Its research showed that 50 per cent of the Australian adult population is now interested in soccer, the sport’s highest level of interest since the Sweeney Sports Report was first published 20 years ago. The Report, recognised as Australia’s most authoritative sports and sponsorship survey, calculates ‘interest’ by combining involvement of participation, attendance, television viewing, radio listening and print media readership.
Soccer’s rating is now only four percentage points fewer than Australian Rules’ rating, the narrowest gap between the two codes since the Report began. And the research was conducted between October last year and March, before this summer’s World Cup at which the Australian team reached the knock out stages.
Australian Rules’ overall interest of 54% is only one point short of its record level. It has the highest proportion of attendees (29%) among all 50 sports measured by the survey and also the highest proportion (51%) of television viewers. Both figures are records for the sport. Rugby League (at 42%) is now well behind soccer in the proportion of people interested while Rugby Union has possibly plateaued (at 40% interest) after increasing its fan base virtually year after year between 1988 and 2004.
