Home > Our Publications > Australian Outlook> 2004 > Feburary

Cricket takes a back seat

AUSTRALIANS may think they are the world champions at cricket and rugby league and almost rugby union (they lost to England in the World Cup final, remember) but these sports are quickly being overtaken by soccer.
It has overtaken cricket as the most played sport by Australians.
A Morgan poll found soccer's national participation rates have eclipsed cricket for the first time.
An estimated 1,218,000 Australians aged 14 and over played soccer compared with 1,057,000 playing cricket.
It is also the sport played by most Australian schoolchildren and is the sport most played by males.
Netball retained its rating as the preferred participation sport for females, followed by, you guessed it, soccer.
"I don't think this is a flash in the pan. I think soccer's here to stay," Morgan pollster Anthony Lawrence said.
"People have realised that soccer's the international sport and they've seen the passion involved in the game, whereas cricket can go for five days without a result at the end of it."
Mr Lawrence said soccer's profile had increased dramatically with the rise of Australian players such as Liverpool's Harry Kewell.
He believed cricket controversies were factors in cricket's fall in popularity.
Basketball (892,000 people) ranked as the third most-played sport by Australians, with netball (762,000) fourth, and Australian rules football (585,000) (AFL) fifth. Volleyball ranked sixth, ahead of rugby league (seventh) and rugby union (eighth).
Another survey, this time by Sweeney Sports of 1297 Australians found 47 per cent have an interest in soccer, up from 44 per cent last year, while Australian rules remained steady on 52 per cent.
Soccer has extended its lead over rugby league and rugby union, which registered interest levels of 39 per cent and 37 per cent, although last year's Rugby World Cup boosted the sport. Soccer's improvement 'Is not a short-term thing, but has been consistent over a long period of time", Sweeney Sports director Martin Hirons said. "I don't see it overtaking the AFL in the next five years, but maybe in the next decade."
AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson has identified soccer as the biggest threat to his code, and the AFL spends about $30 million a year on promotion to counter soccer's appeal.
The survey found swimming remained the country's No 1 sport, with 59 per cent interest, followed by cricket on 57 per cent and tennis on 55 per cent.
But in more bad news for the AFL, Sweeney found the code's grand final had lost its position as the country's most significant annual sporting event for the first time since it started the measure in 1991.
Appropriately for a nation of gamblers, the event's top place was taken by the Melbourne Cup, run on the first Tuesday each November, which was nominated by 22 per cent of respondents compared with the 20 per cent who picked the AFL grand final
"The Sweeney Sports Reports have, since 1988-89, recorded an almost continual increase in soccer's popularity on all measures of interest participation, attendance, television viewing, radio listening and print media readership," it said.
The report also recorded: "Rugby union also continued a long-term trend of increasing in popularity and is now virtually equal with rugby league on all measures. Following the World Cup expectations are that it will eclipse league."
Swimming retained its position as Australia's most popular sport, a title it has held since Sweeney Sports' first report in 1989.
"Almost six of every 10 people (59 per cent) claim to have some level of interest in it," the report claimed.
Cricket (57 per cent) is now second, displacing third-placed tennis (55 per cent), while interest in Australian football (AFL) secured the code in fourth position.
Soccer was rated fifth most popular sport from rugby league (sixth), which the report said was losing ground to union (seventh).
"Rugby league slumped four percentage points to a 39 per cent interest level, only holding sixth place by two points from rugby union," the report stated.
"Union's rise, like soccer, has been almost continual during the 16 years the Sweeney Sports Report-has been conducted."