AFL =3rd biggest drawing football league in the world

[Rob]

It doesn't matter how many senior clubs there are, it matters that the young kids are playing it again.

If you have a look at the results of the WA rep teams, they seem to be winning a hellava lot more than they are losing.

There are a fair few players from WA playing in the lower grades at clubs like Cronulla, Parramatta, st's and more in the QLD cup, they'll get a decent side together, just like they did when they had the Western reds, there junior side won the comp the year they got the boot, that shows they can handle themselves.

I know you guys like to go on about how RL is dieing everywhere, but thats not true, after the way the Reds were treated, it's a wonder there are any senior teams over there at all, giving the kids a team to make it to the top level will help with the developement of the code over there again, yeah it's been set back 10-15 years because of SL, but WA is still RL's 3rd strongest state.

Having a team playing in a national comp will do wonders for the code.

RL is being taught to school kids in WA, and it's growing again.

http://www.warugbyleague.com.au/content/prischover/index.php

http://www.warugbyleague.com.au/content/higschover/index.php

These are the results from the national u18's comp, considering there isn't much RL over there, they done well.

http://www.warugbyleague.com.au/content/un18op/index.php

The 2006 the Under 18's National Championships were held in Port Macquarie from the 9th to the 14th of July. The with the WA side also playing a warm up match on the 5th of July against NSW Group 21 18's.

The team had a strong start to the competition with consecutive wins against South Australia and the Northern Territory. WA only needed one more victory in their last two matches to qualify for the final. Although they were confident they were out played by both Victoria and New South Wales Combined Independent Schools. Finishing a respectful 3rd place.

Game 1 - Western Australia 34 v South Australia 16

The opening game of the carnival against an improved South Australian side was an arm wrestle in the first half with scores locked at 10 all at half time. WA then stepped up another gear in the second half and ran away with a comfortable victory.
Best Players - Danny Rodgers (Man of the Match), Michael Guthrie and David Holliday.

Game 2 - Western Australia 14 v Northern Territory 12

WA played some exciting football in the first half with WA taking a 4-0 lead at half time. How ever uncompleted sets in attack proved to be WA's Achilles heel, the second half continued to be a struggle with both sides turning over the football. WA made the most of their chances hanging on for a two point victory.
Best Players - Michael Guthrie (Man of the Match), Nathan Mawer and Bradley McLean.

Game 3 - Western Australia 8 v NSW Combined Independent Schools 58

WA began the game well against their more fancied opponents. NSWCIS took an early 4-0 lead, and unfortunately WA were held up minutes later. This proved a major turning point with NSWCIS running in four quick tries. Although down 24-8 at half time the boys were confident of getting back in the game. Early mistakes in the second half starved WA of possession and NSWCIS ran away convincing winners.
Best Players - Daniel Good (Man of the Match), Bradley McLean and Nathan Mawer.

Game 4 - Western Australia 10 v Victoria 36

This was a must win game for WA to reach the final. The team came out with a determined attitude. WA dominated a majority of the first half, however could not convert this pressure into points. Victoria scored two soft tries and lead 10-4 at the break. Lack of possession in the second half hampered WA's chances of bridging the gap. Victoria gained the ascendancy and crossed for consecutive tries, the game was gone. However to WA's credit they played out the whole match going down in the end 36 - 10.
Best Players - Bradley McLean (Man of the Match), Drew Hunt and Michael Guthrie.

Which all says very little about the strength of the game in WA. There are links on that website to undersage comps, but there doesn't appear to be anything there.
How many actual teams in those underage comps?

Here are the results from the under 15's national titles

http://www.warugbyleague.com.au/content/un15op/index.php

and here are the results from the seniors rep teams

http://www.warugbyleague.com.au/content/seniorop/index.php

Game 1 - Western Australia 42 v Australian Defense Force 6

Game 2 - Western Australia 30 v Victoria 14

FINAL - Western Australia 20 v Australian Police 16

The Australian Police side went in to the final as favorites after convincing wins in their first two matches and the fact that all their players were first grade players from NSW and QLD competitions.

They seem to be able to go toe to toe with 1st graders already.

ALl that seems to show is how weak the other states are. Like I said, with just 13 senior teams to pick from the fact that they're convincingly beating other states says more about the weakness of the game in those other states than the strength of the game in WA.

 

[Rob]

It may well be but nothing stays the same forever does it? The game has recognised WA was suffering and acted. Earlier I mentioned what a resilient game league is, no matter how much you people want to kill it you never will. There are two regular players in first grade from WA that I can think of, Holdsworth from the Bulldogs who plays 5/8 which is an important position and Petersen from Parra.

