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Dutton and civoneceva lol.
NRL teams though are very commonly referred to by their nicknames, moreso than AFL clubs. For instance basically everyone refers to 'the roosters' rather than 'Sydney'.Got a point though.
Hard to see any sporting club succeeding in Australia without an identity.
Fujak address the matter of historical headstarts in great detail, even down to providing several "sliding doors" moments where the makeup of the current landscape sometimes hinged on the most trivial events at the time.Yeh, been meaning to get it. Maybe I'll put it on my Xmas stocking list for my family.
There appears to be a common view, often held the fans of rival codes, that the AFL's dominance is down to being better managed, making better decisions, planning ahead, etc. And there is a lot of truth in that, but I think it's a mistake to put it down entirely to that.
At the time that the old VFL started expanding, in 1987, there existed three very strong state competitions, and in combination, just those three alone had more supporters nationally than anything else. In other words, the AFL kick starts in 1990 already well, well ahead, and as the old saying goes: gold begets gold.
Back in 1987, soccer had already had a national league for 10 years. It made an early jump, but the truth is, the support for the top tier of soccer in this country was never big to begin with, and that's where it stayed, and in truth, still stays.
This is surprising- the NRL is exposing themselves to much disruption etc., & criticism, in their "relaxed " policy.NRL is not mandating that players be vaxxed.
Fujak's book is very good.Anyway, Fujak's book is terrific [Yes, generally. Easily the most detailed examination ever of the 4 codes in Aust.]
Fujak's was book was discussed in the Industry Threads "What are the chances of AFL overtaking RL in Qld. & NSW" (from post nos. #1117,1188, &1197 etc.); & Thread "A 3rd Team in Sydney, it's only a a matter of time" (from post nos.# 3644,3666, & 4032 etc.).Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has read it and what they think of it?
The Dolphins have angered, publicly, the local Moreton Bay Council, & many sponsors (both of whom provided financial support etc.) by their decision to only call the team "The Dolphins".Hard to see any sporting club succeeding in Australia without an identity.
I think his own passion is RL. I personally think he does a great job of staying impartial and giving credit where credit's due. Certainly doesn't hold back on criticism of the NRL.I understand he is a soccer & RL fan, who was raised in Sydney . His book was published by Fairplay publishing- which, until his book, only published soccer books & magazines. He has claimed that, in Aust., soccer games have the best atmosphere.
Great, thanks for that, will check it out. Looking forward to some stimulating discussions.Fujak's was book was discussed in the Threads "What are the chances of AFL overtaking RL in Qld. & NSW" (from post nos. #1117,1188, &1197 etc.); & Thread "A 3rd Team in Sydney, it's only a a matter of time" (from post nos.# 3644,3666, & 4032).
NoobPie, in particular, provided many graphs etc. from Fujak's book, & other information.
NRL teams though are very commonly referred to by their nicknames, moreso than AFL clubs. For instance basically everyone refers to 'the roosters' rather than 'Sydney'.
The anti-Kevin Muscat club wasn't that successful. Not sure how any solely anti-club anywhere can be.Not the point. They're still a Sydney team, and everyone knows they're still a Sydney team. In the most part, their identity evolved as Eastern Suburbs.
I can only assume the Dolphins are trying to play their Redcliffe history as ell as saying "We represent all of you, not just Redcliffe". The problem with that is that no-one gives a stuff about their Redcliffe history at the moment as they draw about 2 men and a dog to their games. So they're probably not going to be overly successful attracting more Redcliffe people, and outside of that it's really just the "anyone but the Broncos" crowd that's going to get on board. What I don't know is how big that crowd is - maybe it's huge. Someone from Brisbane can probably shed more light on that.
Do you have any recent information on Redcliffe's Qld. Cup pre 2020 (non-covid) home game crowd nos.; & for Finals?The problem with that is that no-one gives a stuff about their Redcliffe history at the moment as they draw about 2 men and a dog to their games. So they're probably not going to be overly successful attracting more Redcliffe people
1.
Do you have any recent information on Redcliffe's Qld. Cup pre 2020 (non-covid) home game crowd nos.; & for Finals?
Fujak address the matter of historical headstarts in great detail, even down to providing several "sliding doors" moments where the makeup of the current landscape sometimes hinged on the most trivial events at the time.
As to soccer, his assessment is unsursprisingly that soccer's greatest strength - its international presence - is also the single biggest headache that the A-League faces. And IIRC, although he states several times that things can change quite quickly in unimagined ways, he can't really see how that particular problem for Australian soccer is going to go away.
Of the competing codes, the AFL both as an organisation as well and its media advocates, are undoubtedly the strongest aggressors against soccer. This is true both in historical terms and contemporary times.
