World Footy News

While it is not unusual to find the odd Australian Rules football related story in overseas media, it is extremely rare to find sections in news or media sites dedicated to the sport. Happily this situation is slowly changing.

Even the ESPN site in the United States which has categories for covering literally hundreds of relatively obscure sports including Sumo Wrestling does not include Australian rules football (despite the television station carrying the sport as "filler" programming in the 1980s).

While participation leads to an overall growth in interest, dedicated news sections in the mainstream media is as good a yardstick as any for a sport that is trying to break into a new country and gain some sort of mindshare. For Aussie Rules, this goal has thus far prove elusive.

However some progress has been made on this front.

Since November 2006, RTE Sport in Ireland has had a dedicated International Rules section to cover the International Rules tests between Australia and Ireland. Although it wasn't initially set up to cover footy it has more recently turned to regularly covering the AFL and particularly the progress of its growing Irish contingent. Perhaps it is a matter of time before RTE covers Australian football news.

This year, New Zealand has also emerged as the source of a small amount of media attention for Australian football, corresponding roughly with the increase in participation.

In recent months the NZ Herald added an "Australian Rules" category to its sports section which includes an RSS feed. While it doesn't appear in the sports homepage, it is a welcome addition. In it, the Herald has carried some recent stories such as the incident of Richmond AFL star Graham Polak getting hit by a tram and the potential impact of the Sonny Bill Williams saga on the Australian Football League (with the tenuous possibility that it could set a precedent on salary caps). One would hope that it can also afford some small coverage of the 2008 International Cup.

While it is very early stages for media coverage of Australian Rules overseas, it does show that growth in participation creates demand for regular media coverage which in turn may help more people to become aware of the sport. The media uses statistics to gauge the popularity of news to readers. In principle as more local people read the articles, the more prominence these sections they are afforded, although in reality media interests are sometimes complicated by other factors and agendas.