Melbourne's sporting prowess
Is Melbourne the sporting capital of the world? I ask this question not merely to show that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s Sydney correspondent is well acquainted with Australia’s second most populous city, but because it merits serious examination.
Which other city can boast a grand slam tennis event, which reaches its climax this very weekend, and a Formula One grand prix, which kicks off the 2008 season in March? The answer, of course, is that there isn’t one.
Which cities have hosted both the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games? London, Sydney, and, yes, Melbourne (although Vancouver will sneak onto that list after it hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics). The 1956 games hosted by Melbourne was the first time the Olympics had been hosted in the southern hemisphere.
There’s the , held each year on the first Tuesday of November, which is widely regarded as the planet’s most prestigious two-mile handicap, and up there with the Kentucky Derby, the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe and the Grand National in the horse-racing pantheon.
Then there are those other great Melburnian red letter days in the sporting calendar: December 26, the start of the Boxing Day Test match, and the last Saturday in September, which is when the Australian Rules Grand Final is always played.
And here’s one for the sporting trivia buffs. Which stadium played host to the most well-attended baseball game in the sport’s history? Fenway Park? Yankee Stadium? Wrigley Field? Think again. It is the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the mighty MCG, which attracted 102,000 fans for an exhibition game during the 1956 Olympics.
In the modern-day MCG, with its colosseum-style rotunda of stands, the city has one of the most capacious cricket stadiums in the world. It can seat 95,000 spectators, with standing room for an additional 5,000.
In the Telstra Dome, a cavernous stadium in the city’s docklands big enough to stage both rugby internationals, Aussie Rules games and one-day cricket matches, it has a magnificent indoor venue which can accommodate 74,000 spectators. In all, the city boasts 29 venues that can house over 10,000 people.
Right now, the city is the home of Australia’s rugby league champions, the , as well as the domestic soccer champions, the aptly-named .
On Jolimont Street you will find the headquarters of Cricket Australia, the world’s most successful national cricket board. Melbourne also houses the headquarters of the AFL, the global hub of Australian Rules Football, a sport which the city both spawned and cradled.
Last year it hosted the World Swimming Championships. In 2006 it staged arguably the most successful and spectacular Commonwealth Games in the history of the quadrennial event.
Though some have questioned whether the millions spent staging the Melbourne Grand Prix generates a commensurate return, the city has been very smart in welcoming international sports stars, and the dollars they bring with them.
When it comes to events tourism, Sydney is deemed to have taken its eye off the ball after the 2000 Olympics. Melbourne has thundered it into the top right hand corner of the net.
One of the great charms of the capital of Victoria is that many of its sporting venues are within a javelin’s throw of Federation Square, the city’s artsy new hub. Whereas travelling to Olympic Park in Sydney sometimes feels like traversing half-way across the Nullarbor Plain, the MCG is right on the edge of the central business district. Just over the way is the Rod Laver Arena, where the final of the Australian Open will be played.
Certainly, London can boast more venerable venues, even if it does require a zones 1-6 Travelcard’ to reach them. Lords surely beats the MCG, and Wimbledon is prettier than Melbourne Park, the home of Australian tennis. For rowing regattas, the River Yarra lacks the majestic sweep of the Thames.
And now that London stages the first leg of the Tour de France and will in four years host the Olympics, it may well have the edge. But in a trans-equatorial play-off, Melbourne would surely represent the southern hemisphere (although the people of Johannesburg, Rio de Janiero and, of course, Sydney, might want to weigh in on that).
Arksports, a London-based consultancy firm which conducted a global survey in 2006, actually ranked Melbourne number one in the world for hosting a sporting event. Paris and Sydney came joint second, Berlin was fourth and London fifth. The enthusiasm of Melburnian sports fans was cited as a key reason why.
So having started with a question, I’ll end with a few more. Why this sporting fascination? Is it the city’s polyglot population? Is it savvy marketing and event planning? Or it is that other great Melbournian sport? Putting one over on Sydney.
I'm 
°ä´Ç³¾³¾±ð²Ô³Ù²õÌýÌý Post your comment
London, maybe? Football (4 major clubs, Wembley), Cricket (Lord's - home of cricket), Tennis (Wimbledon), Rugby, Olympics, Commonwealth Games...
It's the weather in Melbourne - too hot/ too cold/too wet to be at the beach like other Australian cities!! Hence the excellent covered stadiums and huddling of Me;burnians together in their sporting tribes!
