Adam SutcliffeThe National Rugby League?? Why AFL beats NRL in national popularity.
December 23rd 2006 11:53
If the National Rugby League ever hopes to compete with the Australian Football League for the crown of Australia's number one footballing code, than they must seriously consider expanding their competition within the next five years.
The NRL currently encompasses three Australian states and one New Zealand island, but yet still promotes itself as a national footballing league, ignoring the fact that there are four other states that are not represented. While South Australia had the Adelaide Rams, and Western Australia had the Western Reds for a short time throughout the 1990's, the NRL has quite rightly chosen to shore up the games popularity in it's own grassroots regions before expanding nationaly.
With the birth of the Gold Coast Titans in 2007, the NRL have ensured that they have created a local team in one of Australia's fastest growing areas, thus beating the AFL and ARU to the punch. However, the popularity of the rugby union's Western Force in their innaugral season last year, has taken away all the hard work and money that rugby league pored into the previously ignored rugby region in the West, and it now seems that the Force, the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles have all but monopolised this region.
The Melbourne Storm have acheived great on field success in thier limited lifespan, yet still find it hard to acheive recognition in the predominantly AFL state. What is encouraging though for the NRL, is that through their on field success, the Storm crowds are increasingly growing on a week to week basis, and hopefully with a bit more media exposure, more spots mad Melbourne fans will be keen to adopt them as their own.
Figures released last week show that the AFL dominates the NRL in terms of club member numbers by 5:1, and this is because of the AFL expanding into five Australian states. If the NRL ever hopes to catch up, than they must re-establish a team in South Australia, and even captalise on their tentative foray into the Northern Territory.
The NRL should be financially strong enough by 2009 to announce the birth of an Adelaide based club and a Darwin based club, ready for the 2010 NRL season. While Penrith and Melbourne played a trial match in Adelaide earlier this year in front of a modest 7,017 strong crowd, it should be remembered that this was only a trial match, devoid of most clubs stronget players. Adelaide is a big enough capital to sustain another footballing team, so re-establishing a team back in the city of churches is imperative.
As a territory known for it's proficient sporting talent, the Darwin area is so far an untapped resource in terms of a national sporting franchise. Just like News Limited took a gamble establishing teams in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, the NRL need to take a gamble and establish a franchise in one of Australia's abundant sporting heartlands. Just the sheer prescence of a national sporting club would inspire the top ends youth to aspire for sporting greatness.
What are your thoughts?
Cheers,
StephenP
The NRL currently encompasses three Australian states and one New Zealand island, but yet still promotes itself as a national footballing league, ignoring the fact that there are four other states that are not represented. While South Australia had the Adelaide Rams, and Western Australia had the Western Reds for a short time throughout the 1990's, the NRL has quite rightly chosen to shore up the games popularity in it's own grassroots regions before expanding nationaly.
With the birth of the Gold Coast Titans in 2007, the NRL have ensured that they have created a local team in one of Australia's fastest growing areas, thus beating the AFL and ARU to the punch. However, the popularity of the rugby union's Western Force in their innaugral season last year, has taken away all the hard work and money that rugby league pored into the previously ignored rugby region in the West, and it now seems that the Force, the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles have all but monopolised this region.
The Melbourne Storm have acheived great on field success in thier limited lifespan, yet still find it hard to acheive recognition in the predominantly AFL state. What is encouraging though for the NRL, is that through their on field success, the Storm crowds are increasingly growing on a week to week basis, and hopefully with a bit more media exposure, more spots mad Melbourne fans will be keen to adopt them as their own.
Figures released last week show that the AFL dominates the NRL in terms of club member numbers by 5:1, and this is because of the AFL expanding into five Australian states. If the NRL ever hopes to catch up, than they must re-establish a team in South Australia, and even captalise on their tentative foray into the Northern Territory.
The NRL should be financially strong enough by 2009 to announce the birth of an Adelaide based club and a Darwin based club, ready for the 2010 NRL season. While Penrith and Melbourne played a trial match in Adelaide earlier this year in front of a modest 7,017 strong crowd, it should be remembered that this was only a trial match, devoid of most clubs stronget players. Adelaide is a big enough capital to sustain another footballing team, so re-establishing a team back in the city of churches is imperative.
As a territory known for it's proficient sporting talent, the Darwin area is so far an untapped resource in terms of a national sporting franchise. Just like News Limited took a gamble establishing teams in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, the NRL need to take a gamble and establish a franchise in one of Australia's abundant sporting heartlands. Just the sheer prescence of a national sporting club would inspire the top ends youth to aspire for sporting greatness.
What are your thoughts?
Cheers,
StephenP
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Comment by The Footy Blog
Nice Post some good points. Currently the Lions get about 30,000 to their games while the broncos get 25,00 and QLD is supposed to be a NRL state. Also the afl grand final was the most watched show on tv in 2006. We get at lease 20 to 25 thousand to each gme not 6 or 7 thousand
Cya
Comment by Anonymous
As much as I respect the history and talent in RL, the core problem is that it's key advantage is also its key weakness - ie is not a National game, but has been partly insulated from this harsh reality by being a Sydney based competition lucky enought to be in a nation where the Media is very Sydney-centric.
This has made it very easy for the NRL and its supporters to overestimate the breadth and depth of its appeal; and to underestimate the degree to which Australian Rules football is ingrained elsewhere.
A mate of mine, a guy from Sydney - told me that when he was growing up that he didnt know that Australian Rules had huge stadiums and 100,000 crowds - the impression in Sydney was that it was some minor regional sport played locally. It was quite a shock when people discovered the AFL had two 70,000 stadiums in Melbourne alone and attendances 3-4 times bigger than RL. (Im just using this as an illustration of the insularity of NRL culture, not to open a debate on crowds etc per-se)
The problem for the NRL - an impossible dilemma is that since the last time it tried to go national the environment has changed. The AFL is genuinely national, its transition (the work of 25 years labour) is complete- and new national traditions established. This was not quite the case back in 1991-96; and RL could at that time compete on a more equal basis. Alas that time has passed; the market is no longer virgin; AFL support in 'expansion' markets is now 'rusted on', and has an increasing sense of its own history and place in popular culture. Its now a much tougher market for RL to enter. You've then got the additional problem of whether the product itself, the game of RL, is actually as good as the Australian Rules product: which any objective observer would have to agree is debatable (just look at any key indicator of interest/support). The only area it competes is in the area of TV ratings- but that again just brings us back to the fact its a Sydney based league in a country that has Sydney based media: its a useful, but ulitmately misleading indicator of RL support nationally.
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