The AFL will NEVER go global

Here's why...

The AFL was made by Australians, FOR Australians. I could end it here, but let me go a bit further into it.

I would put money on it that you have heard of soccer. Even for the 3 people on earth that haven't, you can see the simple objective and rules just by watching 5 minutes of it. The players play on a large rectangular pitch with a round ball that they pass to each other using only their feet with the objective of getting it into the other teams net. Those are the basic rules and that's why almost every country in the world plays it. Because it's easy to understand and to play. Now if I would show a 5 minute clip of AFL then I'd reckon almost no one outside of Australia would have a single idea what's going on and would certainly never have heard of it before. And AFL players have grown up playing footy, they weren't just starting to play at 18. The game takes a long time to get the hang of, let alone to master.

Another reason why it won't go global are the facilities to play both sports. The dimensions of a professional soccer pitch is 85 metres by 125 metres, a size that is similar to other sports like rugby and NFL meaning that many country's have that sort of space and sporting grounds to hold soccer events. Plus, the goals can easily be transported and stored thanks to their simplicity. The AFL however have two 10 and two 15 metre posts for both ends of the field that have to be planted into the ground. And don't even get started on the field dimensions. An AFL field is typically 165 metres long and 135 metres wide! The shape is an oval with the ends chopped off a bit. No country would have these types of facilities, or want to SPEND money to build these types of facilities in their country.

Again, the AFL has the most complex set of rules in sport. I touched on this earlier about the rules, but I was basically watching AFL before I could talk and was still trying to make sense of the "deliberate out of bounds" rule after watching 100+ hours of footy in my lifetime. There is a reason I am NEVER going to write about all the rules of AFL on this blog, because I would be writing to the day I die, especially when the AFL keeps on adding more and more rules again making it more difficult to understand to international viewers.

People said that the VFL would be a Victorian sport. They said that the rest of Australia wouldn't be interested and they wouldn't have the facilities or money to build them. But look where we are now. Maybe someday the AFL might try and spread their wings and venture into other countries, but for now it just remains as a sport by Australians for Australians.

Thanks for reading to the end! I hope you enjoyed it!

Make sure you follow my Medium as I post things there first. I'd appreciate if you'd share this with people that would find this interesting