Is AFL taking away sporting stars from other sports?

[enarelle]

Noble as this effort is I am not sure that using the AOC profiles is completely valid. Firstly not sure what benefit there is in looking at Victorian woman who will go to the Olympics is relevant to whether AFL is taking talent from other sports unless there is something about Victorian woman I dont know. So the analysis should be looking at the males. Secondly the AOC profiles are not about where you grew up and learnt the sport. They are about were you are registered/live now. There are numerous examples of this eg Eamon Sullivan is not from NSW and Jamie Dwyer is not from WA. Nearly all our walkers and 30% of our rowers are from the ACT. That might just have something to do with the AIS. So there might be 24% of the males who learnt their sport in Vic but it remains to be shown.

Of course the sports that will win us the lions share medals will be swimming,cycling,rowing so how do the Vic males fare?

If there is a noticeably higher percentage of Vic women compared to Vic men then that in itself would be enlightening.

[King-Eliagh]

A crossover dribble in traffic (standard, behind the back, or between the legs) is a much more difficult skill to learn than bouncing the oval shaped footy.

A behind the back or alleyoop pass in traffic is a much more difficult skill to learn than handballing.

We could argue all day about this but the fact of the matter is basketball is generally played within closer proximity to a larger number of opponents within tighter boundaries than marngrook. Thus as i said, the skills required for bball relate to finer motor skills than in manrgrook. These finer motor skills are very helpful for marngrookers whereas the more gross motor skills applied in marngrook are not as helpful for bballers.

Give a basketball to any random person and ask them to throw it to a person 10 meters away and they'd get to them 9 out of ten times. Get them to hand pass it with their preferred and then opposite hand and they'd miss half.

Give a basketball to any random person and ask them to bounce it with either hand and they could do it easy, even running, even eyes closed. Ask them to do it with an oval shaped ball and many would fail.

I've played decent level bball too you know.

And how much training does it take to execute a 10metre handball? And how much training does it take to execute a behind the back 10 metre pass?

As i said we could argue about this all day. The point here is having marngrook skills does not mean one will more likely be an elite bballer.

[piesman2011]

Noble as this effort is I am not sure that using the AOC profiles is completely valid. Firstly not sure what benefit there is in looking at Victorian woman who will go to the Olympics is relevant to whether AFL is taking talent from other sports unless there is something about Victorian woman I dont know. So the analysis should be looking at the males. Secondly the AOC profiles are not about where you grew up and learnt the sport. They are about were you are registered/live now. There are numerous examples of this eg Eamon Sullivan is not from NSW and Jamie Dwyer is not from WA. Nearly all our walkers and 30% of our rowers are from the ACT. That might just have something to do with the AIS. So there might be 24% of the males who learnt their sport in Vic but it remains to be shown.

Of course the sports that will win us the lions share medals will be swimming,cycling,rowing so how do the Vic males fare?

If there is a noticeably higher percentage of Vic women compared to Vic men then that in itself would be enlightening.

You make some very good points. I agree with the AOC profiles not being valid. I agree about the Woman not being as relevant to this study due to the AFL being male only players. I agree that some of the events Australia will win alot more medals in. This is what I will do. I dont want to look at all individuals and work out their state of orion I will still go with the AOC profiles (to much work to do it the other way + you might loose a NSW person to another state but you will probabaly get one back on average). If someone else wants to look up peoples original states this that would be great. I will do the study using the AOC and compare different states ( NSW, QLd and Vic ect). I will do a male V female comparson. On top of this I will do the same study on all of our Olympic gold medal winning athletes working out their birth states, compare states and males V females.
Now that all of the teams are in I should have this done in the next week or so with accurate information (AOC profiles).

[piesman2011]

Here are some final results. These results are generated using AOC profiles. These results include unlisted AOC profiled sportspeople. So overall every state would be a bit higher if you didn't include these individuals. I will go through the results from most populous to least.

