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Canada

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RedV3x said:
This is on AFL Canada's Facebook page.



That's some pretty impressive statistics.
If you want more details then AFL Canada is writing up a detailed AGM report.
Details will be posted as they become available.
Click to expand...

Its not quite as impressive as it first looks. Mens participation is down, womens is up, but I think overall, adult participation is down.
Worse, junior league players are down, plus there is 1 less mens and 1 less womens team than a year ago. The number of clubs is up, so it sounds like maybe some clubs split?

Where the growth is, is in school participation, this has jumped hugely, however, as New Zealand has shown, short introductory school programs of 6 weeks or so, while fun for the kids, have next to zero flow through.

There is a hurdle in place, a transition point that no country outside Australia has got through. Adults taking up the game get the local league to a certain level. There is then a small junior program that sputters along, followed by a school program that can reach large numbers of kids. The next step is connecting the dots, school participants flowing into junior club comps, that flow into adult competitions. This has not happened anywhere (outside Nauru).

I suspect the reality is, most of those 10s of thousands of school participants never see AFL as anything other than a fun thing to do for sports day at school. A significant proportion of the few that are interested then do not live anywhere near one of the small number of junior teams, so nothing happens. Or, parents with no knowledge of the game are flat out uninterested in taking their kid to a sport they know nothing about.

I suspect that almost all of the 299 junior participants are kids of expats, or of current or former AFL Canada players, and almost none of them come from the school programs.

Until someone cracks that nut, nothing of significance is going to happen.
 
It seems that a little background information is needed to educate some people about the situation in Canada.

The catalyst for change comes from the North Delta junior AFC, where soccer players swapped to Australian Football and grew to form a junior league. That lead to the introduction of Australian Football into the Vancouver educational system and later spawned the adult AFC the Burnaby Eagles. The Vancouver success led to similar endeavours in Alberta. One result has been the creation of an university AFl in Calgary. The other is the spread of football to new provinces. Meanwhile the eastern Canada is stronger than ever.

The most important and most relevant point is the high level of achievement on the most minimal of budgets.
Can this be used as a template for other regions?
 

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jatz14 said:
Its not quite as impressive as it first looks. Mens participation is down, womens is up, but I think overall, adult participation is down.
Worse, junior league players are down, plus there is 1 less mens and 1 less womens team than a year ago. The number of clubs is up, so it sounds like maybe some clubs split?

Where the growth is, is in school participation, this has jumped hugely, however, as New Zealand has shown, short introductory school programs of 6 weeks or so, while fun for the kids, have next to zero flow through.

There is a hurdle in place, a transition point that no country outside Australia has got through. Adults taking up the game get the local league to a certain level. There is then a small junior program that sputters along, followed by a school program that can reach large numbers of kids. The next step is connecting the dots, school participants flowing into junior club comps, that flow into adult competitions. This has not happened anywhere (outside Nauru).

I suspect the reality is, most of those 10s of thousands of school participants never see AFL as anything other than a fun thing to do for sports day at school. A significant proportion of the few that are interested then do not live anywhere near one of the small number of junior teams, so nothing happens. Or, parents with no knowledge of the game are flat out uninterested in taking their kid to a sport they know nothing about.

I suspect that almost all of the 299 junior participants are kids of expats, or of current or former AFL Canada players, and almost none of them come from the school programs.

Until someone cracks that nut, nothing of significance is going to happen.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, senior numbers are flat (we increased by 11 people from last year), but we are optimistic for 2019.
The contraction of AFL Ontario contributed to the lower number of men's player. Broadview's (a Toronto-based club) withdrawal brought the men's division down to nine teams, but we currently have seeds growing in the regional cities of Barrie, London and Kingston with high hopes that Kingston may be competing in 2019 (the team is starting from Ottawa players who want to shorter commute).

AFL Quebec increased in both genders, with the introduction of the Montreal City Blues and Blue Belles bringing the league's teams up to five and three, respectively.

