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How many regular intervals are you using in your calculation . At the end of the day nrl has more viewers with Less games. Averages more viewers per game per round and in total not including Origin.
Afl no longer Australia most popular sport?
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That is a minor issue, violence has been taken from the game for the most part, yes there is some incidents every year but the numbers are way down.
The AFL itself is their own worst enemy. They sell to the public that if you don't make it at AFL level you are crap, nothing other than AFL matters. The dropoff by 15 year olds is bigger than ever, they no longer think playing 200 games for a State league club is an achievement, or 200 amateur games or 200 country games. They see themselves as failure if they don't think they will be drafted. This is where the problem lies. The game could not be less contact than it is now, chance of being seriously hurt in AFL is far less than it ever was. The game is 60% uncontested.
Young men should be encouraged and be told their goal is to play for their local club first and foremost. That should be their dream. Getting drafted is for such a small amount of players and even the ones that do get drafted a large percentage of them are not good enough.
They have much shorter games so it is easy to get more viewers. Eg. 1m people watch 1 game of AFL on Friday night, 750K watch 2 games of rugby league. On paper NRL are smashing AFL but total viewers and viewer hours are with the AFL, hence the much bigger revenue generated from their TV deals, even before stadium attendance revenue comes in.
It doesn't matter what the interval is, although the longer the interval the less accurate. I believe the ratings look at 15 minute intervals.
Lets say for a Friday night game and only one game of NRL and AFL were televised.
NRL for 22 hours it had 0 viewers and for 2 hours it averaged 900,000. The AFL for 21 hours had 0 viewers and for 3 hours it averaged 800,000. I am saying that across the day the AFL measuring at regular intervals the AFL averaged 100,000 (3/24*800,000) and the NRL 75,0000 (2/24*900,000).
You can say in isolation that the NRL averages more per game and I don't have a great problem with that though that's not the full story. But when you accumulate viewer numbers back to back and not all games are equal i.e. 2 hours v 3 hours then it's very misleading and wrong to draw any conclusions from it.
Worked in sport for the last 10 years here in Melbourne (Technology, elite club space, NSO level).
The biggest thing holding back Soccer in this country is the administrators. The group running the sport/A-league now are miles behind where they should be. As mentioned in a previous post, soccer is so expensive to participate in. NPL clubs charge a four figure registration fee, and justfiy it by saying they need to pay coaches from overseas who they poach, and that they are providing a pathway to the A-league. The latter may be correct but its not exactly where kids dream of playing when growing up.
AFL at a grassroots level is run to a decent level, however there are sections of the country that are left behind others. Rural and regional areas get no where near the attention that they should, and the focus is always on Metro Melbourne, who recieve funding first.
Soccer will always, ALWAYS be the highest participating team sport, as they have extremely solid foundations throughout boys and girls competitions. Barriers come when it comes to paying for the sport, which need to be addressed as soon as possible for them to capitalise on the world cup buzz. Not to mention next year the matildas are a good chance to win a home world cup, which will again be a massive boost for the game.
The globalisation of soccer has made it as easy for anyone sitting in their home in Brunswick to support Liverpool as it is to actually being at Anfield. This is both a blessing and a curse for A-league as they are competing with eyeballs all the time.
AFL just needs to keep working hard in the growth areas, which tjhey are just simply not making any progress in being GC and Western Sydney, and also increase their footprint in Tassie, which they are doing now. NBL has got the jump there but id imagine AFL will come over the top pretty hard once they work themselves out.
The biggest thing holding back Soccer in this country is the administrators. The group running the sport/A-league now are miles behind where they should be. As mentioned in a previous post, soccer is so expensive to participate in. NPL clubs charge a four figure registration fee, and justfiy it by saying they need to pay coaches from overseas who they poach, and that they are providing a pathway to the A-league. The latter may be correct but its not exactly where kids dream of playing when growing up.
AFL at a grassroots level is run to a decent level, however there are sections of the country that are left behind others. Rural and regional areas get no where near the attention that they should, and the focus is always on Metro Melbourne, who recieve funding first.
Soccer will always, ALWAYS be the highest participating team sport, as they have extremely solid foundations throughout boys and girls competitions. Barriers come when it comes to paying for the sport, which need to be addressed as soon as possible for them to capitalise on the world cup buzz. Not to mention next year the matildas are a good chance to win a home world cup, which will again be a massive boost for the game.
