User:POds/Sandbox/Rugby league in Australia

Rugby league is a popular team sport played in Australia. It competes with Australian Rules Football, Rugby Union and Soccer (football) for the title of "most popular football code", and is most dominant in the states of New South Wales and Queensland. Australia has a rich history of rugby league, first taking up the sport in 1908. The country has reigned dominant over the other rugby league-playing nations for many years, but enjoys a strong rivalry with New Zealand.

"League", as it is commonly known, is often seen as a "working man's sport". The Australian Rugby League, the sport's governing body in Australia, is working on ways to expand rugby league's popularity across political and social borders.

History

Main Article: History of rugby league

A similar schism to that which occurred in Great Britain, and for similar reasons, opened up in the union establishment of Australia, where the term "rugby league" was first used for the new game. In 1907, at the instigation of the famous test cricket player Victor Trumper, at a meeting in Bateman's Crystal Hotel in Sydney, New South Wales, the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) was formed. Players were immediately recruited for the new game, and despite the threat of immediate and lifetime expulsion from the rugby union, the NSWRL managed to recruit Herbert "Dally" Messenger, the most famous rugby player in Sydney at that time.

Governing body

The Australian Rugby League is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in Australia.

The national team

The Australian national rugby league team represents Australia at rugby league. Since July 7, 1994 the team's nickname has been the Kangaroos. (Prior to that the Australian team was only referred to as the Kangaroos when on tours of Great Britain or France. They are administered by the Australian Rugby League.

Competitions

The premier rugby league competition in Australia is the National Rugby League (NRL). The NRL competition is the result of a merger between the Australian Rugby League and Super League competitions in 1998.

The statewide Queensland Cup (rugby league competition) is contested by ten teams from Queensland and one team from New South Wales.

Attendances

Rugby league attendances saw their best year in 1995, with total attendances reaching 3,061,893. This was a large increase on the previous years and was no doubt due to the formation of several new clubs and the renaming of the competition, from the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) to the Australian Rugby league (ARL).

The year of 1996 saw what may be the largest decrease in attendance ever (2,450,776, down 611,117 down from 1995) in the ARL. This crowd decrease is attributed to the poor publicity surrounding the ongoing court cases related to Super League. When the SL was introduced in 1997 it attracted 1,111,189. The ARL for the same year saw slightly higher attendances of 1,308,824. Subsequent years of 1998, in which the merger of the SL and ARL formed the National Rugby League (NRL) and 1999 also saw increases.

The year 2000 saw club mergers and "relegations" from the NRL. As a result of the effective slashing of clubs from the NRL was also mimiced in the slashing of crowd figures as fans became disgraced as the club they had supported for many years was torn apart.

Crowd figures did not improve until 2003, with an increase of 249,317 on the previous year, 2002. Figures increased again in 2004 and 2005. The aggregate crowd for 2005 was 2,964,288 and the average crowd figure was 16,468, the highest ever recorded.[1]

Demographics of the game

The following subsections refer to data released from 2001 to 2003 and most likely represents the years 2000 to 2002 (the most recent available years). Further information may be available in late 2005 or early 2006. See references below.

Gender

Rugby league is played by 58,000 adults nationally, which is 0.4% of the population, for ages 18 years and over. The sport is dominated by men, with only 6% of women playing rugby league or 93% of men (54,000), hence rugby league is seen primarily as a man's sport. This is also in contrast with other sports whose participation among women are much higher. The lack of women, in Australian rugby league is almost entirely due to the rough nature and frequency of injuries in the game. Rugby league in Australia has also endured an poor rapport with women in recent times. This is in the wake of several separate alleged sex offences and other immoral behaviour by players involved in National Rugby League clubs, none of which is more well known then the bulldogs sex scandal.

The direct consequences of the allegations are not known and have never been measured but it is generally considered after several repeat allegations against many clubs over 3 years, that women have shunned the sport. Perhaps the greatest measure is the length that rugby league organisations will go to, to counteract the bad image their organisations have subsequently endured.

In 2005 the Canterbury Bulldogs put forward several initiatives aimed directly at women. These included an invite only lunch for 300 of Sydney's corporate women to raise funds for the Bulldogs chosen charity, The Breast Cancer Foundation and skills development for school girls with in the Bulldogs district. This follows the recruitment of female members to the boards of the National Rugby League and several of its clubs for the first time in history. Whilst the exact impact on the sport may never be known, its obvious that rugby league bodies have recognised the poor image rugby league has with women in Australia and thus national bodies and clubs alike have acted to curb any further damage.

Age

More than 55% of the 58,000 people who play rugby league are between the ages of 18 and 24 years. The other 45% of people are made up of approximately 19,000 between the ages of 25 and 34 and 5,000 between the ages of 35 and 44. The decreasing participation with age is in line with most sports with in Australia.

What these figures do not include is the participation with people below the ages of 18. Rugby league is certainly a strong junior sport in the rugby league heartlands (see below). However there are plenty of obstacles that stand in the way of rugby league having a greater share of junior participation. The major factor of this in previous years has been the high injury rates amongst juniors.

Statistics have shown previously that half of all injuries that occur in rugby league, occur to the ages of children under 15 years of age. Even if these figures were false, the general consensus is that rugby league, along with any derived rugby code is a very physical game and injuries are an almost certainty. Recent research by the University of New South Wales has shown that 23% of parents are likely to discourage their son from playing rugby league. In contrast, the next most discouraged sport was rugby union, with only 7.5% of parents willing to discourage the sport. So whilst this does not help us gain an understanding of the actual junior participation figures, it does give us an understanding of what junior rugby league is up against in Australia.

