Professional Sport
Professional sport leagues in Australia include the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League and the National Basketball League. Unlike in Europe and the United States, professional clubs tend to be member run organisations instead of single owner, for profit businesses. Australian professional sport generates over A$10 billion dollars in revenue. The major football codes and professional leagues in the country all watch what their competition does in order to improve their own strategic picture in the Australian sporting landscape. Revenues for professional sport comes from three primary streams including sponsorship, and television rights.
In 2007, the Australian Football League had the greatest financial stability of all the leagues in Australia with turnover of A$280 million, with the National Rugby League coming in second with A$120 million. At the same time, the AFL had highest level of corporate support with major national and international sponsors such as Air Emirates, Vodafone and Toyota. The AFL also beat the NRL in terms of geographic spread of their teams, with the AFL having teams in five states while the NRL had teams in three states in 2007. In 2007, the AFL was also spending A$30 million in youth player development compared to the NRL's A$15 million.
The National Rugby League traces its roots back to the 1890s when rugby league split from rugby union as the code went professional. By 1908, the professional New South Wales Rugby League was created. Collective player bargaining came to the professional game by 1982, with 95% of all played having joined the player union by 1991. Media access to the sport was one of the main reasons for a split in the sport in the 1990s that resulted in the New South Wales Rugby League facing competition from the Rupert Murdoch backed Super League, and the "Super League war" in 1997, which ended with the founding of the National Rugby League which had become a national, not state based, professional competition.
In contrast, the National Basketball League was formed in 1978 and is Australia's top professional basketball competition. In its most recently completed season in 2011–12, it had seven teams in the country, plus one team in New Zealand. One of the purposes of the league is to provide a system to provide players to feed into the Australia men's national basketball team.
The Australian Football League saw money pour into the sport during the 1990s and 2000s. In 1993, total player payments were A$24 million but reached A$95 million by 2003.
Read more about this topic: Sport In Australia
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