(From Brisbane)
It's the weather in Melbourne - too hot/ too cold/too wet to be at the beach like other Australian cities!! Hence the excellent covered stadiums and huddling of Me;burnians together in their sporting tribes!
(From Brisbane)
Melbourne is home to 11 AFL teams (please note the average attendance at their games is higher than the premier league). That isnt a bad effort.
To put it simply Melbournians live and breathe sport, it is throughly ingrained in our identity and has never failed to bring together the inhabitants of the city. Being a 'sporting capital' for us is not a matter of prestige so much as one of passion. Sport will always find those with the greatest passion for it and for this reason Melbourne will always be a great sporting city.
I certainly would consider Melbourne to be the sportier of the two and I should know, having lived 5 years in London and 15 or so in Melbourne.
Melbourne completely stops on (AFL) Grand Final day, no one but no one doesn't watch the game. The same goes for the tennis finals and Cup Day. I've never noticed any sporting event in London emptying the roads and shops..
London may have a similar number of major events but Melburnians practically organise their lives around the sporting calendar. Londoners, on the other hand, consider sport nothing more than a minor bit of fun in an otherwise busy schedule.
London's population also makes it more difficult to get tickets to major events, in Melbourne the ratio of available tickets to potential buyers is much more in your favour. It's practically impossible to see a Premier League game here, but AFL tickets in Melbourne, except for the finals, are always easy to get your hands on.
New York:
2 Baseball Teams
3 Hockey Teams
2 American Football Teams
1 Basketball Team (soon to be 2)
US Open Tennis
London???? You have to deduct points for soccer!!! After all, passionate fans are a plus, but hooligans are not.
London???? You have to deduct points for soccer!!! After all, passionate fans are a plus, but hooligans are not.
Melbourne certainly impressed me when I visited my son out there. The percentage of the population involved in jogging, cycling, walking and spectating was amazing. There seemed to be a major Aussie Rules team in almost every suburb, which is perhaps less surprising in the home of Aussie Rules. Unlike London where I lived for a good number of years, the difference is the involvement of practically the entire population in some way.
I spent 3 weeks in Melbourne during July/August 2007 - and visted all the city's major sporting venues.
I watched several AFL matches at the MCG; it is a superb venue, way beyond comparison with any of the London stadia - including the Emirates and Wembley. I believe one key to Melbourne's sporting sucess is the ease of travelling to/from the stadia - coupled with sensible ticket pricing !
I think it is a mixture of the sporting culture produced by Australia's climate and open spaces, first world finances and organisation, and a sense that because of Sydney'd natural advantages Melbourne has to work twice has hard to keep up
I think it is a mixture of the sporting culture produced by Australia's climate and open spaces, first world finances and organisation, and a sense that because of Sydney'd natural advantages Melbourne has to work twice has hard to keep up
Is Wimbledon covered, no, and it is filled with English fans wondering when it will have another champion of either sex. How far do you need to travel to Wembley or Wimbledon especially in the ancient District Line trains? Melbourne's sporting venues have been the scene of many sporting triumphs by Australians. Please do not compare Lords with the MCG as it belongs to the nineteenth century. If you are honest, then none of the cricket grounds in England compare with those in Australia, with the MCG at the top of the heap. How many world champions did Australia produce in 2007 were there any poms?
Good observation. As someone who was born in Melbourne but now lives in London I always knew it was Australia's sporting capital but never thought about comparing it with other cities. You are also correct in picking London as the only possible rival.
Mr Holmes is very unfair. I love the MCG but THE best place to see cricket is Lords - no yobs, you can bring your GLASS bottle of wine. The place is packed with true cricket fans - you don't have to ban the mexican wave because there are no wallys bothering to do it. Similarly Wimbledon is a glorious festival of tennis and an afternoon spent there after work during the long summer days is hard to beat. Melbourne also falls short in having never hosted the Football World Cup Final which is - whether you like the game or not - undeniably the world's most important sporting event.
However when it comes to the range of events and the enthusiasm for any sporting event nowhere can beat Melbourne. You could host a World Cup tiddly-wink contest at the MCG and Melbournians would flock to fill the G even if they did not understand the rules. If Australia does one day host the World Cup every game held in Melbourne will be jam-packed with locals no matter who is playing.
