USA or Australia: What country has the better sporting culture?

[Scotland]

Steph Curry was born in 1988. Spent 3 years at Davidson (06/07, 07/08, 08/09) then was drafted in 2009 and has played in the NBA since.

At college level he averaged 21.5, 25.9 and 28.6 points a game in his 3 seasons. Took 3-4 seasons to establish himself at NBA level, and from 2013/14 onwards has been an All Star, All NBA 1st/2nd team, 2 x MVP etc.

Most AFL players born in 1988 were drafted in 2006. Isaac Smith was drafted in 2010 and that was very unorthodox even at pick 20 odd. If you go down the list of the 2006 draft most players spent a few years spudding it at AFL level before becoming any good, and plenty of them never made it. We took 4 players; Mitch Brown and Eric Mackenzie who were 18 and Tim Houlihan and Will Schofield who were 17. Houlihan debuted in 2008, the rest in 2007.

Americans must look at how we do player development and think it's nuts. Kids who are not physically ready and arguably not good enough anyway running around playing professional sport while players in their early 20s play state league and amateur footy. Matt Priddis is our most famous 'mature ager' and we drafted him at 20 and he debuted at 21 before establishing himself at 22. Kobe Bryant (18), Lebron James (19), Kevin Garnett (19) are rare cases, whereas we had to change the rules to stop clubs drafting players younger than 18. It's more of a footy thing than an Australian thing in general, but the difference is stark.

 

[FootyJunkie]

no college system as a farm league to the pro sports is a big difference in Oz

 

[HahnPremium]

Its a tough one.
One of the biggest things at superbowl is the unveiling of the latest multi million dollar adverts at half time. These are one of the highlights of the day.
We did have meatloaf though.
But he is a yank and I think a million bucks was worth paying him to subsequently internally combust his own career.

 

[perthblue]

No love for the "Duke"?
View attachment 369867 View attachment 369867 View attachment 369867

not a bad player, not world class tho

 

[PhatBoy]

What makes a great sporting culture exactly, by the way?

Financial power doesn't, IMO. So that's a strike against the US. Or at least something that doesn't add to its culture anyway. I also think that when professionalism gets to the stage where players are being picked and developed purely on body type and not ability or work ethic, that doesn't enhance the culture either. I don't profess to know that much about gridiron but the volume of blokes who get picked because they can naturally run 0.01s quicker over 40 yards than the next bloke kind of gets under my skin for some reason. What if the next bloke happens to be a million times better with his hands or reading the play? It's starting to seep into other sports now too. Cricket is one. I've long had a bee in my bonnet over the amount of s**t cricketers that got a go ahead of Fatty Cosgrove. Ok yeah at that level if the opportunity is there you should be capable of getting fit enough to make it but the fact that runs didn't count for s**t really pissed me off.

 

[HomokHarcos]

What's the first sport Australians think of for the USA? For everybody I know in Canada and the USA when they think of Australia they think of rugby.

 

[BILC]

If Melbourne had one AFL team in a national competition we'd get 200,000 to the G every second week if they could build it big enough.

 

[HomokHarcos]

If Melbourne had one AFL team in a national competition we'd get 200,000 to the G every second week if they could build it big enough.

Yeah imagine if AFL had a truly national appeal and Melbourne had only 1 or 2 teams, they would probably be huge.

 

[crownie]

If Melbourne had one AFL team in a national competition we'd get 200,000 to the G every second week if they could build it big enough.

there is no guarantee of even getting 100,000 if there was only one team to support.

how much would ticket prices rise by?

 

[Catfish Alley]

What's the first sport Australians think of for the USA?

The big 3. Football, Basketball and Baseball.

 

[Catfish Alley]

not a bad player, not world class tho

Bosnich?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I don't profess to know that much about gridiron but the volume of blokes who get picked because they can naturally run 0.01s quicker over 40 yards than the next bloke kind of gets under my skin for some reason. What if the next bloke happens to be a million times better with his hands or reading the play?

That's not how it works lol

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

What's the first sport Australians think of for the USA? For everybody I know in Canada and the USA when they think of Australia they think of rugby.

Their most popular sport - American Football

 

[perthblue]

Bosnich?

I define world class as 'top 5 in their position' Bozz was good but never among the best goalies.

 

[akkaps]

What's the first sport Australians think of for the USA? For everybody I know in Canada and the USA when they think of Australia they think of rugby.

I half blame Jarryd Hayne. That guy shits me to no end.

 

[Catfish Alley]

I half blame Jarryd Hayne. That guy shits me to no end.

Yeah, nobody knows him. Canadians just think if you're Aussie you must be good at rugby.

 

[HomokHarcos]

Yeah, nobody knows him. Canadians just think if you're Aussie you must be good at rugby.

Yeah, and the first thing people ask me when I tell them I follow Australian rules football, is "is that rugby?"

 

[Catfish Alley]

Haha. Yep, always.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Border>Jordan.

Get back to me when AB stars in the one of the greatest films of all time.

 

[Scotland]

Yeah, nobody knows him. Canadians just think if you're Aussie you must be good at rugby.

To be fair, if I meet a Canadian I automatically assume they like hockey.

 

[Catfish Alley]

To be fair, if I meet a Canadian I automatically assume they like hockey.

You'd probably be right. That truly is a national passion.

 

[Gough]

Get back to me when AB stars in the one of the greatest films of all time.

Meh, Jordan never got a tenfa against the West Indies either.

 

[Scotland]

Again it's more of a footy thing but we definitely have different attitudes to player movement over here.

Free agency is new and it takes 8 years, plus teams get compo. People sort of expect 18 year old kids to be drafted to 1 of 18 clubs and play there until they retire or their club doesn't need them any more and gets rid of them. Have been following the NRL goings on recently on Fox Sports news and they seem a lot different. No draft and players come and go as they please, weirdly a few weeks into the season too.

 

[quotemokc]

As a people I think we love our sports way more and get more invested in it.

But the US in a huge country with sports for all 300million people.

You go to any bar in the US and there is 5+ different sports on the tvs at ALL times.

There is like 2 days a year without an NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB game.

 

[kickazz]

I think American baseball history and culture is far better than Australian cricket. Why? Because it has a historical and competitive league unlike Australian cricket which doesn't have a league many people take very seriously.

Shield cricket for huge crowds back in the day before test cricket really took hold.