Aussie Sports Culture: Passion, Heckling and Beer…Lots of Beer

by Erin McNulty (COM ’11, Sydney Spring 2010)

The stereotype of the Aussie as a sports-obsessed, testosterone-driven maniac is, I hate to break it, quite the generalization. However, the subset of the population that fills the stands at cricket, Aussie-rules football and rugby games are intensely passionate about their sports in a way that’s relatively rare in the US. Everyone knows the type – the guy sitting next to you decked out in team gear, giving you a running commentary on intricacies of the game you had no idea existed, and screaming himself hoarse for (or at) the players. At the games I’ve been to in Sydney, there has been more of this type of fan in the stands than I’ve ever seen at a regular season American sporting event. It’s like the Super Bowl at every match.

I attended a National Rugby League game at the Sydney Football Stadium in mid-April – the Wests Tigers against the Bulldogs. Besides the whiplash-inducing hits on the field and the fact that the players were absolute bricks of human beings, I was also fascinated by the happenings in the stands. One guy had his baby daughter dressed up in Tigers gear and held up her tiny middle finger at some Bulldogs fans behind us at the end of the game. There were at least six people nearby (including a 7-year-old boy) who were incredible bellowers, and giant team flags were almost as plentiful as cups of beer. The singing outside the stadium afterwards was deafening, and the whole experience was basically like if the student section at BU hockey games was five times bigger, applied to a professional sport, and included people aged one to 80. It was obvious that a lot of these people live and die by their team, and it was truly awesome to watch it.

I had a similar experience at a footy (Aussie-rules football) game at Sydney University I went to with my Dad. Between the Uni coaching staff sitting next to us bypassing their walkie-talkies and simply bellowing directly at the players on the field (“COVER THOSE TWO BLOKES THERE! CUT TO THE OUTSIDE! WHAT THE F— ARE YOU DOING?! – a far cry from the stony Belichick-style coaching I’m used to watching), the fans behind us swearing their heads off and groaning at every single play, and the constant fistfights occurring on the field, I felt like I’d been dropped into a war zone instead of a college football game. And I absolutely loved it.

In contrast to these brutal sports, cricket is played wearing sweaters and involves zero physical contact. A match is also a six-hour, slow-moving affair, resulting in the stands being transformed into a frat party. But get any cricket fan talking about the sport and you’ll be reminded of Jimmy Fallon in Fever Pitch. Similar to baseball in the US, cricket is extremely important culturally and historically in Australia. The Aussie national players are total rock stars (Google Michael Clark and Lara Bingle – the coverage of their breakup rivaled that of the Tiger Woods scandal), and it’s really just on a whole other level from any sport in the US in terms of national importance.

One final comparison – a story broke recently that Melbourne’s rugby team, the Storm, had been secretly overstepping their salary cap and were having their premierships stripped as punishment. The story has dominated newscasts, complete with video footage of bawling fans professing their continued support for the team, chanting loudly outside press conferences, and giving standing ovations at team practices. I simply cannot imagine that kind of emotional outpouring in the US. Imagine if the Yankees (this may or may not be a recurring dream of mine) were stripped of their last three World Series wins. I can see the diehards protesting angrily and pledging to support their boys in pinstripes no matter what. But I can’t picture people taking to the streets of New York and literally crying to news cameras. Despite some common threads, fandom is just a different experience in Australia. It’s a way of life, a point of intense pride, and a raw, raucous good time. Cheers, mate.