Over-all I reckon it is Melbourne in first place with London a close second.
Please, no more praise for Melbourne. They're already big-headed enough!
Please, no more praise for Melbourne. They're already big-headed enough!
"It's the weather in Melbourne - too hot/ too cold/too wet to be at the beach like other Australian cities!!" Says K Reece of Brisbane.
Sorry mate, but you sound like another Queenslander who , ten years ago, complained to me that the last time he visited Melbourne, in 1959, it was raining. (absolutely true).
Well it has rained here since 1959, but not often enough, lately.
Melbourne's weather is milder and much more suited to outdoor activity than the oppressive humidity of cities to our north, but please feel free to send some of Queensland's recent torrential rain down our way. You can keep the stingers, sharks and Crocs.
Floyd said "No one but no one doesn't watch the AFL grand final", well Floyd, I have avoided watching it - well most of it anyway !
Have you noticed the pattern in comment 6 concerning New York? All of the sports (bar tennis) are grounded in North America. Hardly a world capital of sport it could be argued! Melbourne on the other hand offers an eclectic mix of the world's most popular sports seasoned with what is uniquely Australian. This is something London cannot offer.
Have you noticed the pattern in comment 6 concerning New York? All of the sports (bar tennis) are grounded in North America. Hardly a world capital of sport it could be argued! Melbourne on the other hand offers an eclectic mix of the world's most popular sports seasoned with what is uniquely Australian. This is something London cannot offer.
Have you noticed the pattern in comment 6 concerning New York? All of the sports (bar tennis) are grounded in North America. Hardly a world capital of sport it could be argued! Melbourne on the other hand offers an eclectic mix of the world's most popular sports seasoned with what is uniquely Australian. This is something London cannot offer.
One thing that is worth mentioning about the Melbourne area: within a few hours drive from Melbourne is Mount Buller, one of the premiere ski resorts in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia is making a big name for itself in winter sports - Steven Bradbury and Alisa Camplin won Australia's first winter Olympic titles in 2002, and Dale Begg-Smith added another Olympic title in 2006. And Mount Buller is where many of Australia's top winter athletes, including Alisa, hone their craft. So, Melbourne and its surroundings play host to a variety of sports for all seasons!
You've noted the Melbourne Victory which is great to see, and in a league that's only three years old the club was able to successfully move out of a stadium that held 18,000 to Telstra Dome and get crowd averages over 25,000, with some games reaching 50,000 (final against Adelaide 06/07 and a game against Sydney in the same season.) This is in a league that's no where near the level of the big European leagues might I add...
Being such a political city, the city that is both the most 'revolutionary' for the radical left and the 'jewel in the crown' of the conservatives, Melbourne is a town of people who love to show their colours and where they stand. It's in a Melburnian's nature to shout who they support, no matter what the topic is. It's the life of the city - a proud history of passion for all walks of life - and sport is just one facet of it.
Oh,come on Alex comment 16 Steven Bradbury!! all the field fell over for him to win the Gold medal,he was running LAST....just like the poms lucky Eddie whats-his-name...what a joke.....
You've noted the Melbourne Victory which is great to see, and in a league that's only three years old the club was able to successfully move out of a stadium that held 18,000 to Telstra Dome and get crowd averages over 25,000, with some games reaching 50,000 (final against Adelaide 06/07 and a game against Sydney in the same season.) This is in a league that's no where near the level of the big European leagues might I add...
Being such a political city, the city that is both the most 'revolutionary' for the radical left and the 'jewel in the crown' of the conservatives, Melbourne is a town of people who love to show their colours and where they stand. It's in a Melburnian's nature to shout who they support, no matter what the topic is. It's the life of the city - a proud history of passion for all walks of life - and sport is just one facet of it.
Melbourne is a great city, populated with lovely, friendly people - until they get inside a sporting stadium! For Mr Holmes to consider the MCG - a vast, souless bowl - better than Lord's is absurd. The crass behaviour of far too many cricket "fans" at the MCG, many throwing beachballs about which stray onto the pitch, others verbally abusing opposition fielders, would result in instant ejection from Lord's, where the paying public watch matches with genuine knowledge and interest, warmly applauding good play from either side without the partisan bias evident in Australia.
Karl W, just one thing of note. England invented cricket, rugby & soccer and had a large role in the development of modern tennis. I'd therefore argue that London stages events that are very uniquely British. London is also host to the international NFL games, for example.
