AFL overtaking NRL in QLD

[Bicco]

Nah. If didn't happen early 2000s then it won't happen now

Not necessarily. If you were a kid back then you'd be an adult now. They will be supporters (of Brisbane), throw in another bunch of kids interested now and in 5-10 years you will have a whole generation interested in the game. It took Sydney probably 30 years to come good. A GF in 96(?) would've got some interest and then some more finals 10 years later to solidify that base.

 

[TheGrizz]

The AFL would love for the OP to be correct.

However the AFL couldnt get momentum in Queensland even with a premiership 3-peat for Brisbane occuring less than 3 years after Super league wars left a huge portion of rugby league fans either disenfranchised or pissed off.

Little to no chance it takes meaningful ground off them now. You might pick off a few Rugby fans as RA sends the code down the gurgler but for the most part they will probably just go to league anyway. Add to that the fact QLDs population isnt growing at the same rate as say western melbourne or Sydney, it doesnt make for much of a fertile ground for growing a southern football code.

Western Sydney is, and always has been the AFL's endgame, as that is where the population boom.

 

[NoobPie]

If you actually do research behind TV ratings, AFL has the opposite problem. NRLs popularity growth is outstripping AFLs pretty easily, with during a normal gameday weekend, the NRL outperforming AFL ratings wise on Fox and constantly beating the AFL on Thursday night games by a greater margin then they lose the Friday night game (double header kills the ratings a tad )

The AFL needs to do something to turn the tide

Haha, you are just making stuff up!

The AFL has smashed the NRL on Thursdays and Fridays all year. From memory the NRL have had two very marginal wins out of 20 odd head to head Thursday and Friday night games.

Interestingly, in terms of Foxtel, they released demographic data for yesterday

The AFL comfortably outperformed the NRL in the 16-39 age group

 

[NoobPie]

The AFL would love for the OP to be correct.

However the AFL couldnt get momentum in Queensland even with a premiership 3-peat for Brisbane occuring less than 3 years after Super league wars left a huge portion of rugby league fans either disenfranchised or pissed off.

Little to no chance it takes meaningful ground off them now. You might pick off a few Rugby fans as RA sends the code down the gurgler but for the most part they will probably just go to league anyway. Add to that the fact QLDs population isnt growing at the same rate as say western melbourne or Sydney, it doesnt make for much of a fertile ground for growing a southern football code.

Western Sydney is, and always has been the AFL's endgame, as that is where the population boom.

But they clearly did as the participation numbers and the rate of bounce-back demonstrate. As others have pointed out, this is a slow inter-generational burn - both in queensland and sydney

 

[Pykie]

It will never overtake it, however it's a proverbial monster in comparison to RL in VIC, SA, WA and TAS. I think the game can settle with that.

Southern NSW is as much AFL heartland as it is NRL, probably more so. You wont find an NRL club south of the Murray and they are even sparse up to Wagga and Canberra.

QLD and NSW contributes double digit players to the AFL draft just about every year.

You would struggle to find a Victorian, SA, WA or Tasmanian player in the entire NRL. That's with the Storm being close to the powerhouse side of the competition for 20 consectuvie years. I know Melbourne pretty well and I can only really recall two rugby grounds in the entire metropolitan area, there's obviously a few more but only two that I know for certain and they are right off the grid.

I probably know of as many Gaelic Football fields in Melbourne as Rugby grounds.

Most cricket grounds in Sydney are AFLSyd grounds in winter. They are everywhere and some high profile district cricket ones like UNSW's main oval, UTS in Paddington and Pennant Hills etc. I imagine Brisbane is probably the same.

The Gold Coast QAFL sides are historically pretty big local football sides and nationally recognized as such. You don't blink an eye if a good young local kid moves from Vermont to Southport to play for some coin in QLD.

Baseball is a far more popular sport in Melbourne than RL ever will be as a weird comparison, I couldn't name you one junior RL club in Melbourne, I can name you 6 or 7 baseball clubs....



