Aussie Rules participation vs the other 5 football codes globally.

[Blackas87]

I came accross some info that had the 6 football codes participation around the world figures from 2006. It also said the number of countries the sport had a significant numbers playing the sport. Just thought I would share it to see what everyone thinks of it.

Note these are from 2006 so they wouldn't 100% accruate today but I wouldn't think there would be a huge difference in the numbers today. But if you have more recent info please share.



I have Countries Followed by players

Soccer
207
30 800 000

Rugby Union
129
3 500 000

Gridiron
2
1 800 000

Aussie Rules
2
650 000

Rugby League
5
450 000

Gaelic Football
1
50 000


Well you can see soccer is pretty much miles ahead of everyone else which we already know.

I thought it was interesting to compare Aussie Rules to Gridiron where Gridiron has only about 3 times the amount of players as Aussie rules despite the U.S having a population about 14 times the size of Australia.

Anyway I thought I would just share that with you and see what you all make of it.

Info was taken from here.
http://www.convictcreations.com/football/battlestats.html

 

[MR]

There are currently 18 countries who have some sort of league/system that plays Australian Rules Football.
Asia Pacific
- China
- India
- Japan
- Nauru
- New Zealand
- Papua New Guinea
- Samoa
- Tonga

Europe
- Britain
- Denmark
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Sweden

Middle East

North America
- Canada
- USA

South Africa

It would be very interesting to know the current numbers for the amount of players.

 

[rustyg70]

If you could work that down to population per player that would be better.
Id say the Irish would have us.

 

[Blackas87]

There are currently 18 countries who have some sort of league/system that plays Australian Rules Football.
Asia Pacific
- China
- India
- Japan
- Nauru
- New Zealand
- Papua New Guinea
- Samoa
- Tonga

Europe
- Britain
- Denmark
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Sweden

Middle East

North America
- Canada
- USA

South Africa

It would be very interesting to know the current numbers for the amount of players.

Yeah would be interesting to the figures of all these leagues today, Aussie rules is slowly growing around the world

 

[wal]

I thought it was interesting to compare Aussie Rules to Gridiron where Gridiron has only about 3 times the amount of players as Aussie rules despite the U.S having a population about 14 times the size of Australia.

I could be wrong because i really couldn't give a rats about Gridiron,
but i don't think they have any amateur or social leagues at all.
It's college football or the NFL with nothing inbetween.

 

[MR]

Yeah would be interesting to the figures of all these leagues today, Aussie rules is slowly growing around the world

I think I heard recently that the Americans had around 10,000 players across the country.

I could be wrong, but if true, that's not a bad effort.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

I could be wrong because i really couldn't give a rats about Gridiron,
but i don't think they have any amateur or social leagues at all.
It's college football or the NFL with nothing inbetween.

There are other leagues which operate under different sets of rules.

The US has a few very highly popular team sports, basketball, ice hockey, gridiron and baseball and others such as soccer and lacrosse which would spread out participation rates.

 

[scottwade]

I came accross some info that had the 6 football codes participation around the world figures from 2006.

Gridiron
2
1 800 000

Aussie Rules
2
650 000

I'd be interested in how those figures were obtained and how participation is measured.

For Aussie Rules, is it adults, does it include kids, is it registered players, is it auskick participants?

The gridiron figure also seems odd.
It is too high for college & pro, but appears too low for all high schools/ youth football.

Also be interested to know which is the second country that Aussie rules "had significant numbers" in.

 

[I Remember Bluey]

Also be interested to know which is the second country that Aussie rules "had significant numbers" in.

They have probably confused Tazmaina with Tanzania

 

[Ice-Wolf]

Also be interested to know which is the second country that Aussie rules "had significant numbers" in.

It's the national sport of Nauru

 

[Chip_]

If you could work that down to population per player that would be better.
Id say the Irish would have us.

You're obviously grossly under estimating the population of Ireland or are really bad at maths.

Ireland has roughly just under 4.5 million people, 50,000 participants means a little over 1 in 90 play.

