i actually grew up in perth as it happens...and left there at the age of 25 - and still go back there every year to see family...so if i may venture a view in particular on the perth aspect of your delusion.....perth is assie rules through and through...prior to the AFL (Eagles and Dockers) it's local competition has eight teams in the 1970s and early 1980s had crowds in the same ball park as NRL crowds of today.... the introduction of the AFL detroyed the local aussie rules competition but the following transferred focus to the eagles and later the dockers....

WA people are passionate aussie ruels followers - the eagles have a 10,000 person waiting list to sign up to be memebrs for gods sake and the eagles are the most profitable club in the AFL...dockers have a lesser following but again a massive membership.....together they'd have about 60 -70 thousand members - more than the whole of the NRL....

when the Western Reds came they made a bit of an initial splash...as did the Rams in Adelaide...and as did the Storm in Melbourne (some Storm games in their first year were lockouts)...so people in aussie rules states do give RL a go....and so have i - i've been to games....do you know the common thing with the Rams, Red, and Storm - without exception all these clubs experienced very good first up crowds which progressively got worse and worse and worse....AFL people do give RLeague a go but when they do turn and to support their team many of them don't like it enough to come back!!!...to be frank it's a bit of a bore and very repetitive to see a three meter sideways pass followed a man running headlong into three waiting tacklers...adn to see this repeated hundreds of times over 80 minutes interspersed with a few kicks every now and then...

oikee mate what drugs are you on?...can i have some? ...mate aussie rules is going from strength to strength...two new teams are on the horizon and this will mean every mainland state will have two teams - and will have a home team playing in their state every week of the football season...WA, SA, Vic, NSW, QLD - live football every weekend...this has never been achieved by RLeague - not even close.... so how is it that RL is somehow superior? ...whatever it is you're taking you might want to go a bit easier - you're frying your brain...     

Give it up dogged, you want to talk about boring look no further than A.F.L , scramble scramble looking for chips punch the ball? and kick, catch the ball you get a rest, and as for all those people looking to get tickets into those 2 clubs of yours, well they can join the leagues team when they arrive, league is now a power sport, much better than it was back then.

The ausiie rules is now a girls game thanks to your adminastrators running the game, With all the poms over in west oz and the other immagrants that make up perth its only a matter of time before league would have a easy 10 thousand fans, and like i have said, this is all we need to make league a success. Not the 70 thousand you sad tossers need to make your atmosphere for your games, you live in a one eyed state dogged, once you lose all your fans to soccer, then league will just pick up the peices like it has done in england. Wake up and stop talking your game up to league fans, its soccer who is killing your sport and you are brain dead to this fact?

Look face the facts dogged, the immagrants living in melbourne and perth are just waiting for a excuss to give aussie rules the flick, thanks to the rebirth of soccer now they have a reason to give you the boot. Your one eyed attatuide has finally caught up with melbourne, expect perth to go the same way, but here we have support. They are screaming out for a team to join, unlike your pathetic attempt to expand coast and sydney. I look forward to seeing a A.F.L bleeding and wounded. We wont stop the bleeding either.

 Jim Said

go on keep admiting that league is way off AFL but hey, what does league have to prove to you, nothing, league is a juggernaut just as much as the AFL. League is within 10% of AFL since we're using percentages, if you don't realise this you need to get out and see the real world instead of dwelling on an article. as for the fox sports poll, AFL have live games on there too idiot, what you think only NRL fans get fox? come on. If you're sticking to that sh*t have a look at union, fox has all S14 games yet they only get 5% of the vote,hmmmm. The fox sports poll is an austrlian wide vote, not just NSW and QLD so if you think Victorians, and South Aussies and West Aussies didn't vote then, well, you would be straight out wrong there dogged.

Oikee said

Thats just it Jim, league is only a short distance from being the number 1 sport, watched, even in melbourne they are watching the origin games, and now have all the storm games being telecast into there homes, free to air by the way, so by the time we have a team in perth aussie rules is on the back foot, and you know how good our game is so it wont be long before aussie rules loses its position at number 1. Like you said jim, we only need 10% to make a claim at being number 1. That 10 percent will come from perth and aderlaide.