RL doesn't give a s**t about anywhere other than grassroots QLD and NSW, not even Melbourne, they haven't spent a cent down here in 20 years.

The AFL have ploughed probably hundreds of millions into grass roots clubs, competitions and Auskick in NSW and QLD in the same period.

The NRL uses Melbourne to boost their TV revenue in their TV deals.

The AFL genuinely want's to grow the game at a grass roots level in the northern states.

Ideally the NRL would love to move the Storm to the central coast or a second Brisbane team, the NRL hates them and hates the success they've had in a city whom have generally only a passing interest in the sport. Most Melbournians like the Storm though and aren't anywhere near as petty as Sydney compatriots are when it comes to sport though.




That's the difference between the codes.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Not necessarily. If you were a kid back then you'd be an adult now. They will be supporters (of Brisbane), throw in another bunch of kids interested now and in 5-10 years you will have a whole generation interested in the game. It took Sydney probably 30 years to come good. A GF in 96(?) would've got some interest and then some more finals 10 years later to solidify that base.

They are still a niche though. When you have 5,000,000 people though you can still have a lot of support even though it is a niche sport which is the most important thing. As long as the sport grows then it is doing very well.

 

[NoobPie]

It will never overtake it, however it's a proverbial monster in comparison to RL in VIC, SA, WA and TAS. I think the game can settle with that.

QLD and NSW contributes double digit players to the AFL draft just about every year.

You would struggle to find a Victorian, SA, WA or Tasmanian player in the entire NRL. That's with the Storm being close to the powerhouse side of the competition for 20 consectuvie years. I know Melbourne pretty well and I can only really recall two rugby grounds in the entire metropolitan area, there's obviously a few more but only two that I know for certain and they are right off the grid.

I probably know of as many Gaelic Football fields in Melbourne as Rugby grounds.

Most cricket grounds in Sydney are AFLSyd grounds in winter. They are everywhere and some high profile district cricket ones like UNSW's main oval, UTS in Paddington and Pennant Hills etc. I imagine Brisbane is probably the same.

The Gold Coast QAFL sides are historically pretty big local football sides and nationally recognized as such. You don't blink an eye if a good young local kid moves from Vermont to Southport to play for some coin in QLD.

Baseball is a far more popular sport in Melbourne than RL ever will be as a weird comparison, I couldn't name you one junior RL club in Melbourne, I can name you 6 or 7 baseball clubs....


That's the difference between the codes.

And thing is, adjacent to having comfortably the best performed team over the period, there has been massive inward net interstate migration of which a significant portion was necessarily from NSW....


The upshot of all this for league is a sprinkling of some very modest clubs mainly in the outer-suburbs with one or two senior teams and one division for each 2-year age group.

It looks like they have taken the ladders down from previous years but I doubt there would be 1000 participants across seniors and juniors in the state

 

[Pykie]

And thing is, adjacent to having comfortably the best performed team over the period, there has been massive inward net interstate migration of which a significant portion was necessarily from NSW....

View attachment 943833
The upshot of all this for league is a sprinkling of some very modest clubs mainly in the outer-suburbs with one or two senior teams and one division for each 2-year age group.

It looks like they have taken the ladders down from previous years but I doubt there would be 1000 participants across seniors and juniors in the state

Yes, compare that with about the 250,000 registered junior aussie rules footballers in NSW and QLD.

250 x larger than the RL comparison in the non RL states sounds about right.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Yes, compare that with about the 250,000 registered junior aussie rules footballers in NSW and QLD.

250 x larger than the RL comparison in the non RL states sounds about right.

This also explains why (using SoO rules) there are #60 NSW and #40 Qld players on AFL lists - Compared to either nil or next to nil NRL players coming from Vic/SA/WA/Tas.

Gold Coast Suns have 13 Queenslanders on their list and Brisbane have 11.
As a comparison, Adelaide Crows have only 10 South Australians on their list (so much for being "the pride of South Australia"!