RL is growing from the nadir that was the Super League, unfortunately most AFL people have no understanding of the damage this caused the game right throughout the whole country and overseas.

I didn't make any comment about the reasons for it, but the bottom line is that RL in WA is not even a blip on the radar. A grand total of 13 senior teams is testament to that.

How would the Swans go if they had no imports. The most populated state in Australia isn't exactly flush with AFL players of senior standard, is it now?

a) The Swans play in a fully professional competition, this WA team will not. From what I can see, they aren't even playing in a 2nd tier comp, it's actually a 3rd tier comp. Good luck getting people paying to watch that.
b) The Swans operate on a budget of $25-30 million, this WA team will be lucky to operate on 1% of that.
c) The Swans play under a system where all talent is pretty much recruited through a national draft and any club can recruit anyone from anywhere. And pay them accordingly. Have fun trying to recruit from interstate when you can't offer them 6 figure salaries.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Tom Hawkins is from NSW.

 

[Sir_Adrian84]

So aren't the Gold Coast Titans joining the NRL? Have I imagined the whole thing?

Please don't turn this into an NRL v AFL bunfight, we were talking about soccer and basketball.

Gold Coast is also joining the NBL next season so NRL won't be alone

 

[1908]

We agree league has suffered since the SL war. I said the game has recognised this and made steps to improve it. Stop thinking with an AFL mentality, RL will NEVER overtake AFL in WA, but there is room for it.

Can you not understand that this is an extremely positive step for RL, and come 2012 we could be seeing a WA team back in the NRL, especially if the S14 collapses, which it looks like doing. Track the history of the Western Reds who entered in 1995 and were sacrificed during SL, the ARL at the time started making moves in the west around 1989.

) The Swans play in a fully professional competition, this WA team will not. From what I can see, they aren't even playing in a 2nd tier comp, it's actually a 3rd tier comp. Good luck getting people paying to watch that.
b) The Swans operate on a budget of $25-30 million, this WA team will be lucky to operate on 1% of that.
c) The Swans play under a system where all talent is pretty much recruited through a national draft and any club can recruit anyone from anywhere. And pay them accordingly. Have fun trying to recruit from interstate when you can't offer them 6 figure salaries.

Settle down mate, this team is not a threat. You are comparing apples with oranges.

If AFL was strong in Sydney the Swans reserves wouldn't play in the ACT competition. Now explain that?

 

[1908]

Just for you Rob:

2. parochial - narrowly restricted in outlook or scope; "little sympathy with parocial mentality"; "insular attitudes toward foreigners"

Have a good new year.

 

[Sir_Adrian84]

If politics allowed there is no reason why come say 2020 Asia could not have an Asialeague or NBA Asia with 15 or so east Asian/australian cities playing to 15,000 a night and recruiting star players. same for europe with NBA, NBA Europe/Euroleague adn NBA Asia/ Asialeague going on to post season play.

Imagine Hong Kong. Beijing, Shanghai in Bball mad China. Singapore, Kuala lumpur etc and melbourne and Sydney as well. Politics and arguing have held Bball back but as I say the potential is limitless if the suits get it right.

The NBL are starting to do this, I believe that Singapore was the start of a possible South-East Asian league, although your suggestion of an NBL Asia would be better

 

[Rob]

We agree league has suffered since the SL war. I said the game has recognised this and made steps to improve it. Stop thinking with an AFL mentality, RL will NEVER overtake AFL in WA, but there is room for it.

Can you not understand that this is an extremely positive step for RL, and come 2012 we could be seeing a WA team back in the NRL, especially if the S14 collapses, which it looks like doing. Track the history of the Western Reds who entered in 1995 and were sacrificed during SL, the ARL at the time started making moves in the west around 1989.

That all may well be true, but I was just refuting the argument made that RL is growing in WA, when it's clearly not the case. I didn't want to go down the AFL vs NRL road.

Settle down mate, this team is not a threat. You are comparing apples with oranges.

Which was my point. You can't compare the Swans to an amateur WA RL team.

If AFL was strong in Sydney the Swans reserves wouldn't play in the ACT competition. Now explain that?

Football in NSW doesn't need to be strong for the Swans to be successful. The last couple of years proves that.

 

[1908]

That all may well be true, but I was just refuting the argument made that RL is growing in WA, when it's clearly not the case. I didn't want to go down the AFL vs NRL road.

If the AFL put a team in Western Sydney isn't that growing the game? I would go out on a limb and say a team from WA entering a strong competition would be a sign of growth? Wouldn't you.

