September 27, 2024

LETTER 372

A 'Super Bowl' Holiday

By Julia Bergin

A player in an orange jersey tries to grab the ball as he falls to the ground in an Australian rules football game. An opponent in a gold jersey is nearby, trying to grab him.

The GWS Giants, in orange, playing the Brisbane Lions in the A.F.L. semifinals earlier this month. Brisbane will play the Sydney Swans in the final. Mark Metcalfe/AFL Photos, via Getty Images

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. This week's issue is written by Julia Bergin, a reporter based in Melbourne.

It is an unusual public holiday, one in honor of a professional sports event. The day off is on Friday, a day before the big game, and is celebrated with a parade featuring the two teams going head-to-head on Saturday.

The Australians reading this article already know the holiday: the Friday before the A.F.L. Grand Final. For the uninitiated, it refers to the biggest game in Australian rules football, commonly referred to as footy.

The championship game is, in a way, Australia's Super Bowl. The Australian Football League has a rabid domestic following, and more than 100,000 fans will watch the final in person, with millions more watching it on TV in pubs, clubs or at home.

Yet the holiday on Friday is not a national one; it is observed only in the state of Victoria, which is home to about a quarter of Australia's 27 million people and where 10 of the A.F.L.'s 18 teams are based. And it is here, in the city of Melbourne, that the parade and final are held every year.

"It's the biggest sporting event in the city," said Mason Cox, an American who plays ruck for Collingwood. "You have the international events, the Australian Open, the F1, but when it comes to passion and what people really want to see, I think that the grand final takes the cake."

The atmosphere at a grand final match is electric, with 100,000 people cheering, chanting, roaring and contesting every decision by a referee, and sirens blaring at the start and end of each quarter.

All around Melbourne this week, people have been decked out in footy scarves and jerseys, and there's constant chatter about which team to support and where to watch the game. And though my team, the Melbourne Demons, is not in the final this year, when they have been, my family dressed up head-to-toe in their merchandise, repainted our fence in red and blue and even picked which sweets to buy based on their color. I have friends who are driving nine hours to attend the game this year.

Cox won a title last year when Collingwood trounced the Brisbane Lions, a club from Queensland, in the grand final. Collingwood missed the playoffs this year, though, finishing ninth in the league.

But the Lions have made it back to the final this year and will take on the Sydney Swans, one of two teams based in New South Wales, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday. (The sport first became popular as a way for cricket players to stay in shape during the winter, in the offseason. Like cricket, it is played on oval fields.)

Andrew Ouchtomsky is headed to the M.C.G. for a second year in a row. He has lived in Melbourne for years but is originally from Queensland and is a Lions fan. He is cutting short a family vacation to see his team, which is considered the underdog this year.

"I've been to a losing grand final, so I can handle it," he said. "Last year was one of the worst things that ever happened to me."

Before the season began, Mr. Ouchtomsky paid 100 Australian dollars, roughly $69, on top of his 400 dollar club dues to get priority access to grand final tickets if the Lions made it that far.

He's hoping that his second child, who was born this year, will end up being a "premiership baby," worthy of favorite-child status, he joked.

"It didn't happen in 2022 when my other son was born," Mr. Ouchtomsky said.

For the first time since 2006, neither of the finalists is a team based in Victoria, which remains the nerve center of the sport. Both the Lions and the Swans trace their roots to Victorian teams that moved away.

Unlike the Super Bowl, almost everyone in the crowd for the A.F.L. final will be there for the sport. Roughly a third of the tickets are allocated for club members of teams that have made the final — fans who will drop everything to attend, if they can get tickets. The rest are for A.F.L. corporate partners and sponsors, members of the M.C.G., and members of other footy clubs.

For many Americans, the lure of the Super Bowl broadcast are the television commercials that air between plays. But in Australia, Cox said, people who tune in for the A.F.L. final are interested, foremost, in the game.

"Everyone stops what they're doing and pays attention to it, even if they haven't watched a single game all year," said Cox, who made his A.F.L. debut in 2016 and has played in two grand finals. (Cox and Collingwood lost the final to the West Coast Eagles in 2018.)

The nature of footy — the nearly nonstop action, or "organized chaos" as Cox put it — means there is little time for breaks and commercials, or a big half time extravaganza like in the Super Bowl. As a result, entertainment traditionally precedes the kickoff.

Cox, who is vacationing in Europe, said he plans to tune in from Munich and cheer for the Swans. But at least one other American will be on the M.C.G. on Saturday; the singer Katy Perry is headlining the pregame show.

Next month, the U.S.A.F.L., a 47-team Australian rules league in the United States, will hold a national tournament in Austin, Texas. Cox, who will serve as an ambassador for the U.S. league during the tournament, said the sport has become a "family affair" among his kin.

"One brother has won seven national championships, been their best and fairest two or three times and won the equivalent of a Norm Smith twice," he said, referring to the award given to the top player in Australia's grand final.

"He reminds me constantly that he has won more grand finals of A.F.L. than me."

And now for this week's stories.

Australia and New Zealand

Shoppers at a Woolworths supermarket in Sydney, Australia. Jill Gralow/Reuters

Supermarkets in Australia Sued Over Claims of Fake Discounts. In a rare case of legal action tied to rising prices, the government sued Woolworths and Coles for what it described as a pattern of deceiving consumers.
$2.4 Million Homes in Queensland, Australia. The eastern Australian state with more than 4,000 miles of coastland offers renovated waterfront apartments, federation-style houses and rural multi-acre estates.

Allied Countries Accuse Taliban of 'Gross' Violations of Women's Rights. Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands said they will take the Taliban to the U.N.'s highest court because of its harsh restrictions on Afghan women.

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