Will it make a difference?

[Vivien]

This year it was said a couple of times that the best way for the Swans to boost the popularity of AFL in Sydney would be to win a flag. Well we've done it. So what now?

Everyone has been saying that the Swans' GF win will be "great for the game" in Sydney. I've got no doubts that AFL's popularity in Sydney will increase in the short term. I'm sure we all know heaps of people who have jumped on the bandwagon in the past month. But at the end of the day, will the GF win really make a difference? For how long will its impact be felt?

Thoughts?

[Mike_B]

I don't think it will result in people suddenly deciding to change their sporting allegiances, but some may decide to add to them. I'd expect to see 30K+ crowds virtually every game at the SCGas well.

I'll be very interested to see what sort of effect the flag has on TV coverage of the game up here - found it surprising that on last night's 6pm news, 7 led with a league story while 9 led with the Swans. I'm just sick and tired of not getting shows like Before the Game at all up here, and shows like The Fifth Quarter not following immediately after a Sat night game that is shown at 7:30. Hopefully this will have an impact and give the networks a reason to at least test the waters.

[Frog]

It's not about you or I ... It's not even about those in our age group(s) - Providing you are not 10 or 11 ...

The impact expected is that the kids (late primary school) will see this, pick a hero, wanting to be like their hero and start picking up an Aussie Rules football instead of a Rugby one ... at some point the parents of these kids would want to send them to high schools where AFL is part of the curriculum, not Rugby (or maybe both) to give these kids what they want.

An increase in AFL participation rates in this age group is the aim, I think.

The impact will not be apparant for a few years, until, all of a sudden, there is a plethora of youngsters to choose from, all from the Sydney and NSW area.

[R-1]

Well it won't hurt.

Realistically, Sydney's always going to have a core of hardcore fans and a very large legion of casual fans ("bandwagoners"). This is natural, and it's ok.

We're not Melbourne or Adelaide, we don't have the all-pervading sports culture in this city - it's a large subculture, not a hegemonic and mainstream thing. Just look at the dominant sport, Rugby League, and how even it doesn't have anything like the level of support Aussie Rules does in Adelaide or Melbourne.

We're never going to achieve the dominance or presence that the Adelaide or Perth sides do in their manic fishbowls, or even the level that Brisbane gets among sports mad and parochial Queenslanders. Sydney's sport culture just doesn't work that way. Half the city doesn't care about sport at all, and another quarter or so is only casually interested, but is often doing other things most of the time and not that interested. We do, for some reason, seem to do pretty well in getting support in the ex-pat communities, at least the Brits and the Americans seem to love us.

This lack of hegemonic support isn't a bad thing though, it's just the nature of the landscape. We're secure in the city, we've got our niche and it's a good one and we're not going anywhere. What this win will do is help to continue to expand the circles of hardcore fans a bit further, and give us more respect and visiblity among the casual bandwagoners... Basically, some of the bandwagoners will stay on.

Mikes comments about people *adding* the Swans to their allegiences, and Frog's about winning over more kids, also ring very true.


Edited to Add: I'm also convinced that, including casual fans, we're the most popular sporting club in Australia. If only because we're the biggest city and most populous state. Eat it, Eddie.

[hammo]

We can hope for / expect -

1. More kids to take up AFL instead of union, league or soccer. There are heaps more kids wearing Swans jumpers now than 5 or 10 years ago.

2. Better TV ratings. For many Sydneysiders, that grand final would have been one of the few games they watched. It was a thrilling finish whatever sport you follow and by exposing 1.2 mil or whatever it was in Sydney, you'd assume thousands will be back.

The biggest challenge -

AFL in schools. Until this happens then the game will always be a poor cousin to league, soccer, union.

What the AFL needs to do -

To most Sydneysiders the Swans are AFL. It will p**s off the other 15 clubs no end (especially Eddie Maguire) but promotion of the code in Sydney has to be promotion of the Swans, so the $$$ will be far better spent building the profile of the Premiers.

[timthefish]

for it to really pay off we need to have another strong year to reward any further input channel 10 puts into us. i reckon we need to start the year reasonably well and end up winning a final (preferably at home).

i think the above posts cover most aspects of this issue, particularly the influence on those developing minds and their motor skills.

hopefully, channel 10 is confident of retaining rights in the sydney market so that they don't poison us.

it's been a while since i've read or heard of anything regarding progress in the ethnic asian and other migrant populations. anyone got any idea? is there still a chinese language commentary being broadcast out west somewhere?

[BayesysLeftBoot]

Originally posted by timthefish
for it to really pay off we need to have another strong year

I agree, it really depends on how we back it up. The good thing is that anyone who jumped on the bandwagon this year is probably here to stay. The real challenge however is giving the people who's interest in the swans was raised this year a reason to come along to the games next year and really suck them in. Even though it will help us tremendously we really won't be able to judge it's full effect until 2007 when we see how many people sign up to become fully fledged swans.

[Agent 86]

Re: Will it make a difference?

Originally posted by Vivien
But at the end of the day, will the GF win really make a difference? For how long will its impact be felt?

Basically, who cares? I mean the last 4 Sydney games this year have been among the most exciting sporting events I've ever witnessed (even tho' the Geelong Final nearly killed me). If these games can't get people interested, then they simply don't deserve to share in this amazing community.

The game will survive here regardless of whether a bunch of league & union supporters can't open their eyes long enough to see what this game can be like.

[Damien]

What it does IMO is embed the swans into the psyche of sports loving Sydneysiders.

I think the effect will be enourmous - we wont see converts, but we will see a lot of people next year want to come to the odd game and be far more interested in the results which may lead to more interest in the code generally here.....It will be very easy for the AFL and the Swans to hype specific home matches.

The effect on kids may also be huge.

I am a Wests Tigers fan in the NRL, so I really want them to win this week, but I think for the Swans, a NTH QLD win would be a massive bonus in terms of media coverage over summer also.