Even if you knock off 50k from the Aussie rules total (for the other country), 600k participants from a population of 23 million is over 1 in 40 people, almost double the per capita rate of Gaelic football for Ireland.

And with that rate playing, the numbers definitely include children playing. I did a few quick sums, if you aren't counting children, elderly, women for the most part, the rate of adult males playing would be more like 1 in 15, which just isn't possible.

 

[Sprout]

I could be wrong because i really couldn't give a rats about Gridiron,
but i don't think they have any amateur or social leagues at all.
It's college football or the NFL with nothing inbetween.

I hate it as well, but I'd be very surprised if this was true.

 

[KDSnap]

I could be wrong because i really couldn't give a rats about Gridiron,
but i don't think they have any amateur or social leagues at all.
It's college football or the NFL with nothing inbetween.

There are very few amateur leagues, and for recreation we play "flag football," which is virtually "touch" football, you just have to grab the velcro-attached flag on he ballcarrier's waist. It is fun, but nothing compared to the real game that you call "gridiron."
Most high schools have a gridiron team, and it is very popular. A small percentage of those players go on to play on the university level. Most, like me, are not anywhere near talented enough to play college ball.
There are several levels of the college game... the kids who play for teams like Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, or the other big teams, are the cream of the crop. And a very tiny percentage of those players go on to play professionally... in the NFL, or, some who are not quite so good drive north to Canada to play Canadian football.
But as an adult, if you still want to play full-contact "gridiron" football, your only opportunity is if you can find a team in a so-called "semi-pro" league. (Check out this link: http://www.incardinals.webs.com.) I don't know where they came up with the term "semi-pro," because it is fully amateur... and the costs for all that gear drives a lot of guys away.

 

[scottwade]

Ireland has roughly just under 4.5 million people, 50,000 participants means a little over 1 in 90 play.

Even if you knock off 50k from the Aussie rules total (for the other country), 600k participants from a population of 23 million is over 1 in 40 people, almost double the per capita rate of Gaelic football for Ireland.

And with that rate playing, the numbers definitely include children playing. I did a few quick sums, if you aren't counting children, elderly, women for the most part, the rate of adult males playing would be more like 1 in 15, which just isn't possible.

TBH I think the figures originally quoted are, to put it mildly, dubious & certainly aren't comparing like for like.

Rugby Union in Ireland claims @150k registered players.
http://www.irb.com/unions/union=11000001/index.html

There is simply no way in the World that Irish rugby could have @ 3 times the number of Gaelic football players, even if NI is factored into the equation.

So if we break the Rugby figures down to senior (male) players we get @25k, which is starting to seem more in line with say 50K Gaelic players.

However there are only 250 RU clubs, whereas there are 10 times that many Gaelic clubs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_football).

In regard to the Aussie Rules figures the Rugby league fraternity are always complaining that the AFL includes Auskick participants, whereas the participation figures for RL are based on registered players.

Basically I think trying to extrapolate any useful information from the figures in the OP is waste of time.

That's not a criticism of the OP, merely that IMO, the original source has used misleading and conflicting data.

 

[bedford]

Who cares , we have the best game in the world, even if Ross Lyon is still coaching

 

[cos789]

I came accross some info that had the 6 football codes participation around the world figures from 2006. It also said the number of countries the sport had a significant numbers playing the sport. Just thought I would share it to see what everyone thinks of it.

Note these are from 2006 so they wouldn't 100% accruate today but I wouldn't think there would be a huge difference in the numbers today. But if you have more recent info please share.



I have Countries Followed by players

Soccer
207
30 800 000

Rugby Union
129
3 500 000

Gridiron
2
1 800 000

Aussie Rules
2
650 000

Rugby League
5
450 000

Gaelic Football
1
50 000


Anyway I thought I would just share that with you and see what you all make of it.

Info was taken from here.
http://www.convictcreations.com/football/battlestats.html

This sort of comparison is largely useless unless your know the criteria for the statistics and convictcreations is basically a blog and 2006 is old.

