Sport in Australia
One of the pieces of advices by one of my supervisors was to add an overview and history of sport in Australia. This section should be before any definition about fans in order to familiarise any potential non-Australian assessors with the sporting situation in Australia. The section below is the first draft attempt at doing that. It probably needs more sources. I debated including aboriginals and their history of sport in the Australian context. The problem is that the group does not appear to have a huge impact on online fandom, and their sports that pre-existed European occupation didn’t get adopted by the Europeans. Aboriginal fans exist but mostly in the context of the European based sport culture that Australians adopted. Hence, their exclusion.
Sport in Australia
Sport is an important part of Australian culture, life and the nation’s history. (Cashman, 2002) In trying to understand the country, it is important to understand sport because of those connections and the importance of sport to the nation’s identity and for the identity of many individual Australians. (Adair & Vamplew, 1997)
At the time of Australia’s European colonization, sport had taken an almost religious quality among the British. Several sports, including cricket, had been recently codified, making it easy for sports to grow and become spectator events. Sport was not a motivating factor in the country’s colonization, but it was quickly seen as a way by the British establishment as reinforcing British cultural ideals. (Cashman, 2010, p. 11) Early Australian sport also served an important survival role, with sports like hunting and fishing to help supplement early food supplies, and racing of horses and boats helping relieve mental tedium. (p. 12)
Sports that were popular amongst early Australian convicts included boxing, wrestling and cock fighting. Boxing was one of the first sports to receive media attention in the country, with the Sydney Gazette covering some bouts and expressing concerns about the impact of blood sports on the colony. Popular sports in the early 1800s included swimming and boat racing. (Cashman, 2010, p. 14)
While convicts played sport, the military that was charged with supervising the colony also developed their own sporting traditions. Sports they participated in included horse racing (Cashman, 2010, p. 15) and billiards. (p. 16) The military helped to spread cricket during the 1830s in cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart. (p. 16) They also helped to spread rugby during the 1860s. (p. 16)
Free Australian settlers during the 1820s to 1860s played a variety of sports including cricket, lawn bowls, billiards, boxing, athletics, horse racing, wrestling and shooting. (Cashman, 2010, p. 18) Much of this early sporting culture was centered around pubs and drinking establishments, places that served as vital community centers in the early history of European settlement of Australia. Many of these sporting events were spectator ones, attracting a large number of male watchers but very few female spectators. (p. 18) Premiere sporting events of the day could attract crowds as large as 10,000. (p. 19) By the mid-nineteenth century, publicans could no longer afford to run sporting establishments out of their pubs. In other cases, sport governing bodies began to be established on a local and state level that further removed the pub from the center of sport organization in Australia. (p. 19)
Australia’s culture of sport clubs began as early as the late 1820s with the founding of Sydney Turf Club in 1825. (Cashman, 2010, p. 19) The very influential Melbourne Cricket Club was founded in 1838. (p. 20) These clubs reflected the ethnic, social and political climate at the time based on membership, who was allowed to join and who was not, which clubs they competed against and which ones they did not. (p. 21)
Media coverage of sport started by the 1820s. It covered the social impact of sport related gambling, blood sport, events to entertain the local population, and the facilities available for sport. This coverage remained limited until the 1850s, when sport only publications were first published in the colony. (Cashman, 2010, p. 22)
Early history of European Australian women’s sport involved women participating in separate facilities in urban areas as they were excluded from participating along side men. Women were also generally excluded from being spectators in men’s sports that were viewed as violent or affiliated with pubs.(Cashman, 2010, p. 23)
Australia’s culture of sport punters and spectator sport was well established by the 1850s. (Cashman, 2010, p. 24) Alcohol was firmly established as part of the sport culture for players and spectators. Participation existed on formal and informal levels. Gambling was an important component of Australian sport. International sporting competition was of equal importance to other levels of sport in the country. (p. 24) The major spectator sports of the country that would help further define national identity had been introduced including horse racing, cricket, Australian rules football, and rugby. The culture of sporting celebrity was in place. (p. 25) School and university sport emerged on the Australian sport scene by the 1850s, which would help to further team sports as spectator and participation sports in Australia and reinforce the regionalism of some sports such as rugby and Australian rules. (Cashman, 2010, p. 28)
