Which is most popular football code in Australia?

Australia has four codes of professional football. The Australian Football League (AFL), the National Rugby League (NRL), the A league (soccer) and the Australian Rugby Union (ARU), for both male and female competitions. Apart from the periodic bursts of support for soccer for example, for the Matildas in their world cup (Matildas ‘rewrite history books’ as semi-final smashes TV ratings) .  AFL is regarded as the most popular code in Australia in terms of registered players, value of television rights, national coverage, and game attendance.  Recently this dominance has been questioned by Australian Rugby League (ARL) chief Peter V’landys (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/nrl/nrls-record-revenue-result-declared-as-code-dethrones-afl-as-biggest-game)-in-australia)  These claims ere quickly rebutted by AFL CEO Andrew Dillion who claims that the AFL is still the no 1 sport in Australia by any measure.

Yet popularity can be gauged in several ways. AFL clearly has the advantage in national coverage, player registrations, average match attendance and total revenue. Yet the NRL now has more television and streaming service viewers and there are claims that the NRL is managing the growth of female sport better, particularly its integration with the male competition. Below is listed key indicators of popularity which may be considered in aggregate to examine the relative popularity of both codes

In making comparisons it must be remembered that the AFL has one more club than the NRL plus a hybrid presence in Tasmania. As well, due to data constraints, the data shown in Table 1 is gathered from different sources, which may impact upon its consistency.  Finally, the data compiled for one year (2023) chosen because it is the most recent available but still may be

 Match Attendance

AFL clearly has the advantage in national team footprint and match attendance, having almost double the average at game attendance and a substantial revenue advantage. However, the NRL is trending upwards in all these indicators and narrowing the gap. It is already ahead in some other important indicators. Moreover, data from the Deloitte Football Money 2024 show that match attendance is at approximately 16% is a relatively small and declining source of total revenue, with broadcasting and commercial activities each contribution approximately 42%.(https://www.scottishsupporters.net/research/impact-of-tv-broadcasting-on-match-day-attendance), Data for 2021 excluded as Covid saw a dramatic fall in matchday attendance (2.6% of total revenue) and rise in the relative importance of broadcasting( 55%)

 Television and Streaming Audience

The NRL also has greater television and streaming audience, both domestically and internationally. The performance of the NRL in attracting a streaming audience is strong and set national records in 2023. (https://www.footyindustry.com/2023/10/03/state-of-the-game-2023-nrl-nrlw-tv-ratings-attendances-social-media-and-memberships/)

Grand Final Audience

The AFL Grand final attracted 3.73 M   domestic viewers compared to the 3.57 M for the NRL Grand final. However, both were shown to an international audience when international audiences in New Zealand and the UK are added, the NRL final reached over 5M Exact overseas audience for the AFL is not known the 2023 NRL Grand Final had the highest-ever live-streaming audience for an AFL or NRL Grand Final in Australian TV history

1.Gross Revenue and Gross Operating Surplus

In 2023 the AFL was still significantly ahead of revenue for the NRL, although the year- on- year increase in revenue from NRL at $107.3 M was slightly above the AFL, $103.5 M. The NRL had a higher gross operating surplus of $62.9 M  for 2023 compared to $27.2  for the AFL but much of this is accounted for by greater allocations to the clubs.

2.Growth in Female Players

The AFL has a slight edge in the numbers of female players (186,443 compared to 180,000) but has been criticised for marginalising the women’s game.  In contrast the NRLW has now instituted a full State of Origin series and the 2023 grand final had a crowd of 42,000, a record for women’s club sport in Australia.  in both codes the prospect of equal pay seems some distance away. (https://theconversation.com/the-afl-has-consistently-put-the-womens-game-second-is-it-the-best-organisation-to-run-aflw)

3. Potential for Growth

In terms of the potential for growth, the AFL was quicker and more decisive in their actions in building a national footprint. In contrast the ARL (forerunner to NRL) took over 90 years to establish a team in Melbourne and showed its Sydney-centric nature in sacrificing teams in Perth and Adelaide to end the Super League war in the 1990’s. However, these early successes of the AFL may limit their scope for expansion. The establishment of the Tasmania Franchise will not bring in many additional supporters.  AFL is already dominant there and well served by the regular visits from Hawthorn. Moreover, the financial benefits of supporting another fledging club may be a long time coming. Overseas expansion of the game is limited by its idiosyncratic rules and the lack of any regular international competition. The NRL, while not as internationally spread as Rugby Union, does have scope both to expand the game (second team in NZ, one in PNG and domestically by returning to Perth and Adelaide). The recent State of Origin game in Adelaide drew a record crowd for a rugby league match in South Australia of 48,000.