The juniors league players are split between Vancouver (the North Delta Junior Australian Football League has about 120 players) and the remainder. The remainder are in Calgary. The vast majority of both are non-Australians.

The biggest growth in the numbers has come from the school programs in Calgary. Those numbers have increased significantly this year to the point where volunteers weren't enough and a full-time Auskick manager has been hired (non AFL-funded, which we think is a first outside of Australia). It will be interesting to see if we can convert more kids from these larger numbers in 2019.

In the past few months we've also been working hard on a proposal to receive National Sporting Organization recognition (this document should be online sometime this month) and we'll be submitting in shortly. If successful, this will huge as it will open us up to government funding for various things from junior participation to national team funding.
 
AFL Canada said:
Unfortunately, senior numbers are flat (we increased by 11 people from last year), but we are optimistic for 2019.
The contraction of AFL Ontario contributed to the lower number of men's player. Broadview's (a Toronto-based club) withdrawal brought the men's division down to nine teams, but we currently have seeds growing in the regional cities of Barrie, London and Kingston with high hopes that Kingston may be competing in 2019 (the team is starting from Ottawa players who want to shorter commute).

AFL Quebec increased in both genders, with the introduction of the Montreal City Blues and Blue Belles bringing the league's teams up to five and three, respectively.

The juniors league players are split between Vancouver (the North Delta Junior Australian Football League has about 120 players) and the remainder. The remainder are in Calgary. The vast majority of both are non-Australians.

The biggest growth in the numbers has come from the school programs in Calgary. Those numbers have increased significantly this year to the point where volunteers weren't enough and a full-time Auskick manager has been hired (non AFL-funded, which we think is a first outside of Australia). It will be interesting to see if we can convert more kids from these larger numbers in 2019.

In the past few months we've also been working hard on a proposal to receive National Sporting Organization recognition (this document should be online sometime this month) and we'll be submitting in shortly. If successful, this will huge as it will open us up to government funding for various things from junior participation to national team funding.
Click to expand...
Good luck. I have been following AFL Canada for a few years, and it's probably the best run internationally. The hurdles are significant though, but the rewards if you can reach that next level (a true junior to senior pathway for instance), are huge.

Sent from my XT1068 using Tapatalk
 
jatz14 said:
Good luck. I have been following AFL Canada for a few years, and it's probably the best run internationally. The hurdles are significant though, but the rewards if you can reach that next level (a true junior to senior pathway for instance), are huge.

Sent from my XT1068 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thanks Jatz

This past year was also our first with an AFL-funded position (for our development manager in Vancouver) which has made things infinitely easier having a dedicated staff member organise events and lobby for funding and recognition.

If things go as we hope, hopefully we can give you more seniors and consolidated juniors for next year's report!

Our next big focus will also be the lead up to IC2020. The Irish took our cup in 2017 and we plan on taking it back.

On [device_name] using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
Just released!

AFL Canada has published its Long-Term Athlete Development framework.

Code: 
<iframe src="https://e.issuu.com/anonymous-embed.html?u=aflcanada1&d=footy-ltad-singlepage" width="944" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
 
Have read right through the pages of the plan.
It is very comprehensive and detailed and a lot thought and planning has gone into it.
Could not find any references to Finances and how it is to be funded.
 
AFL Canada said:
Just released!

AFL Canada has published its Long-Term Athlete Development framework.

Code: 
<iframe src="https://e.issuu.com/anonymous-embed.html?u=aflcanada1&d=footy-ltad-singlepage" width="944" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
Click to expand...

I really hoped that was going to embed the flipbook.

https://issuu.com/home/statistics/publications/footy-ltad-singlepage
1799821986795671
 
TWLS said:
Have read right through the pages of the plan.
It is very comprehensive and detailed and a lot thought and planning has gone into it.
Could not find any references to Finances and how it is to be funded.
Click to expand...

A lot of it should be able to be achieved without a large increase to the budget, but increased funding will obviously go a long way.

The report itself is part of our application to receive NSO (National Sporting Organization)-recognition, which will open us up to government funding.
 

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