Spectatorship has remained high in Australia, though the demographics of who watches have changed from the early days when women were excluded. In 2005-2006, 36.9% of all Australian women and 51.9% of all Australian men attended a sporting event. 52.6% of all Australian women aged 18 to 24 attended a live match, the highest of any female age grouped measured. For men, the highest rate was 62.1% for men aged 25 to 34. Spectatorship rates are higher outside of the capital cities for both genders: 51.0% in capital cities to 53.5% outside capital cities for men, and 35.6% for women in capital cities and 39.2% for women outside capital cities. The greatest rate of spectatorship is for Australian born with 50.2% having attended a sporting event, compared to 42.1% of citizens born in other English-speaking countries and 21.2% of citizens born in non-English speaking countries. (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007)
Spectatorship by sport in 2005-2006 was highest with Australian rules with 15.8% of the total population having attended a match. The next most popular sport was horse racing at 12.5%, followed by motor sports and rugby league at 9.3%, outdoor cricket at 4.6%, rugby union at 4.3%, and 3.5% for soccer. When broken down by gender, Australian rules is still the most popular with 12.5% having attended a match. Horseracing is second with 11.2%, rugby league third at 6.7%. motor sports fourth at 4.7% and rugby union fifth at 2l9%. For men, Australian rules tops with 19.2%, horse racing second at 13.8%, motor sports third at 13.0%, rugby league fourth at 12.0%, and outdoor cricket fifth at 6.9%. (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007) By 2009-2010, these numbers had not changed much. Overall, when men and women are combined, Australian rules and horse racing stayed number one and number two: Australian rules saw an increase of 0.4% in attendance and horse racing saw a decline of 1.4%. Rugby league was no longer tied with motorsports, both sports seeing decreases: Rugby league to 8.9% and motorsports to 8.1%. Soccer jumped above harness racing and rugby union, with a 1.9% increase in attendance, while harness racing cost 0.7% attendance and rugby union lost 1.0%. (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011)
Television viewing has become an important component of modern sport culture. Prior to 2009, the Australian Football League (AFL) had historically held higher aggregate television ratings than the National Rugby League (NRL) in terms of total viewers for all events connected to each league. In 2009, for the first time, the NRL beat the AFL on a season aggregate with 128.5 million total viewers compared to the AFL’s 124.3 million viewers when pay and free-to-air television were combined. (Newstalk ZB, 2009)
As discussed above, participation is a defining characteristic of Australia’s sporting culture. Data provided for 2009-2010 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011) breaks participation down by gender and sport/form of exercise. For men, the most popular form of exercise is walking at 15.6% of the total Australian male participation, followed by aerobics at 11.2%, cycling at 8.2%, jogging and golf at 7.5%, swimming and diving at 6.4%, tennis at 4.4%, soccer at 3.7% and cricket at 2.8%. For women, the most popular form of exercise is 30.0%, aerobics at 16.7%, swimming at 8.4%, jogging at 5.6%, cycling at 4.9%, netball at 4.6% and tennis at 3.6%. (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011) Spectatorship and participation are not closely aligned.
Sponsorship continues to play an important role in modern Australian sport. Sports have historically attracted sponsors that give ideas about Australian culture on a wider level. For cricket, Australian rules football and rugby league, alcohol companies have historically been major sponsors. This includes sponsoring events in Australia as recently as 2006, when alcohol sponsorship had been restricted or banned in countries such as the United Kingdom. Sponsorship by alcohol related companies is limited to certain sports, with the Australian Olympic Committee and Australian soccer on the A-League and federation level all managing to survive without it. (Jones, 2010, p. 258)
Historically and in the present, there are a few important characteristics of Australian sport: High rates of participation and spectatorship, sport being important to the culture, and sponsorship playing an important role in supporting sport in the country.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007, January 25). 4174.0 – Sports Attendance, Australia, 2005-06. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved July 5, 2011, from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/DetailsPage/4174.02005-06?OpenDocument
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2011, April 13). 4156.0 – Sports and Physical Recreation: A Statistical Overview, Australia, 2011. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved July 5, 2011, from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Latestproducts/A25E5C7B8769217BCA25787000149D37?opendocument
Cashman, R. (2002). Sport in the national imagination, Australian sport in the Federation decades. Sydney: Walla Walla Press.
Cashman, R. (2010). Paradise of Sport. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Jones, S. C. (2010). When does alcohol sponsorship of sport become sports sponsorship of alcohol? A case study of developments in sport in Australia. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, 11(3), 250-261. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Newstalk ZB. (2009, December 21). League: Rugby League outrates AFL for first time ever in Aussie | LEAGUE News. Breaking & Daily News, Sport & Weather | TV ONE, TV2 | TVNZ. Retrieved July 5, 2011, from http://tvnz.co.nz/rugby-league-news/league-becomes-australia-s-top-sport-3315931