 

[megadeth92]

I think the very fact of holding the SPL up as a model for the AFL to follow is enough to dismiss this person as a serious contributor to the conversation

You may say that, but it is better being a Hamilton, Livingston, Motherwell or St Mirren fan than it is being a Fitzroy fan. smaller clubs can get to the SPL and, if relegated, there is somewhere for them to go to. Fitzroy had no safety-net. I was holding up the pyramid system as an example, not specifically the SPL.

 

[megadeth92]

The gold Coast, along with Cairns, is probably were aussie rules has its largest following as a percentage. I lived in SEQ for a long time and go back to visit often and in all honesty I would aussie rules and rugby league are just about neck and neck on the gold Coast.

It's a different case everywhere else though. In brissy league is strides ahead in terms of broad appeal, although aussie rules does have a nice chunk of support, same as the sunshine Coast. However the further north and west you go the Lower the rates of interest in aussie rules as a percentage of the population and higher the rates of interest in rugby league.
Heck by the time you hit Gladstone barely anyone knows what Union is let alone footy.

Toowoomba 90% league and rugby, 10% shared by AFL and soccer.

 

[megadeth92]

Things that have happened since the Scottish Premiership was won by someone other than Celtic or Rangers:
Global Financial Crisis
9/11
Lewinsky Scandal
Fall of the USSR
Chernobyl
LiveAid

Very good point. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because of all the Champions and Europa League money and TV money which goes back to Cektic and Rangers. I would much prefer Glasgow support to be divided evenly among all Glasgow clubs in the same way as WAFL support is in Perth and. to a lesser extent, AFL support is in Melbourne. But sectarianism sells (over here anyway).

However, having said that, compared to the AFL where the AFL has huge power and the clubs have very little, it is refreshing here to see the clubs having the power and the SFL president basically being a high-paid administrative-assistant putting into action the wishes of the majority of clubs. Maybe it would be good if there was a happy medium halfway between the two cases.

 

[____]

Rugby League is way more popular than Aussie rules in Queensland. That's not going to change anytime soon, especially as long as league has state of origin and the AFL refuses to have a proper state of origin. However there are more people in SEQ who follow AFL than what many Victorians may think. If you go to a pub here while NRL gets big screen, you'll at least be able to watch AFL on one of the smaller screens. I've been to a pub in Sydney that showed only NRL.

However on the Gold Coast it is 50/50 due to the high number of Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian migrants that move there. Big Victorian teams such as the Pies, Dons, and Hawks have bigger fanbases in South East Queensland right now than the Suns do. Essendon and Collingwood home games up here have been getting bigger crowds than Suns home games. Hell Melbourne v Collingwood at the Gabba got a bigger crowd than us v North at Carrara on the same day. If I owned a house I'd be willing to bet my house on it that the Collingwood v Gold Coast game at the Gabba later this year will be at least 90% Collingwood fans minimum. There are a lot of AFL fans in SEQ that don't follow the Lions or Suns, and there are a lot of NRL fans here that don't follow the Broncos, Cowboys or Titans. Harris Andrews and Dayne Beams despite being Queenslanders were Essendon fans before getting drafted. Interstate migration and following the team that your parents go for would have an impact on that. However the ones that are following the local team generally are bandwagoners first and foremost. This year Lions games have been harder to get tickets to than Broncos games and Lions have been getting bigger crowds. It doesn't mean AFL is more popular here now, it just means people in this part of the world will jump on whoever is winning. Hell the reds in the super rugby were getting near sellouts when they were winning.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

There is no draft in the NRL and as a result teams can go from crap to good faster than an AFL club usually could.

NRL clubs go from crap to good faster because every player is an unrestricted free agent.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

My RL friends boast how well internationally RL goes. Which is bolox.

Australia, England and New Zealand playing each other are the only rugby league internationals worth watching.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

You may say that, but it is better being a Hamilton, Livingston, Motherwell or St Mirren fan than it is being a Fitzroy fan. smaller clubs can get to the SPL and, if relegated, there is somewhere for them to go to. Fitzroy had no safety-net. I was holding up the pyramid system as an example, not specifically the SPL.

