Barassi Line

The "Barassi Line", as proposed by Ian Turner in 1978. The red line divides the regions where Australian rules football (in yellow) and rugby league football (in green) were the most popular football codes.

The "Barassi Line" is a term which was first used by Ian Turner in his "1978 Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture"^[1] to refer to an imagined line in Australia which divides areas where Australian rules is the dominant winter code of football from those where the rugby codes, rugby league and rugby union are more popular. The line runs from the Northern Territory-Queensland border, south through Birdsville, Queensland, through southern New South Wales north of the Riverina, bisecting Canberra and on to the Pacific Ocean at Cape Howe on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. Despite Australia's relatively homogeneous culture, the dichotomy existing in the country's sporting culture as represented by the line has endured since the founding of Australian Rules in the 1850s. Australian rules football is the most popular football code played to the west and south of the line, with centres in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, while rugby league and rugby union are more popular on the other side, with centres in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. Coincidentally, each side represents roughly half of the Australian population, due to the concentration of population on the east coast.

At the time the term was first used, there were no professional teams or leagues located on each code's opposite side of the line. However, in the years since, the Australian Football League in Australian rules, the National Rugby League in rugby league and the Australian Rugby Union have expanded their domestic competitions to include teams from both sides of the line, although overall attendance rates and overall participation are still skewed towards each sport's traditional areas.^[2]

The exact location of the division may be disputed and the stylised straight line is not particularly accurate in representing the division. It is yet to be shown that any of Queensland favours Australian football over Rugby League and in the Riverina area of New South Wales both codes vie for dominance. In the Canberra area there is one professional team playing rugby union team, the ACT Brumbies, and one rugby league team, the Canberra Raiders, whereas there is no AFL side in Canberra and only a few matches are played there each year, even though many Australian rules teams compete in Canberra at levels lower than the AFL.

Other major team sports in Australia, such as cricket, basketball, netball, field hockey and soccer have less variation in their popularity by location.^[3]

Origin

The Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture was a series of lectures given between 1966 and 1978 by Ian Turner, a professor of history at Monash University, that were named after Ron Barassi, Sr..^[4] Barassi played a number of Australian rules football games for Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL) before enlisting to fight in World War II and subsequently dying from shrapnel wounds.

The Barassi Line itself was named after Ron Barassi, Jr., the former Barassi's son. Barassi Jr. was a star player for Melbourne and Carlton and a premiership-winning coach with Carlton and North Melbourne. He believed in spreading the Australian rules football code around the nation with an evangelical zeal, and became coach and major supporter of the relocated Sydney Swans. He foresaw a time when Australian rules football clubs from around Australia, including up to four from New South Wales and Queensland, would play in a national football league with only a handful of them based in Melbourne. At a time when the VFL consisted of 11 clubs in Melbourne and one in regional Victoria, Barassi's prognostications were largely ridiculed.^[5]

Primarily due to the distances involved, the leagues of Australian rules and Rugby League were based around city competitions, not inter-city national leagues as is the case in most countries. Each major city had one league as the highest profile with the greatest interest and attendance. In Sydney and Brisbane, the most followed competitions were rugby league's New South Wales Rugby Football League and Brisbane Rugby League premiership. In Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin, the Australian rules football leagues of the Victorian Football League, South Australian National Football League, West Australian Football League, Tasmanian Football League and Northern Territory Football League were the most popular. In most cities, however, the non-dominant sports had amateur leagues that operated for many years.

Expansion

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The pursuit of national exposure for sports is influenced by the ratings systems used by Australian television. By the late 1980s, the main football codes in Australia realised that in order to garner the desired high national ratings, and increase the value of their product for television and sponsors, they needed to maximise their national exposure. This meant heavy investment in grassroots development and in the support of clubs on the "other" side of the Barassi Line.

Australian rules football

The first club to cross the Barassi Line was the Sydney Swans, who relocated from South Melbourne in 1982. The Swans endured limited success and a series of wooden spoons in their first decade in Sydney before rallying for a series of good years in the 1990s and 2000s, culminating in their premiership in 2005. The Brisbane Bears were founded as an expansion team in 1986 and also suffered from poor results with back-to-back wooden spoons until they were the beneficiaries of a forced merger with the Melbourne-based Fitzroy Lions in 1996. The Brisbane Lions were formed, and became the first triple-premiership winner in 43 years, winning in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

In 1990, the Victorian Football League changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) to pursue a more national focus. By 1997, six of sixteen AFL clubs were based outside of Victoria, although only two, the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions were behind the Barassi Line. A gradually increasing number of players have been produced from the other side of the Barassi line, mostly due to interstate migration trends and developing grassroots participation in the sport, especially from Cairns, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and more recently Sydney. The AFL has increasingly scheduled matches in Canberra, Cairns, and the Gold Coast to increase its visibility beyond the Barassi line. The next wave of expansion by the AFL is on the opposite side of the line. A second Queensland team on the Gold Coast joined the competition in 2011, and a second New South Wales team, based in Western Sydney, joined the AFL in 2012. With the establishment of these clubs, Ron Barassi Jr.'s prophecy of a national Australian Rules football league with four teams in NSW and Queensland has been fulfilled.

Rugby League football code

Rugby League has also attempted to expand beyond the Barassi line with mixed results.

In 1995 the Australian Rugby League (ARL) created four new expansion teams including one in Perth, resulting in the first rugby league club whose home was on the wrong side of the Barassi Line, the Western Reds. By the time the breakaway Super League started in 1997, a second club on the opposite side of the line was created, the Adelaide Rams. A third club on the opposite side of the line, the Melbourne Storm, was due to be created in 1998 to play in the second season of Super League, but in the meantime the opposing leagues made restitution and established the National Rugby League (NRL). Part of the agreement to form a new league included a reduction of clubs in the league, especially those recently established in difficult markets, and the clubs in Perth and Adelaide were disbanded, although the Melbourne Storm continued with success in the new competition.

Current situation

As of 2012, four professional clubs in Australian rules football, and one in rugby league operate on the 'other' side of the Barassi Line, each with mixed success. Both codes continue to seek opportunities to expand their presence on the other side of the line. Notably, the AFL added its fourth club on the rugby side of the line in 2012. In 2011 they also inaugurated the North East Australian Football League (NEAFL), a second level league comprising the reserve teams of the four AFL teams along with teams from the Northern Terrority, Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

Australian Rules beyond the Barassi Line

Rugby League beyond the Barassi Line

Future

Most recently, the AFL has pursued the development of two new teams on the opposite side of the line, the Gold Coast Football Club and the Greater Western Sydney Football Club.

In the aftermath of the Super League war, the NRL is very guarded when it comes to expansion for rugby league. Despite this, there are official bids for expansion teams on both sides of the line, in Brisbane, Rockhampton and the Central Coast on the home side, as well as Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Wellington in New Zealand, and from Perth on the other side.^[6] The only NRL club on the non-traditional side of the Barassi Line remains the Melbourne Storm.

References