Why do you think the fans get so upset, instead of just enjoying there code they are insecure like dogged. They know they are losing popularity thanks to our friends soccer, but league is growing fans still and soccer does not effect us the same way because we have embraced all the games. In melbourne the soccer fans who convert dont go back to aussie rules. And all there families start to follow soccer, rules will finally fade out to the 3rd most popular sport and they should be happy with this, they will never be a world force. They should have thought about that 100 years ago.

Dogged, i dont know if you have ever been to sydney or brisbane, but look to be honest, we dont give a rats arrse what happens in A.F.L, the only people who care are ex-victorians living in our state. Sorry to be so brutal, it must be the drugs. hhehee

oikee:

The thing is jim, rugby league is big in 2 states, QLD and New South Wales, aussie rules is only big in Victoria, and you know as well as me we dont even count the other 2 states, but we do now think about T/V deals and this is why we are going to expand, the reason A.F.L wants to expand another 2 teams is to get more veiwers watching that crap on T.V, but if they looked at there fox sports results then they know they are in for a hiding, we dont watch the stupid game, along with union and soccer they are flogging a dead horse, we love our local derbies and state of origin in league and this is going from strength to strength. Aussie rules bores the crap outta me because skills are non exsistant, you just fumble and run and kick, this is the next sport to go down hill like rugby union, take on league at your own peril, look at soccer in england, league is growing at there expence. We have the best product dogged, get use to it, your aussie rules is a crap product. You lost mollie meldrum and even the prime ministers number 1 is backing league.Julian Gillard.

The best you have got is sammy newman and he is a goose, not a good way to get support.Just get used to your game being a state sport dogged, and drop the aussie and make it state rule.With no rules.!!

Yehp, completly agree oikee, the game is boring on TV, i'v tried to get into it, i just can't. Don't get me wrong the game isn't actually half bad to play, i played for a year in primary school so it's been a while, still though nothing compared to league but dont get me wrong the game is enjoyable to play, just not watch. Since no other team played AFL we played amongst ourselfs, so every 2nd morning we would play league for half and hour and the in betweens we played AFL because our teacher was a nut, still it was time off school so i liked it. We played 1 game VS another local school who just bought they're league team, we flogged them and i sored the most goals.

Anyway if dogged wants to pretend we are still in the 90's and AFL is killing league well then i will quote him and say "delusion is harmless, pointless but harmless".

dogged:

when the Western Reds came they made a bit of an initial splash...as did the Rams in Adelaide...and as did the Storm in Melbourne (some Storm games in their first year were lockouts)...so people in aussie rules states do give RL a go....and so have i - i've been to games....do you know the common thing with the Rams, Red, and Storm - without exception all these clubs experienced very good first up crowds which progressively got worse and worse and worse....AFL people do give RLeague a go but when they do turn and to support their team many of them don't like it enough to come back!!!...to be frank it's a bit of a bore and very repetitive to see a three meter sideways pass followed a man running headlong into three waiting tacklers...adn to see this repeated hundreds of times over 80 minutes interspersed with a few kicks every now and then...

oikee mate what drugs are you on?...can i have some? ...mate aussie rules is going from strength to strength...two new teams are on the horizon and this will mean every mainland state will have two teams - and will have a home team playing in their state every week of the football season...WA, SA, Vic, NSW, QLD - live football every weekend...this has never been achieved by RLeague - not even close.... so how is it that RL is somehow superior? ...whatever it is you're taking you might want to go a bit easier - you're frying your brain...     

Interesting you say this, the swans in their 9th season had a crowds average of 9,000 and so did the storm, the storm crowds have grown since origin was there and the only thing holding back 15,000 crowds every week is the crap ground that the storm play in, this will be fixed next year when a new 31,000 rectangular stadium will be ready for soccer, RL and RU.

Also funny you say RL is repetitive also, what drugs are you on? Mate i bet you've seen about 2 RL games in you're life and stopped watching because you started to realise it was way better to watch than AFL so you bailed out because nothing could be better than you're beloved AFL, all mighty conquerer of the sporting world and savior of bored people all over the world! come on give us a break, this was a clean and tidy forum before you went and soiled it with your verbal crap.

