Austadiums Forum

I was having a casual kick about at Erskinville Oval the other day and there were three young men doing the same, but with a red ball in the peculiar Victorian fashion. Not news you're thinking - however, one of them seemed to have a soft English accent. More evidence of AFL's increasingly broad appeal?

Nines wrote:
You haven't shown any thing to the contrary, just about an attendance statistics which shows that Australians who attend sport prefer Australian Football.

Actually the statistics I quoted show the opposite of your statement but your opinion being the opposite of reality is not surprising.

Good luck with your quest to turn 16.2% of the population attending Australian Rules football into "most Australians prefer Australian Football". Its going to be extremely difficult task seeing the 55% of Australians who live in the ACT, NSW and Qld don't care much about your game at all.

gyfox wrote:Good luck with your quest to turn 16.2% of the population attending Australian Rules football into "most Australians prefer Australian Football".

Easy. Only count "real" aussies.

Ah, the "no true Scotsman"!

yob wrote:

gyfox wrote:Good luck with your quest to turn 16.2% of the population attending Australian Rules football into "most Australians prefer Australian Football".

Easy. Only count "real" aussies.

[Kevin Sheedy reference]

Simmo79 wrote:

yob wrote:

gyfox wrote:Good luck with your quest to turn 16.2% of the population attending Australian Rules football into "most Australians prefer Australian Football".

Easy. Only count "real" aussies.

[Kevin Sheedy reference]

I like this quote from a blog article by Ian Syson a sports historian on the Sheedy pronouncement.

So it has come to this. According to Kevin Sheedy, Western Sydney Wanderers have been successful because the Immigration Department recruited its support base. The whistler has whistled and the dogs are barking. The Victorian imperialist has inverted logic and history and turned the local game into the foreign one while his imported culture is promoted as the one that truly belongs.

The article goes on to detail how football has been part of western Sydney culture for well over a century. (Unlike the Victorian game).

http://neososmos.blogspot.com.au/2013/0 ... ydney.html

were they South African

Nines wrote:

gyfox wrote:

Nines wrote:
You haven't shown any thing to the contrary, just about an attendance statistics which shows that Australians who attend sport prefer Australian Football.

Actually the statistics I quoted show the opposite of your statement but your opinion being the opposite of reality is not surprising.
.

Get some statistic s about those who don't attend football and you might have a case
but rl people will tell you it's not about crowds.

You are the one who made the statement that "most Australians prefer Australian football". Its up to you to prove it. All I've done is show you that most Australians prefer not to attend sport and of the ones that do the minority prefer Australian Rules football. As I have previously said the majority of Australians (55%) live in states and territories where Australia Rules football is simply a niche sport with less than 5% of adults attending the game and less than 0.5% of adults participating in it according to the ABS. If you look at the FTA broadcast ratings over the last season and a half for games broadcast in all 5 capital cities on average only 10% of the viewers combined were in Sydney (32k) and Brisbane (37k) so the support for the code as measured by FTA ratings is less than 1% of the population in Sydney and less than 2% of the population in Brisbane. Of course the STV ratings have to be added to this but even if they double the support the total is still quite small. Double it again to bring the regionals into the equation and still the total support is fairly insignificant. If you could muster 400k between NSW and Qld and the ACT who prefer Australian Rules football I would be most surprised. If every single person in the other states and territories preferred Australian Rules football you still wouldn't get to your claim of "most Australians prefer Australian football". I suppose the crunch to your claim comes when considering the ratings for the AFL Grand Final which show that less than 20% of the population watch the event.

Gyfox, did you include that one English guy above who was playing with his two mates?

We can't double count so we have to lay down priorities. I think it's more important to make aussie rules look popular in England than in Sydney because it has 46 million more people. So don't count the English guy and we'll set him aside for the England count.

Also keep in mind that English people drink at pubs he tells 8 people they tell 8 people the number could easily be 64 just like the Nintendo and you know how popular Nintendo is.

That's exactly what I thought at the time yob.

From little things big things grow.

Simmo79 wrote:Gyfox, did you include that one English guy above who was playing with his two mates?

Because they are having a kick in the park they are counted in the ABS participation statistics unless they are recent migrants. Hmm... 3 you say. Big jump might be coming up.

Fastest growing sport in [place we're discussing]

I shall hunt them down......probably stole the ball in the first place

Nines wrote:

gyfox wrote:[ All I've done is show you that most Australians prefer not to attend sport.

Right. That's all you've done. Agreed.

Where is your supporting argument for your claim that "most Australians prefer Australian football"?