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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Australian Rules Football. (Discuss) |
| Australian rules football in Australia | |||
| |||
| Contesting for possession in an indigenous community Aussie Rules game in the Northern Territory | |||
| Governing body | Australian Football League | ||
| National team | Australia | ||
| First played | 1858, Melbourne, Victoria | ||
| Registered players | 615,549 (total)More chase Sherrin than before 120,000 (adult) | ||
| Clubs | 2,548[citation needed] | ||
| Competitions | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National | |||
| - AFL | |||
| Club | |||
| - SANFL | |||
| - VFL | |||
| - WAFL | |||
| - Queensland State League | |||
| - NTAFL | |||
| - Northern Tasmanian | |||
| - Southern Tasmanian | |||
| - O&M | |||
| - Sydney AFL | |||
| - AFL Canberra | |||
| Audience records | |||
| Single match | 121,696 - 1970 VFL Grand Final | ||
| Season | 6,283,788 - 2005 AFL season | ||
| |||
Australian rules football in Australia is a popular spectator and team sport which originated in Melbourne and has become an important part of Australian culture.
The sport is played continuously in every state and territory of Australia for over 90 years and is particularly popular in Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania.
In the states where it is not as popular as other winter sports, New South Wales and Queensland, it is rapidly growing.
The only national competition is the Australian Football League, which grew out of an expanded Victorian domestic club competition from 1982 beginning with the relocation of the South Melbourne Swans in 1982 and changing its name in 1990. The AFL now governs the code nationally.
Australia is currently the only nation in the world where Australian rules football is played professionally and while its participation is diverse, the sport is only played professionally by men.
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The sport has attracted more overall interest among Australians than any other winter sport for at least several years "If you can kick it, Australia will watch it", The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 May, 2003. . It is the most popular football code in Australia and it was created in Australia for Australians then is Australian national sport. It has over 150 years of immense support and it is linked into Australian culture permanetly. It is particularly popular amongst indigenous Australian communities. Approximately 10% of all AFL players are of indigenous origin.
For many years, the game of Australian rules football captured the imagination of Australian film, music and literature.
Many songs inspired by the game have become anthems of the game, none more so than the 1979 hit Up There Cazaly, by Mike Brady.
Football is the most highly attended spectator sport in Australia: government figures show that more than 2.5 million people (16.8% of the population) attended games in 1999.Sports Attendance, Australian Bureau of Statistics, April 1999. In 2005, a cumulative 6,283,788 people attended Australian Football League (AFL) premiership matches, a record for the competition."Aussie Rules sets attendance record", The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 August, 2005. A further 307,181 attended NAB Cup pre-season matches and 117,552 attended Regional Challenge pre-season practice matches around the countryhttp://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:QSxF-7E66dcJ:afl.com.au/default.asp%3Fpg%3Dwizardcup%26spg%3Ddisplay%26articleid%3D190187.
As well as the AFL attendances, strong state competitions also drew crowds. Although crowds for local leagues have suffered in recent years, they continue to draw support, particularly for finals matches. The South Australian SANFL drew an attendance of 303,354 in 2005, the Western Australian WAFL drew an official attendance of 202,797 in 2004 and the Victorian VFL (including a Tasmanian side, the Devils) also drew strong crowds (but with no available attendance figures).
As of 2005 the AFL is one of only five professional sports leagues in the world with an average attendance above thirty thousand (the others are NFL and Major League Baseball in the United States, and the top division soccer leagues in Germany, and England). (See also: Sports attendances.)
According to OzTAM, in recent years, the AFL Grand Final has reached the top five programs across the five biggest cities in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Australian rules football has achieved a #1 rating in the sports category in both 2004 and 2005.
Some of the more popular regional leagues have the "match of the week" televised locally and free-to-air on ABC Television\'s state networks. In Victoria (ABV) and Tasmania (ABT) both show the VFL, in Western Australia (ABW) it is the WAFL, in South Australia (ABS) it is the SANFL and in the Northern Territory (ABD) it is both the NTFL and the SANFL (in the NTFL off-season).
Some regional leagues also attract a national audience through free-to-air broadcasting on television networks such as ABC2, which includes the VFL, SANFL, WAFL, NTFL and Tiwi Islands Football League (Grand Final only). OzTAM began measuring these audiences in 2006. The SANFL measured a total of 1,415,000 television viewers in 2007.SANFL Website
With more than 450,000 participants aged 15 years and over, AFL is the 4th most-played team sport in Australia, behind netball, Football and cricket. Participation in exercise, recreation and sport, Australian Sports Commission Annual Report 2004.
A total of 615,549 registered participants are playing Australian football in 2007. Participation rose 5.97% between 2006-07 and 7.84% between 2005-06. 6.7 per cent of all participants are from non-English speaking origin. The Australian Sports Commission statistics show a 42% increase in the total number of participants over the 4 year period between 2001-2005.http://www.ausport.gov.au/scorsresearch/ERASS2005/ERASS2005_findings.pdf Participation in Exercise, Recreation and Sport Survey 2005 Annual Report
Victoria has the largest number of participants over 15 years of age (205,000 participants or 5.2% of the Victorian population). The Tiwi Islands is said to have the highest participation rate in Australia (35%)."Even a cyclone can\'t stop the footy", The Age, 20 March, 2005.