NSW percentage population of Australia 32.23%
NSW olympic team percentage 20.2% (62.2% of what it should be)
NSW male olympic percentage 24.3% (75.4% of what it should be)
NSW female olympic percentage 15% (46.5% of what it should be)

Vic percentage population of Australia 24.79%
Vic olympic team percentage 20.2% (81.5% of what it should be)
Vic male olympic percentage 18.8% (75.8% of what it should be)
Vic female Olympic percentage 21.9% (88.3% of what it should be)

Qld percentage population of Australia 20.7%
Qld olympic team percentage 23.7% (114.5%)
Qld male olympic percentage 21.5% (103.9%)
Qld female Olympic percentage 26.4% (127.5%)

WA percentage population of Australia 10.61%
WA olympic team percentage 13.1% (123.6%)
WA male olympic percentage 11% (103.7%)
WA female Olympic percentage 15.7% (148.1%)

SA percentage population of Australia 7.31%
SA olympic team percentage 6.3% (86,3%)
SA male olympic percentage 7.3% (about 100%)
SA female Olympic percentage 5% (68.4%)


Tas percentage population of Australia 2.28%
Tas olympic team percentage 2.0% (87.7%)
Tas male olympic percentage 3.2% (140.3%)
Tas female Olympic percentage 0.5% (22%)

ACT percentage population of Australia 1.64%
ACT olympic team percentage 9.3% (567%)
ACT male olympic percentage 8% (488%)
ACT female Olympic percentage 10.7% (652%)

NT percentage population of Australia 1.03%
NT olympic team percentage 0%
NT male olympic percentage 0%
NT female Olympic percentage 0%

unlisted percentage population of Australia 0%
Unlisted olympic team percentage 5%
Unlisted male olympic percentage 5.5%
Unlisted female Olympic percentage 4.5%

I will do the percentages without the unlisted sportmen next. Other things to consider is that ACT has many sports academies with people from other states attend. These sports people are currently listed as comming from the ACT hence the high percentage for this small population. WA also is taking alot of hockey players from other states with the hockey team playing out of WA. Some individuals play out of other states that they were not born or raised in, however this probabaly balances out to some extent. There was also questions raised about the basketball teams however when these were checked it was found that the AOC listed state of origin checked out with their actual state of origin in all but one case.

[Beaussie]

Interesting research there piesman.

[King-Eliagh]

Yes superb research pies. Although it has its limitations I've enjoyed the read. Looks as though qlders are just the better sportsfolk..

[piesman2011]

Here is a comparison between the NRL states QLd and NSW with the AFL states of Vic, WA, SA and Tas. This is comparing the males only to contrast NRL with AFL

NSW and Qld population percentage: 52.93%
mens Olympic team percentage: 45.8% (86.5% of what it should be)

VIC, WA, SA and Tas population percentrage 44.99%
Mens Olympic percentage 40.3% (89.6%)

To me this suggests that AF is not really taking away current sporting stars away from other sports more then RL is. Not that these results really are particually valid. WA maybe a bit higher then it should be because of the Hockey factor. Also the unlisted players lowers the percentage some what for both of the above results.

[enarelle]

I believe the original point was that while Victorians glorified in reputation as great sports watchers (undisputed) they increasingly dont contribute to the sporting reputation of Australia when one looks at the codes that we rely on. The three football codes that give us an international presence ie soccer,league and union dont have many Victorians involved. League has a small international reach but is NSW/QLD. Union a larger reach and is NSW/QLD. Soccer has the greatest by far and the last two Socceroo teams were 80% from NSW. When it comes to cricket Victoria has been chronically under represented for over thirty years The attempt to claim that 40% of our top 13 tennis players are Vics hardly compensates especially when one considers our top players as they are come from QLD/SA/WA - how far down you go to get the 40% level for Vics has no relevance.

So from the analysis now done on the current Olympic team shows that Victorian men are under represented you see the trend continued. The question is there any surprise in this? If the Vicss have the great AFL junior base they claim and AFL contributes nothing to the countries reputation then yes Victoria is not supporting the countries sporting reputation in line with its population.

Adding WA to the Vic numbers only helps shore up the Vics.

[piesman2011]

I believe the original point was that while Victorians glorified in reputation as great sports watchers (undisputed) they increasingly dont contribute to the sporting reputation of Australia when one looks at the codes that we rely on. The three football codes that give us an international presence ie soccer,league and union dont have many Victorians involved. League has a small international reach but is NSW/QLD. Union a larger reach and is NSW/QLD. Soccer has the greatest by far and the last two Socceroo teams were 80% from NSW. When it comes to cricket Victoria has been chronically under represented for over thirty years The attempt to claim that 40% of our top 13 tennis players are Vics hardly compensates especially when one considers our top players as they are come from QLD/SA/WA - how far down you go to get the 40% level for Vics has no relevance.

