Sport in New South Wales

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Sport is an important part of the culture of the Australian state of New South Wales. Popular sports include rugby league, which has its Australian origins in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, cricket, in which New South Wales has been the dominant state for much of its Australian history and football (soccer), which has the largest club registration numbers of any sport.

Contents 1 Rugby league football 2 Rugby union 3 Australian rules football 4 Football (soccer) 5 Basketball 6 Other teams 7 Other events 8 Venues 8.1 Sydney Olympic Park 8.1.1 Acer Arena 8.1.2 Telstra Stadium 8.2 Aussie Stadium 8.3 Sydney Cricket Ground 9 References

[edit] Rugby league football

Rugby league has the highest spectator numbers of the various codes of football in New South Wales. It began in Australia in 1907, when the New South Wales Rugby League was formed as a professional competition, following the rules of the Northern Rugby Football Union in England. Since then the state has been one of the major centres of the code.

The headquarters of the Australian Rugby League and National Rugby League (NRL) are in Sydney, which is home to 8 of the 16 National Rugby League (NRL) clubs (Sydney Roosters, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Parramatta Eels, Cronulla Sharks, Wests Tigers, Penrith Panthers, Canterbury Bulldogs and Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles), as well as being the northern home of the St George Illawarra Dragons, which is half-based in Wollongong. A tenth team, the Newcastle Knights are located in Newcastle.

The premier state-level league is the NSWRL Premier League, involving reserve teams from NSW and Canberra based NRL clubs as well as the first teams from other clubs. Country football is overseen by the New South Wales Country Rugby League. Annual matches between Country Origin and City Origin teams are held.

The annual State of Origin series between NSW and Queensland is the most popular sporting event in NSW. Sydney has hosted many State of Origin matches since the series began in 1980. The 3 game series are held in Sydney and Brisbane with the first and third games in one city and the second in the other. These rotate every year, so if two games are played in Sydney one year, then those games are played in Brisbane the next.

[edit] Rugby union

Sydney has a local club rugby union competition (the Shute Shield), and the Super 14 international team the NSW Waratahs play their games in the city (though they represent the whole state). Rugby Union is regarded as an upper class game and is played in many of Sydney's top private schools.

[edit] Australian rules football

Main article: Australian rules football in New South Wales

Australian rules football is a developing game in most of NSW. In Sydney, local competitions established in 1880 and again in 1903 struggled to compete with rugby union and then the new professional rugby league. The code fared much better in the Riverina region, closer to the game's place of origin, Melbourne.^[1]

The Australian Football League (AFL) has one team from Sydney, the Sydney Swans. Formerly South Melbourne, the club moved up to Sydney in 1982, after hitting financial trouble and as part of the then Victorian Football League's plan for nationalisation. The Swans have won one premiership since moving to Sydney (in 2005). Attendance for Swans matches has risen since their relocation, and AFL telecasts in Sydney have risen 37 per cent in since the Swans premiership in 2005^[2]. According to foxsports "Although the Swans' TV audience is increasing they still have a long way to go after last Saturday night's Telstra Stadium blockbuster in front of a crowd of 60,307 managed to average just 123,000 viewers for the game." A number of games are shown out of prime time, and the AFL do not schedule Swans matches for Friday night matches.

The sport is governed in the state and the enclosed Australian Capital Territory (ACT) by AFL NSW/ACT. In 2004, there were 7,229 senior players out of a total 25 834 club participants registered in New South Wales.^[3] The top-level league in Sydney is the Sydney AFL. Teams in the Albury region compete with Victorian sides in the Ovens & Murray Football League and AFL Canberra includes NSW teams in the capital region as well as the Swans reserves and a team from Wagga Wagga. Clubs in the Black Diamond Australian Football League in the Hunter Valley and Central Coast region compete for Australia's oldest sporting trophy.