Scottish soccer is perpetually on thin ice outside two clubs and Scots are more than ever watching UEFA competition and England's Premier League instead. Comparing it favourably to the AFL is... odd.

 

[HurleyHepsHird]

What would it take?
Could this covid season be the precursor?
Two QLD teams, both competitive, one likely a top 4 team
The Courier Fail owned NRL team being less than garbage
A Grand Final in QLD?
Could the seeds laid be enough?

It'd never happen.

So long as the Maroons exist, the knock on effect from SOO will always maintain a strong level of related support for the regular NRL competition.

 

[megadeth92]

Scottish soccer is perpetually on thin ice outside two clubs and Scots are more than ever watching UEFA competition and England's Premier League instead. Comparing it favourably to the AFL is... odd.

My mistake. I guess I only can compare what I know - Scotland and Australia are where I have spent most of my life. Actually St Mirren home games (crowd around 5,000) remind me of WAFL games in the 1980s while Rangers' home games remind me of WAFL Grand Finals. And the Motherwell "away" stand is very like the three-tier stand at the old Subiaco Oval - concrete stairways extending up to the sky!

 

[Freshwater]

The club presidents were the ones who blocked the merger with another Victorian club, not the AFL.

Fitzroy was completely untenable. They had no money, no home and very limited support. That wasn’t the VFL’s fault; the Council pushed them out of Brunswick St and the zone system gave them stuff-all chance.

They should have been allowed to merge with North, to allow their supporters to continue to attend games, but the other clubs vetoed it because they were scared it would create a super team.

Those other clubs being Essendon and Carlton.

 

[footy75]

Most Melbournians like the Storm though and aren't anywhere near as petty as Sydney compatriots are when it comes to sport though.

This. The chip on the shoulder is huge.

 

[bird_man]

Not sure it will ever go past the NRL, but it is clearly becoming more popular.

TV ratings are up, participation is up, women's footy has really taken off.

Its not something you can do over 5 or even 10 years. It takes a generation of supporters but at the moment the AFL are definitely making inroads up there from everything I read and everyone I talk to from up there.

 

[Jpw22511]

I live in Kingaroy in Rural QLD before this year turned into a cluster*. The local Rugby League comp was cancelled due to lack of numbers, yet our local AFL team had record numbers.

 

[Milux]

Australia, England and New Zealand playing each other are the only rugby league internationals worth watching.

Very true. And I can't even be bothered with that.

SOO is the only games I watch and I barrack for the blues. Just can't stand qld RL.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Not sure it will ever go past the NRL, but it is clearly becoming more popular.

TV ratings are up, participation is up, women's footy has really taken off.

Its not something you can do over 5 or even 10 years. It takes a generation of supporters but at the moment the AFL are definitely making inroads up there from everything I read and everyone I talk to from up there.

Anecdotally Australians rules is hoovering up upper middle and upper class QLD and NSW people and their kids who would've been into rugby union and the Wallabies 20 years ago. They watch the NRL but are too class conscious to go to the games or direct their kids to play it.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

If the AFL is serious about supplanting rugby league, I think they can't just target the major cities only. They should identify where rugby league's biggest talent factories are (the ones within Australia anyway) and throw in resources there to cut off some of the supply. This list shows some of the towns to concentrate on.

Where you should buy a property if you want your kid to play in State of Origin | Finder

It takes more than good fortune to be named to the State of Origin squad, but geography can certainly help.

www.finder.com.au

Something to note is that NRL legend Darren Lockyer started out playing Australian rules in Brisbane, and only took up rugby league when he moved to Roma because there was no local Australian rules team there. That gave the Broncos their greatest ever player, when he could have been winning AFL flags alongside Voss and Aker instead. The AFL should be doing everything in its power to ensure there are no more Lockyers, by investing big into the grassroots in these towns.

Charlie Cameron came from Mt Isa, although he only got into Australian rules when he lived in WA. And Zac Smith is from Rocky.