Football in NSW doesn't need to be strong for the Swans to be successful. The last couple of years proves that

I'd argue this isn't the case.

 

[Copernicus]

Found my answer..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_league_attendances
Major League Baseball pulls over 76 million per season (not a football code but very impressive)

NHL pulls nearly 21 million fans per season
NFL pulls over 17 million per season.
Bundesliga pulls 12.5 million per season.
FA Premier League pulls nearly 13 million
La Liga pulls over 11 million per season
Serie A pulls over 8 million per season
Ligue 1 pulls over 8 million per season
Football League Championship pulls nearly 8 million per year
Primera División Argentina pulls 6.7 million fans per year


AFL pulls just over 6 million per year.

You can't use these numbers with a straight face.

How many of these nations have a population of 20 million? Per capita, Aussie rules crowds are extremely strong. You can't just use bare numbers and expect them to tell the whole story.

 

[Rob]

If the AFL put a team in Western Sydney isn't that growing the game? I would go out on a limb and say a team from WA entering a strong competition would be a sign of growth? Wouldn't you.

Not on it's own it's not. If that was the case, the AFL would just put teams everywhere. It might be an attempt to grow the game, but that's very different to actually doing so. It's probably why the WARL are doing it - a last ditch effort to grow the game after years of decline.

But correct me if i'm wrong here, but isn't this comp just a 3rd tier comp? It's not even the NSW state league, it's the rung below that (although I stand to be corrected there). I wouldn't quite call that a strong competition if true.

I'd argue this isn't the case.

On what grounds? 2 grand finals in 2 years, including 1 flag indicates they're pretty successful - are you saying NSW footy is doing really well to co-incide with that, or that the Swans aren't winning enough matches?

 

[littleduck]

Not on it's own it's not. If that was the case, the AFL would just put teams everywhere. It might be an attempt to grow the game, but that's very different to actually doing so. It's probably why the WARL are doing it - a last ditch effort to grow the game after years of decline.

But correct me if i'm wrong here, but isn't this comp just a 3rd tier comp? It's not even the NSW state league, it's the rung below that (although I stand to be corrected there). I wouldn't quite call that a strong competition if true.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't WA entering a team in the QLD Wizard Cup from 2007 onwards??

 

[Rob]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't WA entering a team in the QLD Wizard Cup from 2007 onwards??

From what i've read, it's called the 'Jim Beam Cup', which is apparantly a 3rd tier NSW comp. Not sure whether Jim Beam sponsors it or whether it's how the players get paid.

 

[tigerdan]

That would be me then. Since Leeds has dropped down a division, my interest in EPL has gone down drastically. I still watch it, enjoy it, but I don't really care what happens.

Leeds is a good example actually. In the EPL they had 35-40.000 every week. Are you saying those fans, who go see them now in the championship, shouldn't be included? I'm still a member of a European Leeds fanclub, none of our members have gone watch an EPL club since we went down, they're all following their team in the championship now.

And talking about those 72 clubs.. Are you aware by far the most matches are played at the same time? Of course there's interest in EPL and the championship from lower division sides, but by far the most simply cannot physically attend those matches because they're watching their own team play. We're still talking about numbers going to stadiums, are we?

But are you a pom (or do you live in the UK)? Because I would assume Dan26's argument is about the thoughts of Soccer fans in the UK.

 

[cos789]

Can you not understand that this is an extremely positive step for RL, and come 2012 we could be seeing a WA team back in the NRL, especially if the S14 collapses, which it looks like doing. Track the history of the Western Reds .....

Yes , it could be a positive step .
It could be step consuming over 1 million$ a year with no return .

Are you seriously saying the Perth Force S14 is likely to collapse ?

Are you seriously saying that if the Force collapses these people will automatically follow an NRL side ?

The track record of the Reds is that they ended up with sub 5k crowds .

 

[cos789]

All that seems to show is how weak the other states are. Like I said, with just 13 senior teams to pick from the fact that they're convincingly beating other states says more about the weakness of the game in those other states than the strength of the game in WA.

That's the conclusion I came up with .

13 senior teams must be state wide , because there's only 5 in Perth and
only two of them are first grade they play in second grade and call it "first "grade .

.

 

[Bomberfan39]

Living here in the United States, I owuld be the first to tell you that I would rather watch the Australian code of football compared to our NFL game. I thas to be the slowest moving and pointless game to watch on television that there ever was. I am not too much of a fan of soccer, either.
Give me the AFL and rugby any ol' day

 

[1908]

Cos789 wrote:

Yes , it could be a positive step .
It could be step consuming over 1 million$ a year with no return .

