The Socceroos’ recent Asian Cup triumph and the subsequent resumption of the A-League has ensured that football has been firmly in the media spotlight of late. Much of the discussion has centred on what the efflorescence of the world game means for the other codes of football. Some of the commentary is devoted to the impact of competition among the codes, in particular the round ball game, Australian Rules and rugby league.

However, interest in football is not a zero sum game. Our research shows that many followers attend two (and sometimes even three) codes. Sports are inherently competitive, yet to produce an outcome that people will come to watch in numbers, a degree of cooperation is necessary. The AFL, NRL and A-League are all cartels that produce a joint collective product. Cooperation is critical to the competitive success within the codes and the argument for cooperation between codes is becoming stronger in Australia today.

Anecdotally and in our own observations, we have noticed that many fans attend both soccer and Australian Rules in Victoria, and soccer and rugby league north of the Barassi line. (We will use ‘soccer’ from hereon in to avoid any confusion over the code in question.)

The rise of one code does not necessarily mean the decline of others. This is evident from the memberships of the two Melbourne A-League clubs, Victory and City (formerly Heart). Both have significant numbers of members who also regularly attend and are even members of Australian Rules clubs.

In 2013 at Melbourne Heart 43% of its members were also members of AFL clubs and the ranking among Heart members corresponded with the membership of the AFL clubs. Hence Collingwood, the best-supported AFL club, had the highest number of Heart members. Joffa Corfe, the head of the Magpies’ cheer squad, regularly attended Heart games.

Scott Munn, the chief executive officer of City, argues that the profile of his club’s membership is similar to that of the AFL clubs. At a conference on football and its communities in 2013 researchers and officials of AFL clubs supported that conclusion. Richard Wilson, CEO at Victory, also noted that the fan base and their membership was a cross-section of the Australian population. The majority of Victory members support an AFL club, though they were not necessarily a member of one. (Roy Hay discusses these issues in ‘Instant Rivalry: the Melbourne Victory versus Melbourne Heart derby’, in Deirdrie Hynes, Annabel Kiernan and Keith Parry, eds, Football and Communities across Codes, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Freeland, Oxon, 2013, eBook, pp. 108–117.)

These clubs’ views are supported by detailed Australian Bureau of Statistics data from the most recent survey of Spectator Attendance at Sporting Events, 2009-10. This indicates quite clearly that people who attend Australian Rules are more likely than the general population to attend soccer matches. Of those who went to AFL, 8% also went to soccer — significantly higher than the 5% soccer attendance rate for non-AFL fans.

The same is true in the reverse direction; people who go to the world game attend AFL matches at higher rates than the Australian population as a whole. Of those who went to soccer, 25% also went to AFL — much more than the 16% AFL attendance rate for non-soccer fans.

An even more substantial cross-over exists between soccer and rugby league. Of those who went to soccer, 20% also went to league — more than double the 8% league attendance rate for non-soccer fans. And of those who went to league, 12% also went to soccer — more than double the 5% soccer attendance rate for non-league fans.

There is a higher cross-over between league and soccer than for AFL and soccer, because soccer attendances are higher in the league states of NSW and Queensland.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that they both inhabit the Australian summer season there is also significant cross-over between soccer and cricket. Of those who went to soccer, 10% also went to cricket — more than double the 4% cricket attendance rate for non-soccer fans. The cross-over works the other way too: of those who went to cricket, 14% also went to soccer — getting close to triple the 5% soccer attendance rate for non-cricket fans.

One other result is true of both AFL and league. The more often people went to soccer, the more likely they were to go to several AFL or league games as well. The highest rate of occasional attendance (one to two times a year) at AFL and league comes from those who did not go to any soccer games.

In another way the convergence between the codes is becoming more pronounced. Until relatively recently soccer crowds were much more male dominated than those at Australian football games. Now the gap between the codes has narrowed significantly. By 2009–10, the year of the last relevant ABS survey, the gap between reported female attendance at soccer and Australian Rules matches was only a matter of 3% in Victoria, the heartland of the Australian code — 38% of attendance at soccer was female and 41% at Australian Rules. Rugby league has 38%, the same as soccer. Moreover, while the absolute numbers of women going to AFL or league are higher, women are more frequent attenders at soccer games than Australian Rules or rugby league matches. The proportions of women going to six or more games a year are much higher.

So what does it all mean? The key point remains that there is a significant cross-over between support for the three codes and this has implications for the ways in which they might relate to each other in future. Instead of denigrating each other at every opportunity, perhaps the codes might change strategy and actively seek ways of cooperating?

Though obviously there can and will be competition for scarce sponsorship resources, if the sponsors see that they can reach their target markets through investment in more than one code (in the case of soccer and AFL in Victoria, for example) then this will influence the ways the codes present themselves.

The codes use the same venues in Melbourne and Sydney in particular. Rugby league, rugby union and soccer share AAMI Park, the rectangular stadium across the road from the Melbourne Cricket Ground. On occasions when cricket matches have been played at the MCG some patrons have then walked across Olympic Boulevard to take in soccer in the evening. What about venue tickets for the fans enabling them to attend matches of any of the codes? It’s a similar story with Allianz Stadium in Sydney, which is close to the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Once again we have a case of the fans leading the way towards a new approach, since none of the organisations concerned or the media are promoting the idea that cooperation is better than conflict to this point. Finding ways of improving cooperation is only a challenge now for the codes themselves. Instead of looking for ways to do the opposition down, they would benefit from looking for ways to make it easier for their own supporters to develop an interest and an involvement in the other codes. Both the codes and the fans will gain from the outcome.