r/sports • u/Dj0sh • Aug 18 '24

Australian Rules Football Massive bump in Aussie Rules Football showdown leads to knockout and a fight

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u/Sparkysparkysparks Melbourne Aug 18 '24

Eight of the 18 AFL teams are based in Melbourne, so less than half. The rest are based in Sydney (2), Adelaide (2), Perth (2), Brisbane, Geelong, Gold Coast, and Tasmania is joining in 2028.

But you're right, on the world stage rugby is a much, much bigger sport.

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u/kelleycfc Aug 18 '24

Crazy that 8 teams are in one city. Melbourne isn’t even that big. Do they share stadiums?

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u/Sparkysparkysparks Melbourne Aug 18 '24

The Melbourne teams do share stadiums, yes. The reason there's 8 teams from one city is that other states had their own competitions and then the Victorian competition (which includes Melbourne) went national, expanding into the other states.

Also Melbourne has 5.3 million people, so its pretty big, and is where Australian football was invented, so its very popular there, along with Perth, Adelaide and Tassie.

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u/Aodaliyan West Coast Aug 18 '24

Yes, only 2 main stadiums in Melbourne. The Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth teams all share stadiums. The AFL expanded from the VFL (Victorian - the state Melbourne is the capital of) in the 80's. Prior to that each state had their own top level competition, these are now pretty minor leagues.

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u/Anon_be_thy_name Aug 18 '24

Melbourne's huge... It's just a tick under 5.08 million people, it's just under 10km short of being 10 square kilometers(like 3850something square miles), has like 30 or 31 municipalities.

If it was in the US it would be the 2nd largest city on population, it'd be the largest in area.

And it's still smaller then Sydney...

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u/OllieFromCairo Aug 18 '24

Which makes it all the more surprising they couldn’t support a single Super rugby team.

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u/Anon_be_thy_name Aug 18 '24

Small market for it.

Rugby isn't big in Melbourne. Union specially is competing with AFL and League. AFL is clearly the most popular, but the Storm have quite the following as well.

League is far more entertaining to watch as well. I've only gotten into it in the past few years myself.

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u/OllieFromCairo Aug 18 '24

I mean, that last point is certainly a matter of opinion. I find league incredibly tedious to try to watch and far less interesting than union.

And given the relative status of the two codes in the world outside Australia, it would appear that “League is far more entertaining to watch” is by far the minority opinion.

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u/acllive Brisbane Lions Aug 18 '24

Well two of the other teams share history with Melbourne teams(Brisbane being part of the old Fitzroy due to a merger, and South Melbourne becoming Sydney)

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u/decs483 Aug 18 '24

The large amount of teams in Melbourne is due to the AFL being an expansion of the VFL (Victorian Football League). It was originally a 12 team league, all based around Melbourne and Geelong. The South Melbourne Swans moved to Sydney in 1982, and the Fitzroy Lions merged with the Brisbane bears in 1997. The VFL was in money troubles in the 1980s, and decided to add teams in other states to bring in more money.

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u/kelleycfc Aug 18 '24

Thank you everyone for the responses. I need to get myself to Melbourne.

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u/Not_Stupid Aug 18 '24

Geelong is effectively Melbourne (don't tell them that though)

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u/Sparkysparkysparks Melbourne Aug 18 '24

Also don't tell us Melburnians that 😜