Mate you don't realise, im not saying NRL is close to AFL for making money but it is even on popularity, if you think there aren't still people in VIC, Perth and SA that like RL then you are kidding, it may only be 5% of people but that is about same % AFL has in QLD and NSW, now you will say, no way we get 30,000 to swans and lions games??? well i think you will find alot of people who go to AFL games up here are also RL fans. As i said before know 100's of people in CQ and only 5 who like AFL better than league, also i know about 50 people in brissy and none of them prefer AFL to NRL. The only person i ever heard say they like AFL is better was a cabbie in brissbane, he said when the lions played in brissy it's the talk of the town, ahah BS, straight after that i asked him where he was from and he said... wait for it... Victoria.

Fox Sports poll was a great gauge for RL and AFL popularity in australia, go on piss and moan about it but it's true.

The way I see it, is that dogged points can be re-applied back to himself and AFL. If people are so passionate about AFL and don't dive a stuff about NRL and only na token amount then its the same in the eastern states.

Look I am with Jim, I don't hate AFL I have been to the odd game or two in my time, but overall I just don't really care about it, its not that an exciting sport for me to get into, its just not league.

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oikee:

No, he is dead right druzik, in fact it was my gr, gr, gr, ,gr grand dad who arrived on the shores of perth back in 1848 and grabbed that ball and run with it.

Why dont we create some *** and bull story like the A.F.L do and just make it up as we go along, we get to cellebrate 200 years in another 40, hehe

Thing about the perth team now is that all the teams are travelling long distances now with the cowboys in the comp, and new zealand, its 4 hours over their by plane, so a 6 hour perth flight is nothing now. No i still think perth is a definate to get in, and also another coast team, sunshine or central.

Ahhh yes it was April fools yesterday!

Well AFL's first game was played under the Rugby Rules of those days and actually Rugby before the 1871 codifictaion was very similar in description to what some elements of AFL are today.

Actually if you go through and have a read of all the variations of football going around at that time, AFL sounds almost dead on with Sheffield Football, which had 4 posts with no cross bars and gave partial points for teams and was aikin to a game of Force-then-back.

Have a read of some of Sean Fegens stuff he has some beate history concerning RL and other codes in Oz.

Another interesting point, the whole Webb Ellis myth the Unions boys bang on about, didn't come to pass till 1895... it was a knee jerk response to the Northern Union breakaway and their attempt to legitimise the amateur status of the game.

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Interesting article here. 

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/clubs-bank-on-success-at-anz-stadium-but-fans-remain-shortchanged/2008/03/11/1205125911684.html

Seems to suggest that the AFL crowd numbers are so high because the AFL forces teams to play out of one stadium, effectively inflating them artificially, otherwise the numbers would be lower in their traditional grounds. 

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huh?...what inflate them from 3million (NRL level) to 7 million (AFL level)...wow that's some inflation!!...well by your logic we'll see massive crowd increases in NRL crowds due to extra NRL teams going to Homebush...somehow there will be a reversal of fortunes and we won't see rows and rows of empty seats liek now...seriously this is like shooting fish in barrel!!! ...can you possibly come up with more nonsense if you tried!!!

I have been to two NRL suburban stadiums in NSW and are pathetic....sub standard....no first rate competition worth its salt would play at any of them.... 

as for AFL stadiums...well there has been constant refurbishments and increases in capacity in response to demand not the other way around....SCG, Football Park (SA), MCG, Subiaco, Gabba were all refurbished recently (or are being refrubished) to bigger capacities....and in perth becasue demand is so high they are considering a new 60,000 seat stadium in East Perth, the new Dockland stadium will ultimately owned by the AFL after 20 yr lease period (what ground does the NRL own - none)....huge demand is driving the need for bigger stadiums...when did this ever happen for RL - were it not for the Olympics you'd still be playing at the SFS with a 45,000 capacity...as it is Homebush is arond 20,000 short of the MCG...

AFL crowd averages are above any domestic soccer competition in the word and second only the America's NFL...do you think the AFL could ever seriously take games back to suburban grounds!!? and turn away 4 million supporters!!!...

