Sport in Australia

Sport in Australia is an important part of Australian culture dating back to the early colonial
period. Cricket, Australian rules football, rugby union and horse racing are among the earliest
organized sports in Australia

Sport came to Australia in 1810 when the first athletics tournament was held; soon after
cricket, horse racing and sailing clubs and competitions started. Australia's lower classes would
play sports on public holidays, with the upper classes playing more regularly on Saturdays.
Sydney was the early hub of sport in the colony. Early forms of football were played there by
1829. Early sport in Australia was played along class lines.

In 1835, the British Parliament banned blood sports except fox hunting in a law that was
implemented in Australia; this was not taken well in the country as it was seen as an attack on
the working classes.

By the late 1830s, horse racing was established in New South Wales and other parts of the
country, and enjoyed support across class lines. Gambling was part of sport from the time horse
racing became an established sport in the colony. Horse racing was also happening in
Melbourne at Batman's Hill in 1838, with the first race meeting in Victoria taking place in 1840.

Cricket was also underway with the Melbourne Cricket Club founded in 1838. Sport was being
used during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s as a form of social integration across classes. Victorian
rules football (later known as Australian rules) was codified in 1859. Australian football clubs
still around in the current Australian Football League were founded by 1858. The Melbourne
Cricket Ground, Australia's largest sporting arena, opened in 1853.

Australia's adoption of sport as a national was pastime was so comprehensive that Anthony
Trollope remarked in his book, Australia, published in 1870, "The English passion for the
amusements which are technically called 'sports', is not a national necessity with the
Americans, whereas with the Australians it is almost as much so as home."

The first team formally organised soccer team was formed in Sydney in 1880 and was named
the Wanderers.
RUGBY
Rugby league football is one of the most popular sports in Australia, especially in the states of
New South Wales and Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, which together
comprise around half the country's population. In 2009, it was the most watched sport on
Australian television, with an aggregate audience of 128.5 million viewers. The elite club
competition, the National Rugby League (NRL), has ten teams from New South Wales, three
teams from Queensland, and one team each from Victoria, Australian Capital Territory and New
Zealand.
Rugby league in Australia began in 1908, introduced by players from Britain and New Zealand.
Rule changes since have been partly instigated in Australia and the country has long been
dominant in international rugby league.
Commonly known as "league", and sometimes as "the greatest game of all", it is traditionally
seen as a "working man's sport" with its roots in the working-class communities of Northern
England, compared to rugby union's in English public schools. The Australian Rugby League
Commission is working on ways to expand the sport's popularity across political and social
boundaries.

CRICKET
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in Australia at international, domestic and local levels.
Unlike most other popular sports, cricket generates equal interest in all regions of the nation,
and is therefore often referred to as Australia's national sport. The peak administrative body for
both professional and amateur cricket in Australia is Cricket Australia.
A record 1,311,184 people played cricket across Australia in 2015-16, an 8.5 per cent increase
on 2014-15 – placing cricket at No.1 as the current top participation sport in Australia. Women
participation also reached record figures in 2015-16, growing nine percent to 314,936 players.
According to Cricket Australia's annual report of 2014-15, 1,208,360 Australians played formal,
organized cricket during the year, an increase of nine percent over the previous year.
Separately, official audience data shows that 93.6% of Australians watched at least some cricket
on TV in 2010–11 calendar year.

BASQUETBALL

Basketball is a sport played both indoors and outdoors in Australia. Basketball remains one of
the most popular participation sports in Australia, having a larger participation base than
Cricket, Rugby league and Rugby union. In Victoria, it is experiencing a large participation boom
for youths and is the largest participation sport in that state.[3][4][5] It was one of the most
popular spectator sports in the early to mid-1990s, however its spectator popularity has hugely
declined since then.
Australia has produced several professional basketballers for major overseas leagues.
The sport does retain a notable presence and international matches attract some media
attention.
WOMEN AND SPORT

Women's sport in Australia started in the colonial era. Sport made its way into the school
curriculum for girls by the 1890s. World War II had little impact on women's sport in the
country. After the war, women's sport diversified as a result of new immigrants to the country.
In the 1990s, the percentage of media coverage for women's sport on radio, television and in
newspapers was not at parity with male sport. Basketball is nominally professional in Australia
but players do not earn enough from the sport to compete full-time. Some Australians have
gone overseas to play professional sport. Women make up a large number of television
spectators for Australian sport. In person, netball has large percentage of female spectators.
The Australian Federal and State governments have encouraged women to participate in all
areas of sport.