The Australian Football League "retained its standing as the fourth-best attended sporting competition in the world, despite the addition in recent years of two expansion teams in states which historically favour the rugby codes," according to the AAP. The average attendance for AFL home and away matches in '14 was 32,436 -- "a figure bolstered by the huge crowds drawn to the refurbished Adelaide Oval to watch the Power and the Crows." The two Adelaide sides and three of Melbourne's most popular clubs -- Collingwood, Essendon and Richmond -- "all attracted an average of more than 43,000 fans to their home games" in '14. Ten of the 18 AFL clubs "pulled bigger home crowds" than National Rugby League side Brisbane, whose average attendance at Suncorp Stadium was 33,354 last year. In a global sense, the NFL in the U.S. "remained far and away the pacesetter for crowds, with an average of 68,776 supporters on hand for every match of the home and away season, according to figures published by ICYMI Sports." Soccer "claimed the next two spots on the table." The Bundesliga "was second with 43,500 and the English Premier League was third with 36,695" (AAP, 5/20).
RULE CHANGE POSSIBLE: In Melbourne, Wilson & Gleeson wrote the AFL "is considering a softening of the rules governing father-son picks." The current qualification threshold of 100 games "could be slashed to 50 or as low as one as the game's governing body concedes the revamped bidding system will make it even tougher for clubs to invest in generational talent" (THE AGE, 5/20).