Heard of Occam's Razor....if you trying to explain something the simplest and most direct explanation is usually correct....so why are AFL crowds so huge? people like watching games and will come back....why are NRL crowds so low? people are bored with what they see and won't come back.....you can bang on all you like about NSW/QLD being more accepting and so on and so on....but the reality is that where ever/whenever RL is played worldwide it's crowds are not that good...and where ever AFL is played, including NSW and QLD, its crowds are great...and it's simply because it's a more exciting football code to watch - no need for conspiracy theories...very simply explained..

Where outside of Oz has it been played and the crowds good... your crapping on again mate.

Nature has shown that Occams razor is not true for the majority of the universe.
 

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dogged:

I haven't read all of the above posts either but enough to get jist that people are calling for or predicting future expansion. I'm sorry I just don't see it happening - in fact further a shrinking of the NRL seems far more likely in the long term.

Nearly all RLeague clubs run at a considerable operational losses - they normally rely on multi-million 'grants' from gambling revenue (pokies). Souths no longer wants this business model (and we'll see how this goes and if it can be sustained) but all the rest of the NRL are plugged into gaming revenue for survival. This financial crutch is not available in WA (where pokies are banned except for at the Casino) and there was/is no Leagues club in SA or Vic. The Storm is now, and always will be, totally reliant on News Ltd for handouts - it will perish as soon as the NRL/News Ltd get sick of tearing up $100 bill year after year.....and that must happen at some point.

So in all this 'expansion' talk people posting do not seem to appreciate or ackowledge that venturing outside NSW/QLD and setting up a RL team is a bit like trying to farm rice in the Great Sandy Desert,.....for rice you need water and plenty of it so setting up a rice farm is doomed to failure.... for RL teams you need plenty of pokie revenue and established Leagues clubs to funnel annual mulit-million dollar grants to the clubs - and you ain't going to find it in the 'pokie deserts' of WA or SA or Vic....the alternative of course is NOT to rely on pokie revnue at all (possible but far less palatable for the players) but just live off broadcast revenue and sponsorphips like all other sports must....

 'talk' of expansion to WA or SA is all that the NRL will ever acheive...it will never actually expand to these states again.....it was never going to work and the now defunct Reds and Rams prove this beyond any doubt.....and before long the carcass of the Storm will be added to the pile of failed RL enterprises....the only future 'expansion' - if there is any - is withing the borderes of NSW/QLD.... 

the expansion of the AFL through Lions and Swans was very difficult and loss making for some time - but pokie revenue was/is not relied on....both ventures are now modestly profitable (both with massive revenue dwarfing any NRL team) and during their foramtion relied on some AFL handouts and even some private funding.....but least they never resorted to pokie revenue which is, and remains, the lifeblood of the nRL...     

 

does anyone see the irony of an AFL fan coming onto a RL website dedicated to our World Cup and saying AFL has been succesful at expansion.

 

AFL can hardly expand north from victoria, let alone dream of actually being played in another nation on a professional basis.

 

without going into too much detail, AFLs club in queensland and nsw are struggling financially, with revenues having fallen by a large degree in recent years.  a recent game billed as a blockbuster for AFL got total viewers of 110,000 viewers out of a total population in nsw and queensland of 11 million.  people in nsw and queensland - 55% of the population of australia simply wont watch AFL on their TV sets.

 

Apparently AFL has an amateur World Cup - get this - the funny bit is that Australian arent allowed to compete in this world cup because they are too strong.  only in AFL would you have a world cup where the nation that the "a" stand for cant play in it.

 

whilst AFL considers itself successful if 110,000 people watch it in nsw and queensland, us RL types have to worry about how the game is going in NZ, PNG, fiji, tonga, samoa, England, France, Wales and Lebanon.

 

it would be so much simpler if we were like AFL, only played in one nation on earth on a professional basis.  indeed to be accurate only really played in 45% of that country and mickey mouse for the rest.

 

AFL, the sport based on 45% of australia and thats it. 

yes you are right that AFL has better crowds, largely because RL clubs never had to worry about crowds due to money from Poker Machines.

when it comes to TV though RL is the dominant sport by a long margin.