The injury rates and the public perception of rugby league as dangerous sport are most likely the catalysts for the introduction of several initiatives by the national rugby league and ARL development in recent years to curb the number of youth playing other sports. The specific initiatives over the years includes a Safe play code, Kids to kangaroos programs and new forms of modified rugby league, such as, Mod league and Mini Footy to help young children prepare for the full rigours of the international code. Also with such introductions are the competitions aimed at school children such as Joey league, League of legends and League Sevens, which use modified rugby league rules such as Tag and Sevens

Location

New South Wales and Queensland account for 90% (52,000) of the 58,000 people playing rugby league nationally; 30,000 of which are from NSW. However, per capita figures show that Queensland and the Northern territory rate a head of New South Wales participation figures, making Queensland and the Northern Territory the largest participators per capita of rugby league in Australia. The Australian Capital Territory also has a large portion of rugby league players compared to other states not yet mentioned, but out of those that have been, the ACT has the lowest per capita participation in rugby league.

Rugby league enjoys only minor participation in other states of Australia due to competition with Australia's main sporting spectacle, the Australian Football League. Victoria and Western Australia are close in terms of total number of participants but WA have a higher per capita of rugby league participation compared to Victoria. South Australia has the lowest participation levels for mainland Australia and Tasmania by far has the least participants for rugby league in the entire nation.

The reasons for such division between the states of Australia is certainly due to the promotion of Victorian rules football, as it was known in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In those times, Victorian rules football was expanding through out Australia. The only two states that still today remain largely unaffected are New South Wales and Queensland. This is due to the already strong following of rugby and in the early 20th century rugby league. By the early 20th century, it was clear that the Victorian rules where not making significant strides in the two states and several attempts to merge rugby league and Victorian rules to create a uniquely Australian brand of football failed and the situation of Victorian rules or as it is known today, Australian Rules Football remains very similar.

State based participation with in Australian sports normally show a larger amount of participation in the regional or rural areas of that state, commonly called "Rest of State" as opposed to the capital of that state. Participation in rugby league bucks this trend with most of its participation coming from capital cities of Australia, the largest being Sydney and Brisbane.

Culture

Rugby league forms a part of modern 'pop culture' in Australia as do other professional sports such as Australian Rules Football, Rugby Union and Soccer. Rugby league stars in Australia are amoung the nations most highly skilled, professional and well paid athletes. These men, just as other professional sports in other nations are looked up to and admired as role models by younger generations.

Rugby league events with in Australia rate amoung the most popular TV events each year including the NRL Grand Final and the State of Origin, which also has a moderate following in other nations. In recent years, rugby league with in Australia, including several high profile clubs have also partly and mostly been owned by News LTD following on from the Super League fall-out in 1997/98. Rugby league has also been a prime product driving the acceptance of pay-TV in Australia, as rugby league games are consistintly the most watched programs on Australian pay TV.

Attitude towards women

Rugby football has been dominated by men since its early history in the boys schools of 19th century England. Rugby league is today still male dominated although considerable amounts of women attend and watch the games. Women have however shyed away from playing the game, which is obviously a result of the games fearce physical nature. Women have therefore have not been active participants in building the culture of rugby league through out time. This is significant given women have been an outstanding contributor to modern culture.

These ideas follow on from several cases in which high profile rugby league stars have been accused of sexual assault on several occasions. The most outstanding example is the well known and high publicised bulldogs sex scandal, although there have been many accounts of sexual assault, harassment and obscene behavour by rugby league players and officials on various occasions.

The nations rugby league bodies have been quick to defend any accusations of a negative culture with in rugby league circles, despite the numous claims made with in the media. However, one can not help notice that there is an abundance of cases that stack up against rugby league. Many would argue it is not a problem of rugby league, which is true, many professional sports that are constantly in the spot light or under the microscope with local and international media go through very common things. However there does seem to be an overwhelming number of cases in rugby league compared to other sports, perhaps a factor of the lack of women involved through out various levels of the game.

In Australia, Australian Rules Football has also seen a number of accusations of sexual assault and rugby league players behaving badly. In fact, it should be noted that the two most popularised sports in Australia, I.e rugby league and Australia Rules Football have been the two most heavily criticised in the media for having issues relating to their culture. This has lead to the assumption that rugby league and aussie rules football both suffer from a culture built around masculinity, long estinguished in general society. However it is easy to point out that other codes of football or sport in general may suffer from the same incidents, yet go unnoticed by the media as they are forever focussed on the more professional sports men and women in Australia.

Compounding this problem is the Tall Poppy Syndrome; a condition which frequently infects those in the Australian media(who knew this was an actual infectious disease!?!). A person who has Tall Poppy Syndrome are envious, defamatory, or overly critical of someone because of their notionally higher economic, social or political position. Journalists have been well known to have this condition, causing a voicing of their opinions in popular media outlets to the effects that certain personalities or firms of which those personalities are allied with to be brought in to a negative light. This frequently leads to journalists who often write positive articles about one particular sport to jump on the band wagon and portray another sport or personality in a negative light.

Thus there has been no shortage of media reports on such aspects of the game which have lead the national bodies and clubs to take proactive steps to lift the games profile and educate players. This has involved several high profile charities dinners held by clubs in supporting causes such as breast cancer and many other foundations. Rugby league players are now commonly seen promoting charity events and community programs especially in relation to women which put rugby league in a positive light. National sporting bodies have also introduced rookie camps, which no aim to education players at a young age on the pressures of playing in a highly scrutinised professional institution. The steps being put in to place to educate players are implemented via recommendation of independent researchers who are endorsed by the national rugby league.