by Lindsay Oliver

Created on: June 08, 2009   Last Updated: June 15, 2009

After watching the always exciting NFL kick-off weekend in New York (the season after my beloved New York Giants won Superbowl XLII), my arrival in Sydney in mid-September seemed anti-climatic. I concerned myself more with memorizing the Giants' schedule and brainstorming ways I could watch the games than with exploring Sydney. Attempting to watch the games became an especially daunting task as I was on a backpacker's budget, so NFL live was out of the question, and the time difference meant waking up at 4 AM to watch the 1 PM games. Not exactly an ideal situation. To my surprise, there were a few Australians at my new job who had just as much of a love for American football as I did. They eased my transition between watching the NFL and watching Gridiron, as the Aussies call it. Over the coming months of the NFL season, I learned that Gridiron was more prevalent than I knew, and only growing in popularity.

Exhibition gridiron games in Australia have been around since World War II. Matches featuring American servicemen drew much curiosity in many major Australian cities. The popularity of the sport continued to grow, and in 1983, the first organized teams were created in Melbourne, Australia. Ultimately called Gridiron Australia in 1994, the league changed its name three times in ten years. The late nineties saw a large jump in popularity, as the NFL tried to reach out, expanding the sport's global appeal. In 1996, 24 NFL teams toured Australia and New Zealand as part of the Down Under Bowl VIII. The Down Under Bowl, a tradition starting in 1990, invited American states to create high school level all-star teams and travel to Australia to compete and to spread the development of the game. At a more professional level, Australia has competed in the Gridiron World Cup since 1999, though has never won. After all the NFL's attempts to spread to Australia, its popularity was mainly on a grassroots level. Nothing really invoked Australians to appreciate American football at a national level until recently.

With the introduction of Australian Rules, players Ben Graham and Saverio Rocca to the NFL made a major difference in the popularity of the sport in Australia. Both these players had long careers in the AFL and brought a lot of their built-up fan base to America. Both hold interesting records in the NFL. Rocca was the oldest Rookie in NFL history when he made the switch from AFL to NFL. Graham is the only player to be named a captain of both his AFL team (Geelong Cats) and his NFL team (Arizona Cardinals). He is also the only Australian to play in a Superbowl, which happened to be the Superbowl played this year (February 3, 2009).

I watched this past Superbowl surrounded by Aussies who complained before the game that it was too slow, had too many rules, and the players wore too much padding. These are generally the complaints of those who have never bothered to learn anything about the sport. They do not understand the strategy behind the huddles and time outs and the extraordinary amount of teamwork involved. These are concepts difficult to grasp for those who have never played the sport, and much more difficult for those who grew up in a culture where rugby (League, Union, or Aussie Rules) is the only football that exists. After some of the basic rules were explained to them, and they appreciated some of the big hits, their interests slowly peaked. By the end of the game, when the Cardinals (Graham's team) almost beat their opponents, most of them were completely entranced and promised to watch as many games as they could next season.

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