Amongst children aged 5 to 14 years, football is the third most popular organised sport for children to participate in (beyond soccer and swimming). An estimated 284,200 children aged 5 to 14 participated in football in the 12 months prior to interview in 2003 (13.6% of all children). http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/99AEABDFDCF70A0DCA256E2A00767431/$File/49010_apr%202003.pdf
The most powerful organisation and competition within the game is the elite professional Australian Football League (AFL). The AFL is recognised by the Australian Sports Commission as being the National Sporting Organisation for Australian rules football. There are also seven state/territory-based organisations in Australia, most of which are either owned by or affiliated to the AFL. Most of these hold annual semi-professional club competitions while the others oversee more than one league. Local semi-professional or amateur organizations and competitions are affiliated to their state leagues.
The following represents the approximate tiers (in terms of playing standards and levels of professionalism) of Australian Rules Football:
At the higher end at least, these are evidenced by professionalism and the respective competition salary caps.
In terms of pathways and the AFL National Draft, these leagues represent opportunities for AFL rookie draftees. Most AFL players are recruited at junior level and sourced from the TAC Cup competition or national and state Under 18 representative championships.
Australian Football Premiership Finals, at the Brisbane Cricket Ground in Brisbane, 1907. |
Port Adelaide v Sturt, 1914 SANFL Grand Final |
05129r.jpg
New South Wales vs Western Australia at the 1933 Australian Football Carnival held at the Sydney Cricket Ground |
Aussie rules wikipedia.jpg
2003 AFL match - Brisbane vs Collingwood at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. |
Gradually the game – known at first as "Melbourne Rules", "Victorian Rules" or sometimes as "Australasian Rules" – began to spread from Victoria into other Australian colonies in the 1860s, beginning with South Australia (1860), Tasmania (1864), and Queensland (1866). In 1877, the sport\'s first governing bodies, the South Australian Football Association and the Victorian Football Association were formed on the 30th of April and the 7th of May respectively. The game began to be played in New South Wales in 1877, in Western Australia in 1881 and the Australian Capital Territory in 1911. By 1916, the game was first played in the Northern Territory, establishing a permanent presence in all Australian states and mainland territories. In Newcastle, New South Wales the Black Diamond league was founded by Victorian goldminers and the Black Diamond Challenge Cup remains Australia\'s oldest sporting trophy.
The SAFA and the WAFA were strong, separate competitions by the 1890s. Factors such as interstate rivalry and the denial of access to grounds in Sydney caused the code to struggle in New South Wales and Queensland. A rift in the VFA led to the formation of the Victorian Football League (VFL), which commenced play in 1897 as an eight-team breakaway of the stronger clubs in the VFA competition. By 1925, the VFL consisted of 12 teams, and had become the most prominent league in the game.
In 1982, in a move which heralded big changes within the sport, one of the original VFL clubs, South Melbourne Football Club, relocated to the rugby league stronghold of Sydney and became known as the Sydney Swans. In the late 1980s, strong interstate interest in the VFL led to a more national competition; two more non-Victorian clubs, the West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears began playing in 1987. The league changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) following the 1989 season. In 1991, it gained its first South Australian team, Adelaide. In the next five years, two more non-Victorian teams joined the league. The AFL, currently with 16 member clubs, is the sport\'s elite competition and the most powerful body in the world of Australian rules football.
Following the emergence of the Australian Football League, the SANFL, WAFL and other state leagues rapidly declined to a secondary status. Apart from these there are many semi-professional and amateur leagues around Australia, where they play a very important role in the community, and particularly so in rural areas. The VFA, still in existence a century after the original schism, merged with the former VFL reserves competition in 1998. The new entity adopted the VFL name and remained a primarily state based competition.
Players contest a mark at the 1933 Australian Football Carnival, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The teams are Victoria and Tasmania. (Photographer: Sam Hood.)
The first intercolonial match had been played between Victoria and South Australia in 1879. For most of the 20th century, the absence of a national club competition – and the inability of players to compete internationally – meant that matches between state representative teams were regarded with great importance. Because VFL clubs increasingly recruited the best players in other states, Victoria dominated these games. The introduction of State of Origin rules were introduced in 1977 saw Western Australia and South Australia begin to win many of their games against Victoria.
State of origin games declined in importance, especially after an increasing number of withdrawals by AFL players, and Australian football State of Origin matches ceased in 1999. The second-tier state and territorial leagues still contest interstate matches.
| Australian rules football in Australia | |
|---|---|
| By State or Territory | Australian Capital Territory · New South Wales · Northern Territory · Queensland · South Australia · Tasmania · Victoria · Western Australia |
| Countries playing Australian rules football | |
|---|---|
| Oceania |
Australia · Fiji · Nauru · New Zealand · Papua New Guinea · Samoa · Solomon Islands · Tonga |
| Asia & Middle East |
Brunei · Cambodia · China · East Timor · Hong Kong · India · Indonesia · Israel · Japan · Lebanon · Malaysia · Philippines · Pakistan · Singapore · Thailand · United Arab Emirates · Vietnam |
| Europe |
Austria · Belgium · Catalonia · Croatia · Czech Republic · Denmark · England · Finland · France · Germany · Ireland · Italy · Netherlands · Scotland · Spain · Sweden · Wales |
| Africa |
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| Americas |
Argentina · Bermuda · Canada · Chile · United States |
| Sport in Australia |
|---|
New South Wales · Victoria · Queensland · South Australia · Western Australia · Tasmania · ACT · NT Australian rules football · Baseball · Basketball · Cricket · Association football (soccer) · Futsal · Golf · Gridiron · Hockey · Horseracing · Lacrosse · Motorsport · Netball · Rugby League · Rugby Union · Skeleton sport · Softball · Olympics · Winter sport |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