Unfortunately League and Union have no presence in Victoria at a grass roots level, so you get about 0% of the team comming from Victoria. Is there talent going to waste? In my opinion no doubt. You could blaim the sport of AR or you could blaim Leauge and Union for not investing in Victoria at a grass roots level. Hopefully League get a big pay day soon and use the money wisely to invest in Victoria, WA, SA and Tassie at a grassroots level. This will also help to some extent Union development. As for the socceroos squad. I did a study last year on the Socceroos and I found that over the year (not just 2 teams) about 25% of the team was represented by Victorians. I would love to see the 80% NSW team please link it. But you are forgetting other teams such as the basketball teams (almost a majority from Vic) and the Hockey teams which have usually had a good Victorian representation.

So from the analysis now done on the current Olympic team shows that Victorian men are under represented you see the trend continued. The question is there any surprise in this? If the Vicss have the great AFL junior base they claim and AFL contributes nothing to the countries reputation then yes Victoria is not supporting the countries sporting reputation in line with its population.

Adding WA to the Vic numbers only helps shore up the Vics.

I dont think that this study has shown that Victorian men are under represented, at least to a statistically significant level. If this study concludes anything, you could say that NSW, mainly the women are not pulling their weight this year in terms of representing Australia.

[piesman2011]

In this next set of stats I have removed the unlisted sports people from the overall percentages.

NSW percentage population of Australia 32.23%
NSW olympic team percentage 21.3%
NSW male olympic percentage 25.7%
NSW female olympic percentage 15.8%

Vic percentage population of Australia 24.79%
Vic olympic team percentage 21.3%
Vic male olympic percentage 19.9%
Vic female Olympic percentage 22.9%

Qld percentage population of Australia 20.7%
Qld olympic team percentage 25%
Qld male olympic percentage 22.8%
Qld female Olympic percentage 27.6%

WA percentage population of Australia 10.61%
WA olympic team percentage 13.8%
WA male olympic percentage 11.6%
WA female Olympic percentage 16.5%

SA percentage population of Australia 7.31%
SA olympic team percentage 6.6%
SA male olympic percentage 7.7%
SA female Olympic percentage 5.3%

Tas percentage population of Australia 2.28%
Tas olympic team percentage 2.1%
Tas male olympic percentage 3.4%
Tas female Olympic percentage 0.6%

ACT percentage population of Australia 1.64%
ACT olympic team percentage 9.8%
ACT male olympic percentage 8.7%
ACT female Olympic percentage 11.2%

NT percentage population of Australia 1.03%
NT olympic team percentage 0%
NT male olympic percentage 0%
NT female Olympic percentage 0%

[MarkZZZ]

As noble an effort you have gone to and all the time you have spent working on all these stats pies I think they are totally worthless. It is obvious by looking at the ACT stats that it is inflated due to AIS being located in Canberra. The Hockey have their camp set up in Perth and the Cycling has the HQ in Adelaide. Other sports have their HQ in different areas. It is totally impossible to get any meaningful statistics. Personally I think you need to look at where where these athletes in their formative years, lets say between 5 or 6 when they started playing sport, to say around 16 years old. Usually by the time they turn 16 they are settled into the sport they will compete in at an elite level. Of course there are exceptions like swimmers who probably have made the commitment earlier and others who may make their decision later. So. Unless you can do that its not worth trying to make any sense of all the numbers. To be honest, even if you could do that you can't base any assumptions on one Olympic team. To be statistically relevant it would have to be researched and the analysis of the numbers would have to be over a number of Olympic teams.

[piesman2011]

Mark,

I would agree with you. I have gone through most of the ACT athletes and most of them are from NSW or Vic. I am thinking I will redo this research looking at all of the athletes again, with the following criteria. Look at where they were born (worth 1 point). Look at where they did their primary school (1 point) and look at where they did their secondary school (worth 1 point). If they have two or more of the above in a certain state (2 points or more) they will be classified as comming from that state. This will work for about 98% of the team. If this does not work (in other words the information is not avaliable or 3 different states listed), then I will put down where they currently live as their state.

[MarkZZZ]

Mark,

I would agree with you. I have gone through most of the ACT athletes and most of them are from NSW or Vic. I am thinking I will redo this research looking at all of the athletes again, with the following criteria. Look at where they were born (worth 1 point). Look at where they did their primary school (1 point) and look at where they did their secondary school (worth 1 point). If they have two or more of the above in a certain state (2 points or more) they will be classified as comming from that state. This will work for about 98% of the team. If this does not work (in other words the information is not avaliable or 3 different states listed), then I will put down where they currently live as their state.

You obviously have more free time than I do. Like I said you would have to do it for more than one Olympia. Maybe the last 10 would be a the minimal acceptable to get a true statistical sample (I know it's impossible isn't it).