Brekkie Crumbs (Notes from the NewsRadio Breakfast team) for Wednesday October 21st
Mark - Breakfast E-P …
I see the former Manly Sea Eagles boss Grant Mayer has been appointed as one of the top executives heading the new AFL franchise to be based in western Sydney.
That’s quite a coup for Aussie Rules.
Mayer is a smooth operator and is regarded as one of the best sports administrators in Australia, with terrific contacts in the Harbour city, particularly in Sydney’s west, where he spent many years with the Canterbury Bulldogs as a marketing manager.
His departure from rugby league is a blow, at a time when that code needs all the decent administrators it can get.
Actually, Mayer’s premature departure from Manly is symptomatic of the troubled state of the NRL.
Rugby league loss is AFL’s gain.
But what about the bigger question?
The feasibility of a western Sydney AFL team.
Although a Greater Western Sydney team will take the field in 2012, Dale Holmes, the AFL’s manager for New South Wales and the ACT, yesterday admitted it would take 25 years for the yet-to-be named club to really establish itself, despite all sorts of generous concessions from the AFL, such as having access to nine of the first 15 picks in the previous year’s draft and being able to pick the country’s best 17-year-olds at the end of next season.
And what about encroaching on to what’s traditionally been seen as rugby league’s heartland — Sydney’s west — home to Penrith, Parramatta, the Bulldogs & Wests Tigers?
Well, here’s a newsflash.
The real threat to the AFL is not from rugby league and vice versa.
The reality is that both codes will struggle, as soccer makes greater and greater headway in this country.
Think about the way the A-league has captured public imagination in this country in just five years.
Football Federation Australia recently granted a licence to a western Sydney franchise to take the field in the 2011-2012 season.
They’ll be called the Sydney Rovers.
Think about the way soccer is now marketed as the “World Game” and how we can watch Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal or Chelsea any night of the week on pay-tv.
Think of what getting into the World Cup and being competitive has done for the Socceroos.
Been on a train in Sydney lately?
I remember seeing a giant billboard with Liverpool’s Fernando Torres on it.
Can’t remember seeing Jarryd Hayne or Adam Goodes staring back at me.
Drive around western Sydney on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and odds-on you’ll see a lot more people playing competitive soccer than rugby league….or AFL for that matter.
There are eleven council areas that make up what’s loosely known as “Western Sydney”.
The 2006 census showed that 33 percent of the 1.8 million people who live in “Western Sydney” were born overseas, and the proportion of those born overseas is increasing faster in Western Sydney than it is in Sydney as a whole.
I bet you not too many of them were handed a Sherrin or a Steeden for their 5th birthday, or for Eid, Hanukkah, the Lunar New Year or Orthodox Christmas.
I reckon the ball would’ve been round.
