The question arises as a result of an article in the Winston-Salem Journal: Nascar Nation: The sport that drives America part 1 and part 2 .(Ed note: links removed as article no longer online) In the article, H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, a longtime NASCAR leader, is quoted as saying: "...American sports fans want big things, they want heavyweights not featherweights, they want contact - American football not soccer. They want contact. And they want something easy to understand - don't give 'em cricket or Australian- rules football. And they want something unexpected - the Hail Mary pass, the sudden drama, the wreck, the crash, the last-lap pass. More than anything, they want drama. They want a soap opera. And you couldn't write a soap opera better than NASCAR."
Mr. Wheeler raises two issues we need to consider to answer the question at hand: Is Australian football actually hard for Americans and Canadians to understand and does it lack the other ingredients that Mr. Wheeler mentions? We can dispose of the second part pretty easily. The sport certainly has big players and great personalities. It has lots of contact. There is always the chance for the unexpected and there is drama. So, if all that is true, that leaves the question of whether it is in fact too hard for Americans.
For most people, once you get past the radical nature of how different it is than what you think of (as an American or Canadian) as football, it is a game you can appreciate almost immediately -- even before you know most of the rules. And yes, there are rules. AFANA offers a quick 2 page summary of what you need to know to begin to appreciate the sport. It's called our Table Top Tent Guide. Print it out and it will fold up nicely to sit right on your coffee table.
In fact, one of the things that we know about the sport is that once you expose people to it, it makes fans all on it's own. The sport sells itself in many cases. Does this mean you can "get it" by being a couch potato and just flipping through a few minutes of it while channel surfing? I doubt it, but if you can explain the NASCAR points system and restrictor plates to me in less words than I can outline Australian football, I'll buy you the American beer of your choice. If I win, I get Australian wine.
It's easy to assume that because we all drive cars that we automatically recognize and understand modern racing but I suspect that is not entirely true. It's also easy, for those with no knowledge at all of Australian football beyond an old Foster's commercial, to assume that this is some arcane, difficult to understand foreign sport. That would also not be entirely true. If you aren't interested in broadening your sporting horizons then I can't interest in you in anything beyond the sports you learned as a 10 year old. But if that's the case, and you weren't born in a family of racing fans, then NASCAR will never get your attention either.
Australian football is not hard to understand. All it takes is a little bit of interest and a few mintues with one of the many Americans and Canadians who are already passionate fans.
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