damianFootball Wars Part 3- The Indigenous Game
July 23rd 2006 23:40
AFL - The Indigenous Game
If I’d written this article 6 months ago than AFL would have been the code taking away the ‘Best Potential’ award but with the stellar rise of soccer and other developments in the world of football the shine has been taken off what has been an incredible few years for the code.
Traditionally associated with Melbourne, the indigenous code has a very long and illustrious history with some of the oldest sporting clubs in the world. It is also a code completely unique to Australia and, like all the greatest world sports, has any number of origin myths as to how it came into existence but the current version of the game, the AFL, started its existence as the Victorian Football League which later expanded into South Australia, Western Australia and later on into Sydney and Brisbane. Considering its origins south of the Murray the code has always been seen as the southern football code in direct competition with rugby league as the eastern football. However, with the rugby league’s civil war bringing the eastern code to it’s knees for over half a decade the way was opened for the AFL to step in and claim a foothold in enemy territory. With the establishment of two major clubs in both Perth and Adelaide, the once troubled Brisbane Bears finding success as the Lions with three premierships in a row and another to Sydney, the AFL has established itself as the current leader in the domestic football wars. To the victor go the spoils and the AFL has now signed the largest domestic TV rights deal in Australian history, the league now being awash with cash and ready to become the nation’s dominant football code.
As a domestic football code Aussie rules is well established to create a good future for itself. With its recent good run in the northern states the league has increased the number of its juniors and established school competitions in Brisbane. This has been a little harder in Sydney but will no doubt be not too far behind. This has set up the possible future expansion into these areas which will see the league continue to dominate domestically. The good economic position of the AFL has also helped the code to develop the very effective Auskick program, a very professional system which streamlines the junior sign on process with development officers helping local clubs to recruit young players.
Another thing that the league has been able to do is improve the financial position of some of its less successful clubs. This has mostly come in the form of a bail out package for Carlton which is in debt to the tune of millions but it will also extend to helping out the Melbourne teams who do not get the advantage of the bigger markets that interstate teams do.
The other significant thing the league is doing is the purchase of assets that will ensure the future success of the code. Figures have not been confirmed yet but these purchases will include stadium assets and considering the money they will be receiving this should be quite significant for the future.
But regardless of the now full coffers of the administration the code has its other assets to fall back on including one of the best crowd cultures in world sport which goes from strength to strength. AFL is quite clearly a crowd game, the code best experienced at a full stadium where supporters can immerse themselves in the game and see all the end to end action at once and this has produced a Melbourne sporting culture where watching sport = going to the game and this they do in droves, earning the state the nickname of ‘Australia‘s sporting capital’ (as debatable as this nickname is). Most significantly it is amazing that Melbourne can manage such high crowd figures without any of the problems other sports have throughout the world and it is a real tribute to the code that is responsible for it.
It’s not all roses for the indigenous code however as the recent attention on the World Cup has revealed. When it comes to representative duties Aussie Rules comes dead last of the football codes on both an international and state level. This is a serious problem as their state of origin concept was cancelled and the only international games that can be played are the hybrid International Rules that is played against the top players of the Irish Gaelic Football League. Although the right idea for the code the games do lack credibility, haven’t been able to garner enough respect to be taken seriously and reveal how hard it will be for the game to get any more successful without an international competition.
Perhaps the first thing that the AFL will have to do is invent a new name for the game as it will be very hard for other nations to take part in a game that is literally Australian Rules. How would Australians feel playing Canadian rules? As ‘football’ is already taken (and good luck to them if they want to challenge that assumption) they’ll need an alternative name that foreign players can adopt and play under if they’re ever going to be able to spread their game in any serious way. Unfortunately though a new name is not the only problem facing administrators and it could be a wait till they’re all resolved.
And it’s going to be a loooong wait. Even with significant amounts of money it will still be a long time before anything approaching international competition materialises and the games state representation has always suffered from the codes city focused competition that sees the players evenly distributed over several states while lacking in others. Unless they can come up with a creative concept that solves this problem any competitive representative series will fail and with it the benefits that those competitions bring. Without a representative competition there is only so far you can go in the sport and when it comes down to convincing athletes which sport to play an offer of being state or world champions can often beat out a bigger pay packet. After all you can only be the Best in Australia with the indigenous game; you can be the Best in the World with every other code, and no parsing of semantics or claims to a games superiority will beat that.