[edit] Football (soccer)

New South Wales is home to three of the eight clubs in the national A-League. Sydney FC were the inaugural A-League Champions in 2005-06. The two other teams are the Central Coast Mariners and the Newcastle United Jets. The governing bodies for the sport are Soccer New South Wales and Northern New South Wales Football. Soccer NSW conducts the New South Wales Premier League, which in 2006 involved nine teams from Sydney and one from Wollongong. The New South Wales Sapphires and Northern New South Wales Pride compete in the Women's National Soccer League. Football has the highest participation rate for team sports with research in 2004 showing 500,000 participants more than double the next highest sport (rugby league with 215,000). ^[4] Football Federation Australia is based in Sydney.

[edit] Basketball

The Sydney Kings, West Sydney Razorbacks and Wollongong Hawks are the state's representatives in the National Basketball League (NBL). These teams have all featured in the finals series since 2002-03, the Kings winning 3 consecutive premierships in 2002-03, 2003-04 & 2004-05. There are 12 teams in the New South Wales conference of the Australian Basketball Association, the Waratah League. The Sydney Uni Flames play in the Women's National Basketball League.

[edit] Other teams

There are also many teams participating in other national sporting competitions based in New South Wales, mainly in Sydney and the surrounding areas. These include the Sydney Blues - Australian Major League Baseball and the Sydney Swifts in Australian Netball's Commonwealth Bank Trophy and cricket team the New South Wales Blues.

[edit] Other events

Sydney was the host of the 2000 Summer Olympics and the 1938 British Empire Games. The Olympic Stadium, now known as Telstra Stadium is the scene of the annual NRL Grand Final. It also regularly hosts rugby league State of Origin as well as and rugby union and football (soccer) internationals, and has recently hosted the final of the 2003 Rugby World Cup and the football (soccer) World Cup qualifier between Australia and Uruguay.

The Sydney Cricket Ground traditionally hosts the 'New Year' cricket test match from 2-6 January each year, and is also one of the site for the finals of the one day international series. The annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race begins in Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day. The climax of Australia's touring car racing series is the Bathurst 1000, held at the Mount Panorama Circuit near the city of Bathurst in the Western Plains. Sydney also hosts the Golden Slipper horse race & Medibank International tennis tournament each year and the City to Surf held every August is one of the largest timed foot races in the world.

[edit] Venues

[edit] Sydney Olympic Park

Sydney Olympic Park is roughly in the geographical centre of Sydney. Created for the 2000 Olympics, it is now a major sporting centre in the city.

[edit] Acer Arena

Acer Arena (formerly the Sydney Superdome) hosts miscellaneous events.

[edit] Telstra Stadium

Telstra Stadium, formerly Stadium Australia, is Sydney's largest stadium. Built for the 2000 Olympics, it now hosts the NRL Grand Final, Rugby Union & Football (soccer) internationals, a number of Swans home games and the occasional domestic cricket one-day match, as well as some NRL home-and-away games and any other big events.

There are various other sporting and recreational facilities in the centre including another indoor arena, tennis centre, aquatic centre, athletics centre, hockey centre, archery centre, as well as the Sydney Showground (Homebush).

[edit] Aussie Stadium

Aussie Stadium (formerly the Sydney Football Stadium) was designed for the use of rugby league, rugby union and football (soccer). The Sydney Roosters, the NSW Waratahs and Sydney FC use it as their home ground. The ground hosted the 2005-06 A-League grand final won by Sydney FC. The ground also hosted rugby league grand finals from its construction until Telstra Stadium was opened.

[edit] Sydney Cricket Ground

The Sydney Cricket Ground is mainly used for Aussie Rules and cricket matches and is home to the Sydney Swans and NSW Blues.

Other prominent venues in Sydney and New South Wales include:

Randwick Racecourse, Rosehill Racecourse, Eastern Creek Raceway, Mount Panorama, Parramatta Stadium, Energy Australia Stadium, Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium, CUA Stadium, WIN Stadium, Kogarah Oval, Campbelltown Stadium, Toyota Park (Cronulla), North Sydney Oval, Leichhardt Oval, Brookvale Oval, Concord Oval, Sydney Entertainment Centre, Blacktown Olympic Park, and Dunc Gray Velodrome.

[edit] References