Sport in Australia
In Australia, sport is an important part of the country's culture and dates back to the early colonial period. The first of the country's mainstream sports to become established in order of their organisation were cricket, Australian rules football, rugby union, tennis, soccer, basketball, netball and rugby league. According to Ausplay, in 2024 the most practiced physical activities for Australians were walking including bushwalking, fitness, running, cycling, pilates and yoga each practised by more than a million adults. The most played team sports in order of participation are soccer, basketball, Australian rules football, cricket, netball and touch football/rugby league each played by as many as half a million adults. Soccer and basketball, in particular have more than a million adult players are also the most popular team activities for children. Running, tennis and golf are the most popular individual sports among Australians with more than a million participants. Running and walking in particular have grown rapidly in popularity with the community organisation parkrun registering more than 1 million Australian participants since 2011.
Australia has a number of professional sport leagues, including the Australian Football League and AFL Women's, National Rugby League and NRL Women's, Super Rugby Pacific , the National Basketball League and the Women's National Basketball League, A-League Men and A-League Women, the Australian Baseball League, the Big Bash League, Women's Big Bash League and Sheffield Shield, Suncorp Super Netball and the Supercars Championship. Australia has a culture of attendance to sports with some of the highest per capita attendances in the world. Australian rules football is the most attended sport with the 2024 AFL season attracting an attendance of more than 8.2 million. Rugby league is the most watched on television with a cumulative audience of over 174 million in 2023.
Australian rules football and Cricket are Australia's national sports. The Australian national cricket team competed against England in the first Test match and the first One Day International, and against New Zealand in the first Twenty20 International, winning all three games. It has also won the men's Cricket World Cup a record six times.
Australia's football culture features a distinct geographical split between areas where rugby league and Australian rules are the dominant code however this has become less evident over time with the expansion of national professional competitions. These two codes are generally played in winter whereas soccer, despite being the most popular in terms of participation, is played in summer to avoid a clash with the two major codes for spectators.
Australia's sporting culture is heavily influenced by sports betting, with the government estimating that over half a million Australians spend up to $1,000 a year in bets. Sports that feature betting, including horse racing, and the national football leagues are especially popular. Gambling features heavily in sports advertising. Two sporting events have public holidays, though only in Victoria, the Melbourne Cup and AFL Grand Final. An unofficial public holiday was also declared when Australia won the 1983 America's Cup.
As a nation, Australia has competed in many international events, including the Olympics and Paralympics. The country has also twice hosted the Summer Olympics in Melbourne and Sydney, as well as the Commonwealth Games on five occasions. A third Olympics will be held in Brisbane in 2032.
The city of Melbourne is famous for its major sports events and has been described as the 'sporting capital of the world', and one of its stadiums, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, is considered the home of Australian rules football and one of the world's premier Cricket grounds. Australia is considered one of the best sports nations in the world.
History
Colonial era
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 was codified in 1859. Australian football clubs still around in the current Australian Football League were founded by 1858. Originally formed as the South Australian Football Association on 30 April 1877, the SANFL is the oldest surviving football league of any code in Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia's largest sporting arena, opened in 1853. The Melbourne Cup was first run in 1861. A rugby union team was established at the University of Sydney in 1864. Regular sport did not begin to be played in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia until the late 1860s and early 1870s.File:Ashes Urn 1921.jpg|left|thumb|Early photo of the Ashes Urn, from the Illustrated London News, 1921
The first Australian cricket team to go on tour internationally did so in 1868. The Australian side was an all Aboriginal one and toured England where they played 47 games, where they won 14 games, drew 19 and lost 14.Australia's adoption of sport as a national 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. Sport was receiving coverage in Australian newspapers by 1876 when a sculling race in England was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1877, Australia played in the first Test Cricket match against England. In 1882, The Ashes were started following the victory of the Australia national cricket team over England. Field hockey teams for men and women were established by 1890. The Sheffield Shield cricket competition was first held in 1891 with New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia participating in the inaugural competition. The remaining states would not participate until much later, with Queensland first participating in 1926–27, Western Australia in 1947–48 and Tasmania in 1982–83. In 1897 the Victorian Football League, which later became the AFL the Australian Football League, was founded after breaking away from the Victorian Football Association.
The first badminton competition in Australia was played in 1900. The first ice hockey game was played in Melbourne on 12 July 1906 between a local Melbourne team and a team from the crew of the visiting US warship.
Motor racing began in the first years of federation with motorcycle racing beginning at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1901 with automobile motorsport following in 1904 at Aspendale Racecourse in Melbourne. A dedicated race track was added to Aspendale's horse racing track in 1906, although it fell into disuse almost immediately.
Rugby league has been the overwhelmingly dominant rugby code in Australia since 1908. When Messenger and the All Golds returned from Great Britain in 1908, they helped the new clubs adapt to the rules of rugby league prior to the inaugural 1908 NSWRFL season. The Queensland Rugby Football League also formed early in 1908 by seven rugby players who were dissatisfied with the administration of the Queensland Rugby Union. The Australia national rugby union team had their first international test against New Zealand in 1903, and first international tour in 1908, earning their nickname of the Wallabies after two British journalists used it to refer to the team. The team won gold at the 1908 Summer Olympics; however the majority of the squad joined rugby league clubs upon returning to Australia.
Women represented Australia for the first time at the Olympics in 1912. Surfing came to Australia by 1915 with the first surf life saving competition being held that year. Les Darcy began his boxing career in 1915, with some of his later fights taking place at Sydney Stadium. The following year, an American promoter encouraged Darcy to go to the United States at a time when Australia was actively recruiting young men for the armed services. Controversy resulted and Darcy died at the age of 21 in the United States. When his body was returned to Australia, 100,000 people attended his Sydney funeral. Darcy would remain significant to Australians into the 2000s, when Kevin Rudd mentioned his story.
In 1922, a committee in Australia investigated the benefits of physical education for girls. They came up with several recommendations regarding what sports were and were not appropriate for girls to play based on the level of fitness required. It was determined that for some individual girls that for medical reasons, the girls should probably not be allowed to participate in tennis, netball, lacrosse, golf, hockey, and cricket. Football was completely medically inappropriate for girls to play. It was medically appropriate for all girls to be able to participate in, so long as they were not done in an overly competitive manner, swimming, rowing, cycling and horseback riding. Dick Eve won Australia's first Olympic diving gold medal in 1924. In 1924 the Australian Rugby League Board of Control, later to be known as the Australian Rugby League, was formed to administer the national team, and later as the national governing body for the sport of Rugby league. In 1928 the team also adopted the national colours of green and gold for the first time, having previously used blue and maroon, making the Kangaroos the third national sporting body to do so after cricket and the Australian Olympic team. Netball Australia was founded in 1927 as the All Australia Women's Basket Ball Association.
File:4th Test Woodfull.jpg|thumb|left|1932–33 Ashes: Bill Woodfull evades a bodyline ball at the Gabba
During the 1930s, the playing of sport on Sunday was banned in most of the country outside South Australia. The Bodyline cricket series between Australia and England took place in 1932–33. The English side were determined to win and employed physical intimidation against Australia to ensure victory. The bowling style used by the team known as body-line bowling was devised by Douglas Jardine with advice from Frank Foster in England ahead of the series in order to defeat Australian batsman Donald Bradman. Going into the start of the series, Bill Voce told the media "If we don't beat you, we'll knock your bloody heads off." The style of play was such that the Australians contemplated cancelling the series after the Adelaide test.
Following a successful Australian racing career, the race horse Phar Lap went to the United States where he died. There were many conspiracy theories at the time and later that suggested people in the United States poisoned the horse to prevent him from winning.