victorian teams joined the league. The AFL, currently with 16 member clubs, is the sport's elite competition and the most powerful body in the world of Australian rules football.

Following the emergence of the Australian Football League, the SANFL, WAFL and other state leagues rapidly declined to a secondary status. Apart from these there are many semi-professional and amateur leagues around Australia, where they play a very important role in the community, and particularly so in rural areas. The VFA, still in existence a century after the original schism, merged with the former VFL reserves competition in 1998. The new entity adopted the VFL name and remained a primarily state based competition. State of origin games declined in importance, especially after an increasing number of withdrawals by AFL players, and Australian football State of Origin matches ceased in 1999. The second-tier state and territorial leagues still contest interstate matches.

• Top Tier - AFL
  • Second Tier - SANFL, VFL, WAFL
    • Third Tier - Queensland State League, Sydney AFL, AFL Canberra, Northern Territory Football League, Ovens & Murray League
      • Fourth Tier - Northern Tasmanian Football League, Southern Tasmanian Football League, Southern Football League (Victoria)

[edit] Participation

With more than 450,000 participants aged 15 years and over, football is the 4th most-played team sport in Australia, behind netball, soccer and cricket. ^[8]

A total of 539,526 registered participants played football in Australia in 2005, a 4.6 per cent rise from 2004. ^[9] 6.7 per cent of all participants are from non-English speaking origin.

Victoria has the largest number of participants over 15 years of age (205,000 participants or 5.2% of the Victorian population). The Tiwi Islands is said to have the highest participation rate in Australia (35%).^[10]

Amongst children aged 5 to 14 years, football is the third most popular organised sport for children to participate in (beyond soccer and swimming). An estimated 284,200 children aged 5 to 14 participated in football in the 12 months prior to interview in 2003 (13.6% of all children). ^[11]

[edit] Footy in Australian popular culture

Main article: Australian rules football in popular Australian culture

For many years, the game of Australian rules football captured the imagination of Australian film, music and literature.

Many songs inspired by the game have become anthems of the game, none more so than the 1979 hit Up There Cazaly, by Mike Brady.

[edit] See also

• Australian Football League
• Australian Institute of Sport
• List of Australian rules football clubs in Australia