Player participation is meaningless unless you know the selection criteria.
Also the countries played is also meaningless unles you know the criteria.

This blog has only counted professional or semi-pro leagues overseas except for RU which is displayed as 129. Obviously 129 countries do not play RU at the same level as the 5 countries quoted for rl.
Yet the blog has counted player participants down to amateur levels in Australia.If you were to count amateurs overseas, all codes would reflect a totally different picture.

He is a more up to date list for Australian Football.

01.Andorra EC
02.Argentina
03.Austria EC
04.Bahrain
05.Belgium EC
06.Brunei
07.Borneo
08.Canada IC
09.Cambodia
10.Catalunya EC
11.Chilie
12.China IC
13.Croatia EC
14.Czech Rep. EC
15.Denmark IC EC
16.East Timor IC
17.England IC EC
18.Fiji IC
19.Finland IC EC
20.France IC EC
21.Germany. EC
22.India IC
23.Iceland EC
24.Indonesia
25.Ireland IC EC
26.Italy EC
27.Japan IC
28.Laos
29.Lebanon
30.Macau
31.Malaysia
32.Middle East.
33.Nauru IC
34.New Zealand IC
35.Netherlands EC
36.Norway
37.Oman
38.Pakistan
39.PNG IC
40.Peru
41.Philippines
42.Poland
43.Portugal
44.Qatar
45.RSA IC
46.Russia EC
47.Samoa. IC
48.Singapore
49.Sweden IC EC
50.Switzerland EC
51.Scotland IC EC
52.Spain IC EC
53.Solomon Is.
54.Thailand
55.Tonga IC
56.UAE
57.USA IC
58.Vietnam
59.Wales IC EC
60.Zimbabwe

A few of those countries are only at expat level.
Most countries have functioning leagues.
Some of those countries have a surprisingly high number of participants.
Some of those countries have a huge potential and have just been exposed.

There is a similar list for rl.
There list of countries for rl is shorter but they have semi-pro countries and some Pacific countries.

Gridiron and Gaelic Football , similarly are played throughout the world.
Not just in the home countries as suggested.

Gridiron, RU, rl and AF each has it's own WC with roughly the same number of participant countries though the world puts different status on each.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Despite the caveats noted in the thread.

Gridiron is structured so that there are heaps of juniors, a few at uni and then a tiny number of pro's. So it will come in low by the nature of the sport.

The others. Well, there are quite a few aussie rules players. And a lot of soccer players - it is the world's sport.

Overall, interesting and semi informative thread. I now know how far ahead in numbers soccer is and why when I see the Champion League they don't seem to be human to me. Comparatively the top few AFL players would be capable of playing in the top European teams, and likely not one in Barca.
I still prefer AFL overall, but the skill level in the top Champion league games is insane - way beyond anything I have ever seen in AFL.

 

[ManUtd]

Those figures are registered players only, which make soccer looks pretty poor as the supposed most popular sport. While it probably has that amount of registered players roughly, the actual figures are much higher. Take Nigeria for example, soccer mad and only 58,000 registered players. The 6.6 million unregistered is more reflective of the games standing. (http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/bigcount/allplayers.html). Same in places like England (1.5m vs 4m), Brazil (2m vs 13m), Spain (600k vs 2.8m). Personally I find it hard to believe that Spain, a country double the size of Australia, has as many players as our game in Australia.

Registered players is a good way of comparing how countries perform against each other. But it shouldnt be used as a way to assess actual playing numbers. Same with us and Aus Rules, 600k registered, but easily over 1m play the game at some level or some format. Same with that gridiron stat. Only 1.8m? No way.

 

[Roddy]

Despite the caveats noted in the thread.

Gridiron is structured so that there are heaps of juniors, a few at uni and then a tiny number of pro's. So it will come in low by the nature of the sport.

The others. Well, there are quite a few aussie rules players. And a lot of soccer players - it is the world's sport.