 

if you compare crowds vs ratings, indeed add them together, RL emerges as the dominant sport.

 

little wonder really when you find so many AwFuL trolls on sites dedicated to australias number 1 football code. 

the interesting thing is that RL has gone through SL and reduced the number of sydney clubs.

 

AFL is now where we were a decade ago faced with several clubs - notably the kangaroos and melbourne struggling financially.  if the AFL forces them to move by eliminating the grant it gives to clubs close to going broke, the storm will be in a position to pick up thousands and thousands of new fans.

 

AFL fans forget that before the SL war the sport failed on the gold coast, and the swans were on the verge of bankruptcy.  sure the SL war gave them some fans ticked off with RL but they are coming back judging by the slump in ratings for swans / lions.

 

when stephen bradbury got lucky with the gold medal when events conspired to take out his competitiors, he was honest enough to admit he wasnt the best competitor, just lucky.  AFL should do the same rather than talking loads of BS.

 

AFL the national sport for 45% of australia 

dogged:

huh?...what inflate them from 3million (NRL level) to 7 million (AFL level)...wow that's some inflation!!...well by your logic we'll see massive crowd increases in NRL crowds due to extra NRL teams going to Homebush...somehow there will be a reversal of fortunes and we won't see rows and rows of empty seats liek now...seriously this is like shooting fish in barrel!!! ...can you possibly come up with more nonsense if you tried!!!

I have been to two NRL suburban stadiums in NSW and are pathetic....sub standard....no first rate competition worth its salt would play at any of them.... 

as for AFL stadiums...well there has been constant refurbishments and increases in capacity in response to demand not the other way around....SCG, Football Park (SA), MCG, Subiaco, Gabba were all refurbished recently (or are being refrubished) to bigger capacities....and in perth becasue demand is so high they are considering a new 60,000 seat stadium in East Perth, the new Dockland stadium will ultimately owned by the AFL after 20 yr lease period (what ground does the NRL own - none)....huge demand is driving the need for bigger stadiums...when did this ever happen for RL - were it not for the Olympics you'd still be playing at the SFS with a 45,000 capacity...as it is Homebush is arond 20,000 short of the MCG...

AFL crowd averages are above any domestic soccer competition in the word and second only the America's NFL...do you think the AFL could ever seriously take games back to suburban grounds!!? and turn away 4 million supporters!!!...

Heard of Occam's Razor....if you trying to explain something the simplest and most direct explanation is usually correct....so why are AFL crowds so huge? people like watching games and will come back....why are NRL crowds so low? people are bored with what they see and won't come back.....you can bang on all you like about NSW/QLD being more accepting and so on and so on....but the reality is that where ever/whenever RL is played worldwide it's crowds are not that good...and where ever AFL is played, including NSW and QLD, its crowds are great...and it's simply because it's a more exciting football code to watch - no need for conspiracy theories...very simply explained..

Listen dogged you can keep spewing out crap why AFL is better than league for all i care, it's not my time you're wating, it's your own.

You really think people are not going to support league because some suburban grounds are sub-par and AFL gets bigger crowds? wake up mate, none of this sh*t will stop people watching league. League is a very popular game and gets great TV ratings, in brisbane the other night the broncos game got 380,000 viewers or something in brisbane alone, say as an average each TV is watched by 2.5 people then that is 1.14million watching the game in brisbane alone, aswell as 50,000 at the stadium. "homebush is 20,000 of the MCG" wow, great observation work constable christmas. I wonder why, oh maybe because the perimiter of a RL field is 375m whilst AFL would be, well i dont have a clue probably twice the size, now think about this the bigger perimiter of the field the more seats you can fit around it, simple yes but it can't be denied, infact i don't know if there are any 100,000 person rectangular stadiums out there, maybe in USA where NFL fields are bigger than RL fields. To base an argument on saying "our stadium is bigger than yours" is stupid.

dallymessenger:

does anyone see the irony of an AFL fan coming onto a RL website dedicated to our World Cup and saying AFL has been succesful at expansion.

:D :lol:

I wish emiticons were on here. 

 

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