Are you seriously saying the Perth Force S14 is likely to collapse ?

Are you seriously saying that if the Force collapses these people will automatically follow an NRL side ?

The track record of the Reds is that they ended up with sub 5k crowds .

It could be a positive step? Of course it's a positive step. I know it hurts to give the game ANY credit at all. This move will have a flow on affect for the sport.

The Super 14 will not collapse because of Australian clubs, but because NZ and SA aren't interested in continuing. SA is looking to align with Europe and NZ have pulled 30 All Blacks from the comp during 2007.

As I said before EVERYTHING suffered during the Super League War. The Reds were sacrificed during the peace deal, as were the Gold Coast. Guess who's joining the league this year? That's right, the Gold Coast, who averaged 6500.

The Reds averaged just under 9000 during their last season, 1997. Only once did they get 5000, which was against Hunter.

 

[1908]

Rob wrote:

It's probably why the WARL are doing it - a last ditch effort to grow the game after years of decline.

Didn't I already say this? Good to see you agree that it is growing the game.

This is what I wrote:

We agree league has suffered since the SL war. I said the game has recognised this and made steps to improve it. Stop thinking with an AFL mentality, RL will NEVER overtake AFL in WA, but there is room for it.

 

[akazie]

From what i've read, it's called the 'Jim Beam Cup', which is apparantly a 3rd tier NSW comp. Not sure whether Jim Beam sponsors it or whether it's how the players get paid.

The JB cup is around the standard of the QC, it's better than premier League.

Over the next 2-3 years, the JB cup will be having new teams come in from all over, down in Wollongong, they have a team preparing to join, eventually the comp will become the 2nd tier comp in Australia, they have stated the games will be televised on Fox.

All teams that play in the NRL will have to have an u20's team, if you don't make it by the time you're 21, they'll send the blokes to the QC.

http://www.australianrugbyleague.com.au/index.cgi?det=1&intArticleID=430&sID=21

Here's the history of WA RL.

http://rl1908.com/Clubs/Western-Reds-Perth.htm

SA history

http://rl1908.com/Clubs/Adelaide-Rams.htm

Read these and you can see the potential of having WA and Sa in the NRL, if the NRL had any brains, they'd put a SA team in with the new WA and Kiwi side to let them get up to pace.

Adelaide showed more potential than Perth ever did esp with crowd support.

 

[Rob]

Didn't I already say this? Good to see you agree that it is growing the game.

You don't see the difference in attempting to grow the game and actually growing the game?

 

[Northern_Swan]

The JB cup is around the standard of the QC, it's better than premier League.

Bollocks.

If the Jim Beam cup is better than premier league, then why do players in the Jim beam cup get promoted to the Premier league?

At least one team have dropped out off the Jim Beam cup over the last 2 seasons, primarily due to the fact that the local competition (in this case the Central Coast local league) is more prestigious.

If the Jim Beam cup had any credibility, teams from THE rugby league stronghold (i.e.Newcastle) would actually give a toss and enter it (that is west newcastle, south newcastle, lakes united etc)

 

[1908]

We don't need Adelaide in the NRL they can play in the JB Cup.

 

[Jimthegreat]

When taking population into account, compared to the USA ro the UK, would that put the AFL in front in relative terms as distinct from absolute terms?

 

[Dan26]

When taking population into account, compared to the USA ro the UK, would that put the AFL in front in relative terms as distinct from absolute terms?

In terms of TV, the AFL generates 780 million over 5 years currently ($156 million Australian dollars per year)

The NFL generates $3.1 billion per year from their TV rights and the EPL generates 1.7 billion pounds over 3 years (560 million pounds per year) in their current contract. For the EPL, this equates to about 1 billion per year in american dollars for the EPL rights. This is just over 3 billion American dollars for the length of the 3 year EPL contract.

The NFL's contract is nearly 20 times the value of the AFL's which is about right because they have 300 million to our 20 million (20 times as many people.) This shows that the AFL is indeed the Australian equivalent to the NFL, almost to the exact dollar value.

The EPL's value is about 6.5 times (per year) bigger than the value of the AFL's even though the country of England in population is only 2.5 times bigger. It is bigger (proportionally) because of the extra international exposure that the EPL gets.

The NFL and AFL rights are pretty much exactly proportional to the size of the respective countries, highlighting the regional "one country" interest, while the EPL's rights reflect both the size of England AND interest outside England.

Despite this, the EPL is still not worth as much as the NFL. The NFL is the biggest television product in the world, 3 times bigger (per year) than the English Premier League. Although, given that the USA is six times bigger in population than England, the EPL does well to be one-third as big as the NFL.