Overall, interesting and semi informative thread. I now know how far ahead in numbers soccer is and why when I see the Champion League they don't seem to be human to me. Comparatively the top few AFL players would be capable of playing in the top European teams, and likely not one in Barca.
I still prefer AFL overall, but the skill level in the top Champion league games is insane - way beyond anything I have ever seen in AFL.

It's all in the eye of the beholder I suppose. To my eye, the level of OVERALL skill and athleticism in football is WAY superior than soccer, for any number of reasons.

 

[cos789]

It's all in the eye of the beholder I suppose. To my eye, the level of OVERALL skill and athleticism in football is WAY superior than soccer, for any number of reasons.

Yes it is. And that's a different debate.

The problem with this debate is that this blog quoted 129 countries playing RU and only 5 for RU.

That severely discredits all their other figures.

 

[Bouvet_Island]

I think I heard recently that the Americans had around 10,000 players across the country.

I could be wrong, but if true, that's not a bad effort.

Just to put a bit of perspective on the "10,000 players in the USA" figure...

There's apparently 73 gridiron teams in Australia ( http://www.gridironaustralia.org.au/ go to "Gridiron in Australia")
I don't know how many players they have per team, but if we take a guess at 15 per team, that's around 1,000 gridiron players in Australia.

Considering the relative populations, that means you're more likely to meet someone in Australia who plays Gridiron than meeting someone in the USA who plays AR.

 

[cos789]

There's apparently 73 gridiron teams in Australia ( http://www.gridironaustralia.org.au/

yes, but something like 39 clubs.
That's about the same number of AR clubs in the USA.

Considering the relative populations, that means you're more likely to meet someone in Australia who plays Gridiron than meeting someone in the USA who plays AR.

Taking that perspective and the fact that USA has about 14 times the population as Australia you could be correct . From the other perspective, a country with 14 times the population has only the same number of clubs in Australia as Australia has AFCs in the USA. And whilst there are about 38 AFCs in the USA, a large number of those clubs run metro leagues with multiple additional teams. As well there are women's teams, junior programs, Auskick and recreational footy in the USA. So you have to be careful when making comparisons.

 

[Shinboner Schem]

Yes it is. And that's a different debate.

The problem with this debate is that this blog quoted 129 countries playing RU and only 5 for RU.

That severely discredits all their other figures.

What severely discredits the figures is the source:

"Sources (with thanks to Stuart Pearson of Sydney Australia who is a Rugby tragic.)"

 

[cos789]

What severely discredits the figures is the source:

"Sources (with thanks to Stuart Pearson of Sydney Australia who is a Rugby tragic.)"

Exactly.

Interesting to see what 129 countries he says play RU.

 

[gaelictiogar]

I came accross some info that had the 6 football codes participation around the world figures from 2006. It also said the number of countries the sport had a significant numbers playing the sport. Just thought I would share it to see what everyone thinks of it.

Note these are from 2006 so they wouldn't 100% accruate today but I wouldn't think there would be a huge difference in the numbers today. But if you have more recent info please share.



I have Countries Followed by players

Soccer
207
30 800 000

Rugby Union
129
3 500 000

Gridiron
2
1 800 000

Aussie Rules
2
650 000

Rugby League
5
450 000

Gaelic Football
1
50 000


Well you can see soccer is pretty much miles ahead of everyone else which we already know.

I thought it was interesting to compare Aussie Rules to Gridiron where Gridiron has only about 3 times the amount of players as Aussie rules despite the U.S having a population about 14 times the size of Australia.

Anyway I thought I would just share that with you and see what you all make of it.

Info was taken from here.
http://www.convictcreations.com/football/battlestats.html

Clearly some of these figures count adult only ( GAA and Gridiron ) and some all participants ( RL and AFL ) and consequently the stats are dubious. I can tell you for a fact that the Gaelic football figure is too low. Irish estimations are about 180,000/200,000 all told.


I doubt there are as many as 150,000 adults playing footy.