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The AFL remains Australia’s best supported football league. The latest Roy Morgan Single Source data shows 7,624,000 Australians follow one of Australia’s 16 AFL clubs. This is greater than the support for either of Australia’s other two major football leagues with the NRL (5,577,000) and A-League (2,870,000) well behind the AFL in terms of support for teams in their respective leagues.

Importantly for the AFL, many of Australia’s ‘Big Spenders’* also follow an AFL club. Across the AFL there are 2.933 million supporters of AFL clubs that are ‘Big Spenders.’* 4.1 million AFL supporters say they are ‘always ready to try new and different products,’ 3.2 million enjoy clothes shopping and over a million are ‘born to shop.’

In terms of clubs the Sydney Swans remain the AFL’s most supported team with 1,217,000 (down 61,000 since 2008) supporters Australia-wide. This is the fourth consecutive year that the Sydney Swans have been the most supported AFL team in Australia. The introduction of a new AFL team in West Sydney in 2012 will provide a challenge to the Swans retaining top spot in support in coming years.

The Brisbane Lions (861,000 supporters, down 60,000) remain in second place followed by Victoria’s most supported teams, Collingwood (731,000, up 9,000), and old rivals Essendon (638,000, down 84,000). This is the first time this decade Essendon has not been Victoria’s most well supported AFL team.

Powerhouses West Coast Eagles (632,000, down 98,000) and Adelaide Crows (629,000, down 1,000) are clearly Australia’s fifth and sixth best supported teams, and well ahead of their in-state rivals Fremantle Dockers (337,000, down 6,000) and Port Adelaide Power (245,000, down 80,000).

The other eight Victorian teams are clearly split into different subgroups in terms of support with Carlton (493,000, down 28,000) & Geelong (488,000, up 99,000) in the top half of the AFL in terms of supporters.

Further down, Richmond (392,000, up 25,000), Hawthorn (381,000, up 72,000) and St. Kilda (311,000, down 28,000) have solid levels of support while the Western Bulldogs (226,000, down 9,000), North Melbourne (219,000, up 7,000) and Melbourne (187,000, down 4,000) are the three least supported teams in the AFL.

Gary Morgan, Executive Chairman at Roy Morgan Research, says: 

“With debate surrounding alcohol sponsorship of all sports events — new potential sponsors will be looking closely at the value of AFL supporters to their brand.

“Given that 1.2 million AFL supporters have ‘no junk mail’ on their letterboxes; 4.35 million say ‘nearly all TV advertising annoys me!’ and 5.3 million say ‘Advertising posters in shopping centres and malls don’t interest me’ AFL sponsorship may well offer a unique way to engage with valuable, difficult to reach customers.”

 

These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan Sports Monitor, part of Roy Morgan Single Source, a nationwide survey of 20,341 people aged 14 years and over from April 2008 to March 2009.

For detailed profiles of people who are supporters, spectators, TV viewers and players of the AFL, NRL, A-League and their respective sports, visit the Roy Morgan Online Store: http://www.roymorganonlinestore.com/Browse/Australia/Sport/Supporter.aspx.

For comments or further detail, please contact:

Gary Morgan:          Office +61 3 9224 5213   Mobile +61 411 129 094

Michele Levine:       Office +61 3 9224 5215   Mobile +61 411 129 093

Note: Respondents were able to nominate more than one AFL team.

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