Wot? I think we know where AFL stands in the world scheme of things, no one else cares about it except us, but its imbedded in our culture and we love it, and that isn't going to change. Watching Carlton play a big match I am not thinking about how its perceived internationally, or players from other codes earn more in a week than our stars make in a year, I don't care.Yet people are paying a premium for rather meh talent at times in AFL. Australia is a spoilt country. Parade and go crazy over stars that hardly get a million a year and is exploited significantly by the AFL corporation. You’d think for all the money AFL gets for TV rights it has a higher wage, standard? Not particularly.
Football is taken for granted here. Australia has multicultural backgrounds yet is often pushed into the wog territory whenever possible.
Guess what? You know Barassi campaigning for MCG? Funny that. It’s a cricket ground by name and by operation. Not MFG, it’s MCG.
Hosted the Olympics in 1956, forced to shorten their season for Sydney 2000, considered Rugby league city. But for a World Cup, the biggest event on earth? Please.
AFL know full well football’s popularity dwarfs theirs, given the obsession to expand in Western Sydney
I don't think soccer is really wog territory now, its a popular sport in Australia. The issue we have is we have a domestic league that doesn't capture the imagination of the wider public (and has gotten less so over time), but that is largely due to the fact people know in the scheme of things its a low standard, and the sides feel like franchises just plonked wherever rather than any real identities.
As an example if you took any of the England big 6 and had them playing all their home matches say at the MCG for a season (put the logistics of travel etc aside) I think they'd all average at least 50-60k, probably get 90+ for games against big european and/or english sides.
The audience is there, just people aren't enthused about domestic Australian soccer.