The AFL could very well become the major domestic code of Australia in the future but with there being very few places to realistically expand domestically the league will be facing some very difficult questions soon. If it isn’t careful it could be swamped by the high exposure representative sports and lose its momentum.
AFL Official Site
If I’d written this article 6 months ago than AFL would have been the code taking away the ‘Best Potential’ award but with the stellar rise of soccer and other developments in the world of football the shine has been taken off what has been an incredible few years for the code.
As a domestic football code Aussie rules is well established to create a good future for itself. With its recent good run in the northern states the league has increased the number of its juniors and established school competitions in Brisbane. This has been a little harder in Sydney but will no doubt be not too far behind. This has set up the possible future expansion into these areas which will see the league continue to dominate domestically. The good economic position of the AFL has also helped the code to develop the very effective Auskick program, a very professional system which streamlines the junior sign on process with development officers helping local clubs to recruit young players.
Another thing that the league has been able to do is improve the financial position of some of its less successful clubs. This has mostly come in the form of a bail out package for Carlton which is in debt to the tune of millions but it will also extend to helping out the Melbourne teams who do not get the advantage of the bigger markets that interstate teams do.
The other significant thing the league is doing is the purchase of assets that will ensure the future success of the code. Figures have not been confirmed yet but these purchases will include stadium assets and considering the money they will be receiving this should be quite significant for the future.
But regardless of the now full coffers of the administration the code has its other assets to fall back on including one of the best crowd cultures in world sport which goes from strength to strength. AFL is quite clearly a crowd game, the code best experienced at a full stadium where supporters can immerse themselves in the game and see all the end to end action at once and this has produced a Melbourne sporting culture where watching sport = going to the game and this they do in droves, earning the state the nickname of ‘Australia‘s sporting capital’ (as debatable as this nickname is). Most significantly it is amazing that Melbourne can manage such high crowd figures without any of the problems other sports have throughout the world and it is a real tribute to the code that is responsible for it.
It’s not all roses for the indigenous code however as the recent attention on the World Cup has revealed. When it comes to representative duties Aussie Rules comes dead last of the football codes on both an international and state level. This is a serious problem as their state of origin concept was cancelled and the only international games that can be played are the hybrid International Rules that is played against the top players of the Irish Gaelic Football League. Although the right idea for the code the games do lack credibility, haven’t been able to garner enough respect to be taken seriously and reveal how hard it will be for the game to get any more successful without an international competition.
Perhaps the first thing that the AFL will have to do is invent a new name for the game as it will be very hard for other nations to take part in a game that is literally Australian Rules. How would Australians feel playing Canadian rules? As ‘football’ is already taken (and good luck to them if they want to challenge that assumption) they’ll need an alternative name that foreign players can adopt and play under if they’re ever going to be able to spread their game in any serious way. Unfortunately though a new name is not the only problem facing administrators and it could be a wait till they’re all resolved.
International Rules
And it’s going to be a loooong wait. Even with significant amounts of money it will still be a long time before anything approaching international competition materialises and the games state representation has always suffered from the codes city focused competition that sees the players evenly distributed over several states while lacking in others. Unless they can come up with a creative concept that solves this problem any competitive representative series will fail and with it the benefits that those competitions bring. Without a representative competition there is only so far you can go in the sport and when it comes down to convincing athletes which sport to play an offer of being state or world champions can often beat out a bigger pay packet. After all you can only be the Best in Australia with the indigenous game; you can be the Best in the World with every other code, and no parsing of semantics or claims to a games superiority will beat that.
The AFL could very well become the major domestic code of Australia in the future but with there being very few places to realistically expand domestically the league will be facing some very difficult questions soon. If it isn’t careful it could be swamped by the high exposure representative sports and lose its momentum.
AFL Official Site
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