Barassi Line

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

The Barassi Line was first suggested by Professor Ian Turner in his 1978 Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture to refer to a dividing line in Australia that divides areas where Australian rules is the dominant winter code of football from those where rugby football codes are most 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 the rugby football varieties, rugby league and rugby union are the most popular codes on the other side, with centres in Sydney 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 it 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, each of major football leagues, including the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League and the Super 14 Rugby Union competition have expanded 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.

The exact location of the line may be disputed, and the stylised straight line is not particularly accurate. It is yet to be shown that any of Queensland favours Australian football over rugby codes, and in the Riverina area of New South Wales both codes vie for dominance. In the Canberra area there are two professional teams playing rugby codes, the Canberra Raiders and Brumbies, whereas there is no AFL side in Canberra and only a few matches are played there each year.

Origin

The Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture was a series of lectures given between 1966 and 1978 by Professor Turner, a Professor of History at Monash University, that were named after Ron Barassi, Sr.. Barassi played a handful 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.

Primarily due to the distances involved, the leagues of both rugby codes and Australian rules 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 Victorian Football League, South Australian National Football League, West Australian Football League, Tasmanian Football League and Northern Territory Football League were the most popular leagues. Australian rugby union clubs were based around city leagues, primarily in Sydney and Brisbane. In most cities, however, the non-dominant sports had amateur leagues that operated for many years.

Expansion

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, 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

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 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 consolidated 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 importance 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, is scheduled to join the competition in 2011, and a second New South Wales team, based in Western Sydney, is slated to join the AFL in 2012. Upon the establishment of these clubs, Ron Barassi Jr.'s prophecy of a national Australian Rules football league with four teams in NSW and Queensland would be fulfilled.

Rugby League and Rugby Union

The rugby codes have 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 in the new competition.

Professional rugby union clubs have been tried in Perth and Melbourne. While the unsuccessful Australian Rugby Championship containing the Melbourne Rebels and Perth Spirit lasted just one season, the Super 14 club Western Force, founded in 2005, continues to exist successfully in Perth on the other side of the Barassi line, with more members than any other club in the competition. A new Melbourne club called the Rebels is due to play in an expanded Super 15 from 2011.

Current situation

As a result, to date, Australian rules football has two professional clubs, and rugby league and rugby union have one apiece on the 'other' side of the Barassi Line, each with mixed success. All three codes continue to seek opportunities to expand their presence on the other side of the line.

Meanwhile, the Barassi line has had a seemingly negligible effect for Association football in Australia, which has grown in popularity from its origins in almost all regions equally, and succesful clubs have come from both sides of the Barassi line.

Australian Rules behind the Barassi Line

• Australian rules football in New South Wales
• Australian rules football in the Australian Capital Territory
• Australian rules football in Queensland

Rugby League behind the Barassi Line

• South Australian Rugby League
• Rugby league in Victoria
• Western Australia Rugby League
• Tasmanian Rugby League
• Northern Territory Rugby League

Rugby Union behind the Barassi Line

• Victoria
  • Victorian Rugby Union
  • Rugby union in Victoria
• Northern Territory
  • Northern Territory Rugby Union
• South Australia
  • South Australia Rugby Union
• Tasmania
  • Tasmanian Rugby Union
• Western Australia
  • RugbyWA
  • Western Force

Future

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

The Super 14 rugby competition has constantly discussed expansion into areas on both sides of the line, including Perth, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Western Sydney. The first expansion into Perth still contributes one side, the Western Force, and the Melbourne Rebels will join the competition in 2011, making 2 out of 5 Super 14 teams will be on rugby's non-traditional side of the Barassi Line.

On the other hand, in the aftermath of the Super League war, the NRL is very guarded when it comes to expansion for rugby league. Whilst are no publicised intentions for new clubs across the line the WA Reds have made it clear they wish to re-enter the national competition and currently field a team in the NSWRL SG Ball competition. Also, in recent years good crowds at Members Equity Stadium in Perth for NRL trials and premiership matches have no doubt kept Perth on the NRL's radar. The only NRL club on the opposite side of the Barassi line remains the Melbourne Storm. The newly planned NRL Independent Commission could be a catalyst for expansion beyond the Barassi Line once more.