subject: 5 Different Sports You Can Expect To See In Australia [print this page] Although we as Brits tend to think that we are a sports mad country, due to the fact football dominates televisions throughout the country, compared to Australia, we actually only have a particularly small interest.
Head Down Under and you'll not only find sports dominating the television screens, but in most parks and on the majority of beaches there'll be people playing some type of sport, as shown by the fact that according to the Australia Bureau of Statistics in 2005, almost a quarter of all Australians aged 15 and over were participating in some type of sport regularly.
If you're looking into Australia immigration and are interested in what sports you'll get to see and take part in, take a look at the following 5 sports, which according to Sweeney Sports, were the most preferred sports in Australia amongst adults in the capital cities throughout 2006 and 2007.
1. Cricket - the country's official national summer sport, cricket is prolific in Australia and appears to be being played wherever there's an open space.
Dominating the world cricket scene at international level over the last decade in particular, Australia are also world leaders at indoor cricket, taking home the title in every Indoor Cricket World Cup since it began in 1995.
2. Swimming - when you walk around Australia, you realise that in most people's spare time, they're either doing one of two things - enjoying the swimming pool in their back garden or enjoying the sea down at the local beach. Therefore, it's no surprise that most Australian's learn to swim at an early age.
Producing several world class swimmers over the years, the most popular is arguably Ian Thorpe, the 27 year old freestyle swimmer who has scooped 5 Olympic gold medals.
3. Tennis - the host to one of the four Grand Slam events, the Australian Open is held in Melbourne in January and sees the world's greatest tennis players compete it out for the title each year.
In terms of Australian tennis players, it's difficult to put together a comprehensive list as there are so many great players, such as Lleyton Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis, Pat Rafter, Rod Laver and Margaret Court.
4. Australian rules football - a sport that some say is the most popular in Australia, Australian rules football is a game that is followed in every part of the country and it's following can be seen in the attendance figures for 2008 - over 7 million people attended games throughout the season. A substantial figure in itself, it's made even more so when you realise that it makes the AFL (the sport's main competition) the fourth most followed sport in the world, behind America's National Football League (NFL), India's Twenty20 cricket Premier League and Germany's football Bundesliga.
5. Football / soccer - known as soccer for the fact Australian rules football is generally referred to as football, it is one of the most popular sports in the country and although Australia may not have been great at an international level for many years, they are quickly improving (aside from the fact that they beat American Samoa by 31 goals to 0 in 2002, they qualified easily for the 2010 World Cup).
