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Sports of Australia
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Sports of Australia
AFL football is one of Australia's the largest sports and recreation in Australia. The game is Australia's best fan sport. 13.9 million people in 1998 came to watch all levels of the game across all communities. It has, according to research in 2000, the 3rd highest number of registered players out of any Australian sport with the number standing out at 443,978. Defined as an industry, the game gives jobs to about 5000 people. The AFL is the premier competitor sport in Australia.
The AFL is nothing like American football. Players in the AFL score differently. Players also kick, not for field goals, but for free kicks and drop punts, they have handballs where they hold the ball in one hand and punch it with the other. Unlike American football they also do something called marking the ball, by catching the ball kicked by an opposing player. Without being touched in the air, they score differently, and they only give one point for each goal. There are two teams and two goals. A lot like rugby and a little like soccer in the way that you get free kicks for penalties. Yes that's one of the very few ways that the AFL is like American football, but instead of being rewarded with extra yards they are rewarded with a free kick. A point goal is given when the ball is kicked between the goal post and the point post. There is a six point goal to when the ball is kicked between the two tallest white post. With out the ball touching anyone the goal is worth six points.
The high levels of business sponsorship and huge media coverage for 12 months of the year and huge audiences. The major sponsorship of the AFL is Coca-Cola, with other major sponsorship deals with CUB, Ansett Australia and Norwich Union. Other major business partners are the Seven Network which holds all television rights until the end of 2001, and News Limited which is in a big trial with the AFL launching the AFL Website. News Ltd. also has a promotional agreement with the AFL linked to its daily newspapers and has shares in the Colonial Stadium. In December 2000 a proposal by a group consisting of News Limited, Channels 9 and 10 and Foxhole, for the Broadcast rights for AFL Football from 2002 was accepted. This acceptance was made in the context of the first and last rights agreement with the Seven Network under which Seven has the right to bid last for free to air coverage.
Water Polo is just one of the many sports in Australia. The 2000 Olympic Champion was an Australian Water Polo team. As far back as 1876, a Scottish man named William Wilson invented the first rules for Water Polo, a game played between teams in the water. The first game was played in England as a reaction to the public's boredom with the swimming carnivals of the time. The game was later to be known as Water Polo, although the name was stolen from a game that proceeded it. That game was played atop barrels and truly resembled the sport of polo. Although very rough in the early days until the late 1960s, the game now is an energetic sport that requires swimming ability and ball skill over toughness. It is played by both men and women and is the longest-standing team sport in the Olympic Games, being introduced in Paris in 1900. The sport is governed by FINN, the world swimming body, and is played in more than 100 countries.
Lacrosse is a fast, high scoring sport where two teams compete on a field, 55m x 100m, to score goals in the opposition "goals" (metal frame 1.8m in size with net) placed 73m apart. The lacrosse stick consists of a straight handle made of wood, aluminum or graphite with a plastic head containing a net for catching, scooping, carrying, and throwing the hard rubber ball. Each team fields 10 players and substitutes are allowed varying from 6 (club) to 13 (international). Lacrosse, or Baggataway is played in nearly every place in Australia it is even played indoors , but they call it sofcross. Lacrosse was played in the 1904, 1908 and 1948 Olympics.
Cricket is a game played with a bat and a ball. The normal game consists of 2 teams, each of 11 players. There are also 2 umpires. There are many different versions of cricket. Cricket is played in a big field. In the center of the field is a place called the "pitch". The pitch is about 22 yards long. At each end there are "stumps," long pieces of wood. On top of the stumps rest the "bails." The batsman, who is facing, stands at one end of the pitch and the bats man who is not facing at the other. The umpire stands behind the stumps at the "non-striking" end or the "bowling end". The wicket keeper stands directly behind the stumps at the batsman's end. The bowler has two main aims. One is to try and get the bats man out; the second is to give away as little runs away as possible. The ball is bowled over hand and throwing is not allowed. If a bowler throws, it will be given a no-ball. If he continues throwing, the case will possibly be sent to the International Cricket Council (ICC). To get a bats man out, there are a lot of ways. The first one is out bowled. To get a batsman out bowled, the bowler has to aim at the batting end stump. If the ball hits the stump, the batsman is out unless it is a no-ball. Another way is stumped out. Stumped out is when the batsman goes out of the crease and the wicket keeper hits the stump with the ball before the batsmen comes back in. Usually to give this decision, a third umpire is required. Another way is called caught out. To get a batsman caught out, the bowler has to usually trick the batsman, using something like a slower ball, swinging ball, spinning ball, etc. to confuse him. If the bowler is successful, the batsman will hit the ball in the air and hopefully a fielder will catch it before it touches the ground. One more way is called Leg Before Wicket (LBW). To get a batsman out LBW, the bowler has to bowl the ball in a way that the batman's leg is in front of the stumps. If the bowler thinks it's out, he and the rest of the team appeal. If the umpire thinks it's out, he gives it out. The final way I'm going to explain is run out. The run out is very similar to being stumped. Except, this time,it can be any of the fielders around the field who get the batsman out. Usually, direct hits on the stumps are the ones that get the most batsman out.
Rugby Union football was invented by some schoolboys at the Rugby School in England in 1823. At this time a schoolboy called William Webb Ellis picked up a soccer ball and ran with it and was soon copied by his friends. Different versions weren't invented until 1871 when rules were developed limiting the player to fifteen people to a team and the Rugby Football Union was formed. The game became popular by 1880 national governing bodies had been established in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. By the turn of the century some clubs paid their players, and these clubs eventually formed their own form of rugby that became known as the Rugby League.
