Popularity
See also: Australian rules football in Australia See also: Barassi LineAustralian rules football has attracted more overall interest among Australians (as measured by the Sweeney Sports report) than any other football code, and, when compared with all sports throughout the nation, has consistently ranked first in the winter reports, and most recently third behind cricket and swimming in summer. In some of the southern states, it is the most popular sport of all sports.
As a football code, it is the most popular form of football in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. It is less popular in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland, although there has traditionally been support for the code in regions within those states, such as parts of southern New South Wales including the Riverina and parts of Queensland such as Cairns and the Gold Coast. The AFL teams from Brisbane and Sydney attracted a strong increase in crowds and television audiences when they won four premierships between them from 2001–2005 (and appeared in Grand Finals between 2001 and 2006 inclusive), though crowds and TV ratings have both declined as both teams' performances (in particular the Brisbane Lions who have suffered a decline since losing the 2004 AFL Grand Final) in subsequent years dropped. Demographic and migration trends have affected all football codes in recent years, but most significantly Australian football in Queensland.
It is particularly popular amongst indigenous Australian communities. Indigenous Australians are well represented in professional AFL players: while only 2.4% of the population is of indigenous origin, 10% of AFL players identify themselves this way.
Australian rules is the national sport of Nauru.
Read more about this topic: Australian Rules Football Culture
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.”
—Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)