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The Australian sporting landscape

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    The Australian sporting landscape

    Sweeney Sports Research have published the results of their latest survey into what sports Australians are interested in. "Interest" in a sport is defined as participating in, attending as a spectator, watching on tv, listening to on the radio or reading about.

    This is the league table (% figures):

    1 Tennis 58
    2 Swimming 54
    3 Australian Rules 53
    4 Cricket 51
    5 Soccer 50
    6 Rugby League 44
    7 Rugby Union 36
    8 Motor car racing 35
    9 Athletics 28
    10 Netball 26
    11 Golf 26
    12 Basketball 25
    13 Motor cycle racing 24
    14 Surf lifesaving/iron man 20
    15 Group exercise 20
    16 Horse racing 17
    17 Snow skiing - downhill 17
    18 Volleyball 14
    19 Hockey 13 -
    20 Snow skiing – snow boarding 11

    Thought cricket would do better. Good to see soccer comfortably beating both rugbys. I'd like to see a split between A League and foreign football.

    Australia's most important sporting event (%figures):

    1 AFL grand final 23
    2 Melbourne Cup 16
    3 Australian Open tennis 14
    4 NRL grand final 8
    5 State of Origin Rugby League 7
    6 Bledisloe Cup – Rugby Union 4
    7 Bathurst 1000km motor race 4
    8 Cricket – Test series 3

    Number 3 should really be number 1. Terrible result for cricket.

    #2
    The Australian sporting landscape

    With a result like tennis at number 1, I'd imagine a great deal of the participants weren't genuine sports nuts or sport fans to begin with. A vast majority of the population does watch a bit of sport at some time during the year, which broadens those involved in the survey but for most, watching tennis equates to two weeks during January, probably Wimbledon also and maybe the other Grand Slams if an Australian is involved. I'd have expected both netball and basketball to be higher and although I'd have voted for the AFL Grand Final (in my massively biased and blinkered opinion) as highly important, yes The Australian Open on a global scale is far more important than any other sporting event here.

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      #3
      The Australian sporting landscape

      Amazing how much media coverage cricket gets, when you consider that only half the population have any interest in it..(I'm surprised it is that high..)

      I sometimes think that the ABC has some sort of vested interest in promoting cricket. Walk into an ABC bookshop, and every single title in the Sports category will be a book about cricket....

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        #4
        The Australian sporting landscape

        The influential people in the sports departments have a very vested interest - some lovely trips.

        Tennis and swimming may well owe their good figures to casual participation rates. Is there a breakdown between participation and spectating in the survey?

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          #5
          The Australian sporting landscape

          Tennis is a sport a lot of people have a little bit of an interest in. For 2 weeks of the year, it gets very big tv ratings and, for the rest of the the year, nothing.

          The 2005 Hewitt-Safin final is the most watched sports event since the Sydney Olympics.

          No doubt if level of interest was weighted, the sports that people are fanatical about (Aussie Rules, cricket, soccer and the two rugbys) would be miles clear of the field.

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