4.International Exposure

Neither the AFL or NRL have international exposure to rival football and, to a lesser extent, Rugby Union. Of the two, the NRL has a more active and regular international profile. The AFL has not been active internationally since the 2017 AFL international cup, first staged in 2002 and last won by the PNG Mosquitos in 2017, The AFL has also played exhibition matches in China. For 2024 the AFL have planned three events; the Asia Cup, Pacific Cup and Trans-Atlantic Cup –and will each comprise open male and female divisions

The NRL has more comprehensive and regular international involvement including an NRL team based in Auckland, with plans for expansion into Christchurch, test matches against Great Britain (England) and New Zealand and a Rugby League World Cup involvement every 4 years. The emergence of formerly second tier nations such as PNG, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji have significantly increased the incidence of international rugby league and the NRL are expected to admit PNG to the competition to make up the 18^th team by 2026. The emergence of Catalan and Toulouse in and their membership in the UK Super-League may see the re-emergence of France back to its former tier one status.  Finally fledgling attempts are being made to enter the US sports market

5. Social Media Coverage

The NRL has a sizeable lead in social media followers and is growing more rapidly.  Sports AU concludes that collectively the NRL has thirteen million viewers/followers across major social media platforms. Top is the Broncos with 737,000 Facebook, 449,000 Instagram and 163,000 on twitter (X).  They estimate the total AFL followers at 8.56 million with X the main platform.  Sports AU also concludes:

“The NRL has experienced a recent spike in social media growth, with a year-on-year growth rate of 6.75%, significantly higher than the AFL’s growth rate of 5.38%

6.Sports Betting

Sports Bet estimate the size of the sport gambling market in Australia is $8.2 billion (cite Guardian reference). While both sports relate to sports betting the NRL is more heavily identified. In 2023, 9 NRL teams have sponsorships with Casinos or gambling companies. This is potentially a source of weakness in the future as many sports worldwide seek to reduce the influence of gambling 9n their sport.

Verdict

The data above suggest different results across the nine indicators for the AFL and the NRL. But which indicators are the most important? Is it better to have a higher match attendance or a larger television and streaming audience   The Deloitte Football Money Report 2024 may offer some guidance. The data in this report, based on the revenue streams of the top 20 Football clubs. disaggregated into three categories, match attendance, broadcasting and commercial (including merchandise). A review of the average results 2021-2023 indicate that the relative contributions to revenue are, on average, match day attendance and crowd expenditure (16%) commercial (42%) and broadcasting (42%) In short, match day attendance and related sales are now a relatively small part of the revenue stream of professional football clubs and correspondingly broadcasting and commercial activities account for 84% of total revenue.

Revenue streams do not necessarily reflect popularity and there is a difference in the amount of fan commitment between match attendance (with associated costs and travel time) and viewing However, while match day attendance does bring in revenue and strengthen fan loyalty it also adds to club costs in terms of ground maintenance and security provisions. The modern tendency to move to smaller stadiums reflects some of these cost benefit considerations (https://www.rpsgroup.com/insights/aap/stadium-size-why-bigger-developments-are-not-necessarily-better)

The AFL by virtue of its near National coverage, significantly greater average match attendance and gross revenue, remains the dominant football code in Australia. Yet, this dominance is under threat. In some ways, and to use business theory, the AFL could be described as in the mature stage of its life cycle.( Business Life Cycle – Understanding the 5 Different Stages (corporatefinanceinstitute.com)  In this stage, the organisation is reaping the benefits of past investment, but growth is slowing, markets are nearing saturation  and previous dynamism may be reducing.  At this stage, an organisation may move into decline or renew itself through diversification. Given, its current national footprint and lack of international expansion possibilities, this renewal would most likely come from increased commercial activities. In contrast. there is evidence that in the digital age, the NRL is becoming more technically savvy, as witnessed by their social media and streaming successes, and the organisation has more scope for expansion both domestically and internationally. Through the current management, it is also concentrating its revenue approach on broadcasting and commercial activities and is probably more concerned with optimising crowds for television presentation rather than maximising total attendance. In the area of managing the growth of female participation it clearly has a current advantage over the AFL.

In short, the AFL is currently the dominant football code in Australia but advantage over the NRL is narrowing and should the NRL successfully move into Western Australia and/or South Australia, internationally into PNG and promote further expansion into New Zealand and the Pacific, this advantage may disappear altogether.