By the way, outside of Australia AFL really does not matter in the slightest.
Steven Bradbury should in no way be compared to Eddie the Eagle. He was among the first Australians to win a world title in winter sport (a 1991 world relay gold medal, the year before short-track made its debut as a medal sport in the Olympics), and he led Australia to its first Winter Olympic medal, a bronze in the short-track relay in 1994. He survived injury after injury to get to where he eventually went. He may have been in the twilight of his career in 2002, but that's what made his eventual triumph that much sweeter - no one EXPECTED him to even make it past the first round, let alone WIN. Eddie the Eagle, on the other hand, had no such credentials.
Bill Grieve wrote:
"... Steven Bradbury!! all the field fell over for him to win the Gold medal,"
Falls are to be expected in speed skating, avoiding them is part of the skill. Bradbury was the better skilled in his race and fully deserved his Gold.
The 'G "souless" (sic)? Only to an outsider who perhaps bases his view on its modern architecture and facilities rather than the many wonderful (and painful) memories of generations of fans who have experienced all that many sports (not just cricket) have to offer there. I must admit, I have not been to a cricket match at Lord's, but if the crowd behaves as though it is at a chamber music recital, I will probably give it a miss.
And finally, AFL's beauty and importance cannot be measured by the rest of the (ignorant) world - it is not their fault of course, but they are not in a position to judge these things!
Melbourne: By far your biggest achievement on a world scale is your tennis grand slam but comes 4th in importance to the French, US and Wimbledon, and you getting it probably has more to do with geography then anything else. Aussie rules while a good game is not played out side of Auss. Cricket is only played by ex colonial countries and a bit of a joke to the rest of the world. You dont even play rugby league or rugby union the latter being a world sport. Melbourne and Australia in general suffer from a type of sporting apartheid. What you play is what you follow and thats it. Most people in melbourne dont even know what the state of origin is. Anyway dspite all the above until you get good at or host a football world cup your nothing.
Melbourne: By far your biggest achievement on a world scale is your tennis grand slam but comes 4th in importance to the French, US and Wimbledon, and you getting it probably has more to do with geography then anything else. Aussie rules while a good game is not played out side of Auss. Cricket is only played by ex colonial countries and a bit of a joke to the rest of the world. You dont even play rugby league or rugby union the latter being a world sport. Melbourne and Australia in general suffer from a type of sporting apartheid. What you play is what you follow and thats it. Most people in melbourne dont even know what the state of origin is. Anyway dspite all the above until you get good at or host a football world cup your nothing.
Tom, I think your completely missing the point. Rugby union and league are not sports that most Victorians follow yet they can still fill the MCG to watch a rugby test or fill the Telstra Dome for state of origin. This is the point. That sport plays such a big part of Melbourne’s culture that it can put forward a good case of being a world sporting capital due to the local’s willingness to embrace a sport and flock to arenas and stadiums in their thousands no matter what the sport. I’m not from Melbourne but I have been there while major events are on (Grand Prix, Aus Open, Boxing Day test, Grand Final, Melbourne Cup) and the town is literally taken over for the duration of the event. Other cities I’ve lived in such as London have just as good a portfolio but the events aren’t embraced and don’t mean as much to the average local as they do in Melbourne. Possibly this is to do with London’s size and the fact that there is a lack of centrally located venues when compared to Melbourne.
London, New York, Paris - these are true world cities in every sense (sport, arts, fashion, business, etc). And the fact that Melbourne goes toe to toe with all these places which are 3 or 4 times its size is the point of Nick's blog (what I make of it anyway). It is not that Melbourne is the centre of the sporting universe. It’s that it has a good argument to put forward that it is at least as good as any other city in the world when it comes to major sporting events. To say they are nothing is just ignorant.
New York the sporting capital?
What a joke. The list is sport that only the Americans enjoy. That hardly makes the the sporting capital of the word
Too hot, often, too cold, rarely, too wet, I wish. All Australians are sport mad, Melburnians just take it that one step further.
The classic Australian 'BIG I AM'disease being shown agian here.
The accolade 'Sporting Capital of the World' is an invetion of a mind that needs some kind of reassurance. What kind of vacuous head is going to wear that imaginary crown, so little does it mean.
Okay, yes you are right: Melbournians/ Australians are the best at walking on two legs.