Such examples certainly speak to why Australian rules football would become compared to a religious cult
This thread got too sucky. Let's get it back to something a bit more on topic. I read 2 things this week that I found really interesting.
The first is the IPL franchise auction. 2 new franchises, necessarily based in the cities of Lucknow and Ahmedabad, went for a shade over $2 billion combined. My immediate reaction was what the hell given the IPL goes for about 7 weeks. But after I thought about it, I reckon this could be really bad news for international cricket everywhere. The IPL can only expand - money will demand it. People aren't paying a billion dollars to run a team for 7 weeks. Surely the expectation in the medium to long term is for the IPL to become like pretty much every other sporting league in the world, and if that happens, then how are we going to get anyone playing tests, or even any international match when the IPL is going on? They're going to be paid millions to play, far in excess of anything a local board of cricket can offer. If it goes for 6 months, that's half the year when the majority of the world's best cricketers will be out of action (for international purposes).
The other thing - which is along similar lines although a fraction of the size - was the reports of the A-League selling a 30% stake to a US private equity firm. It's one thing to be selling franchises (of which you could theoretically do an unlimited number of times), an entirely different situation to be selling the league itself. Mainly because you can only do that once. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. Which brings me to the question of what they are planning to get out of it? Investors get involved in sport for 3 main reasons:
- Ego (i.e they want to own a sports team because it's cool)
- Sportswashing (i.e to gain credibility for their dubious regime/business)
- To simply make money.
A US private equity firm would not fall under the first 2, so they clearly expect to be pulling more out of the league than they're paying for it. Where's the money coming from? Do they get a 30% share of TV rights income or some other profit based amount of cash? In any case, this is money that would otherwise be going back to the clubs, but is now going to the US?
The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me unless the league itself (or possibly the team owners given I believe it's the same thing) just want to partly cash out. Where is the $130m going? Split 12 ways it's not insignificant, but presumably it's going to cost all of them a lot more over the next 10 or 20 years, unless the league completely tanks and the owners are screwed then anyway.
abc 7.30 Report 23.9.21
Although this relates to 2020 (& is based on the Annual Reports of the various pro codes, some of which were only released in early 2021), it provides a very good snapshot of the deleterious financial effects of covid on the various pro codes. There is also info. on the covid effects on GR participation.
Pro RU suffered the biggest, on a pro rata basis, financial losses in 2020.
Whist it shows that the NRL lost 25% of its total revenues, cf to 15% for the AFL, it is my understanding the NRL Annual Report for 2020 (cut-off date 31.10.21) did not include the 2020 SOO Series (all 3 matches played in November). The very lucrative financial returns of the 2020 SOO Series will appear in the 2021 NRL Annual Report.
How much damage did COVID-19 do to our sporting nation? Here's what the data shows
Many professional sporting codes have beaten the odds to complete another COVID-19 season, but the pandemic has dealt some blows – and not just financial ones.www.abc.net.au
This article also examines how covid effected GR participation in kids' "organised out of school physical activity" in 2020, cf 2019.
These misleading AusPlay figures claim that there were only c. 4% less participants (72% cf 76%) in kids' "organised out of school physical activity" in 2020, cf 2019!
"Participation in organised out of school physical activity has dropped 5 per cent [actually 4% from their graph- my words] in the last year, with the impact of COVID-19 clear.
Competitions all across Australia have been postponed, paused, compressed and cancelled at times since the pandemic started.
This is also shown in the biggest drops in participation, namely the football codes, basketball and swimming".
AusPlay states that adults increased their physical activity in 2020, by c. 1%- 4%
"COVID has increased individual fitness activity
Percent of adult population participating in the top 5 sport/fitness activities, 2019 and 2020.
(Top figure is 2019, bottom figure 2020)
2019-top figure
2020- bottom figure
Walking (Recreational)
43.3%
47.0%
Fitness/Gym
36.7%
37.4%
Running/Athletics
16.4%
19.8%
Swimming
15.6%
17.1%
Cycling
11.5%
14.3% ".
Chart: ABC Source: AusPlay Get the data Download image
This Ausplay claim for kids is very misleading, since kids' GR organised sport was very heavily & negatively impacted by covid in 2020 cf 2019, especially in Vic.- less so in Greater Sydney. The other areas of Australia had a much smaller impact on GR organised sport due to covid in 2020. Kids, therefore, were often playing significantly less organised sport in 2020.
The claim for adults is also misleading, as a brief, occasional walk or run etc. cannot be compared to the more strenuous weekly club training, & playing in comp. matches.
Because AusPlay is only a survey of 25k people in Australia, & because it counts a person as a "participant" in organised sport even if that person says they played a particular sport only once in the last 12 months, their survey nos. are very misleading.