The globalisation of soccer has made it as easy for anyone sitting in their home in Brunswick to support Liverpool as it is to actually being at Anfield. This is both a blessing and a curse for A-league as they are competing with eyeballs all the time.
AFL just needs to keep working hard in the growth areas, which tjhey are just simply not making any progress in being GC and Western Sydney, and also increase their footprint in Tassie, which they are doing now. NBL has got the jump there but id imagine AFL will come over the top pretty hard once they work themselves out.
20 years ago it might have been. Now it's borderline unwatchable. The rules are baffling and unexplainable to anyone that didn't grow up watching the game, they are changed every year and the interpretations change from week to week. All the individual brilliance that used to make the game so good has been coached out of the game and the talent is spread thin over too many teams. Two games a week feature soulless AFL owned franchises with no genuine supporters. The tribalism is dying out because teams now play in soulless concrete stadiums they share with all the other clubs instead of playing in their traditional heartland. I used to watch every game, you couldn't pay me to watch a game now. It's seriously bad.
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Bjo187
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Rubbish, the back half of the season was the best football since the early 2000s.
As to the other post, I agree the AFL seem to be making no gains in western sydney, but on the gold coast the gains are pretty significant, once the suns start playing finals you'll see. I know this because I have a leaguie mate lives there and is a P.E teacher, he is constantly worried about how much bigger the AFL is getting with kids on both the GC and Brisbane.
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The best way to measure the sports popularity is through money which accounts for TV rights, membership, attendance, participation, sponsorship etc. and nothing comes close to the AFL. Thinking that it may be Rugba Leege or Soccer based on one metric alone is laughable
AFL cheat the numbers. If you have a boy that plays for his local club and his school they count him as two players playing football.
Let's say it isn't.
Who cares?
Who cares?
Bjo187
Premiership Player
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Yeah and I'm sure soccer, basketball, rugby etc go through all the data to check that a kid playing the sport at their school as well as a local club isn't counted twice too
Yeah and I'm sure soccer, basketball, rugby etc go through all the data to check that a kid playing the sport at their school as well as a local club isn't counted twice too
Yep they probably do, how pathetic for any sport to do that though.
- Feb 5, 2018
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Is this an opinion you hold individually or have you spoken to enough young boys around that age to gauge if it's a commonly held view?
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- #64
Popularity has nothing to do with sponsorship or revenue as afl has more opportunities to allow for ads doesn't mean it's popular just better at making money for broadcasters. When TV and attendance are members can sign up but not watch or attend any games.
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- #65
Not sure about Gold Coast but Brisbane will never be ours unfortunately my brother lives there every kid wants to play for maroons in origin not many want to become a lion
Bjo187
Premiership Player
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Yes mate I know you are a league fan, but you don't need to try and throw us off the trolling scent by using 'ours' and 'we' re. the AFL.
My mate reckons league is near non existent in inner city Brisbane schools, it's either union, AFL or i think he even mentioned volleyball. He says it's particular popular with young Anglo girls, which is kinda reflected in the lions women's team being over 80 percent Queenslanders.
I think as the boomers and older Gen X's start dying out so will the popularity of AFL. You can already see it with young kids, they really don't care about 'AFL/VFL' nearly as much as their parents did. Sure they nominally support their dad's team and nod along when he tells them how it's still the best sport in the world, then they pick up their phone and talk to their mates about soccer and basketball 
In the end it will be
In the end it will be
The Last Days of Rome: How A Great Empire Fell With Barely a Whimper
It's quite a common view amongst football clubs in WA, the young boys just walk away in huge numbers when they don't see that they have a future in the game. It's a view I hold about WA footy and what I see is happening.
- Jun 14, 2017
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Love Football (except for the AFL admin) and Soccer.
If Rugby League was never invented we would not have these problems.
If Rugby League was never invented we would not have these problems.
AFL is pub grub at a place where the meat raffle is rigged.
Remove TV revenue and it's income dwarfs the NRL by around 2 to 1
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Soccer is a relatively basic sport with no contact, unsurprising kids rather play it. Also factor in the mum types who dont want their kids being tackled which obviously happens in Aussie rules and rugby.
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except that it isn’t the most participated team sport.
Look at actual participation figures released by the sports governing bodies pre covid (could not find the AFL 2019 image).
In junior programs or registered competition AFL has more registered, signed on participants.
The FFA add in nearly 550k to their total for people who have experienced "community events and promotional experiences". The AFL does not include these at all.
Both sets of figures are very shakey with plenty of double counting but Soccer seems to be stretching the term "participation" a little further.
Macca180
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