Football. Foosball. Voetbal. Soccer. Whatever you might call it, football is undoubtedly one of the most popular sports on the planet. That's right – even here in Australia, we just can't get enough of it, even if it is played with oddly shaped balls (we're real suckers for Aussie Rules over here at Motive Travel!).
1.7 million people pay to watch Premier League matches here in Australia.
The country that invented the game is also the one that's home to the most popular domestic competition. The English Premier League is the most-watched on the planet – beamed to over 200 countries around the planet. With an estimated global TV audience of near 5 billion, it's little wonder that 'The Beautiful Game' is growing in popularity in the land Down Under. Combine this with Australia's sizeable British expat community – there are nearly 1.3 million Brits currently living in Australia, according to the Royal Statistical Society – and you have a recipe for Aussie football fever.
Football's coming home
In a previous article, we were looking to test the waters in figuring out how many of our customers might be interested in heading over to the United Kingdom to take in the thrills and spills of a blood-and-thunder Premier League match. As Roy Morgan Research states that nearly 1.7 million people pay to watch Premier League matches here in Australia, surely some of those might want to head around the world to experience a match for real?
Premier League passion
There is nothing quite the smell of homemade pies on sale outside the stadium, hearing the passionate roar of the crowd as a swift counter-attack mounts, and sharing in the spoils of a hard-earned victory. Last season, Leicester City pulled off one of the greatest sporting shocks the football world has ever seen as they wrestled the Premier League title away from established contenders Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea in a triumph that had a 5,000-1 chance of actually coming off. As any horse racing fan will tell you, those odds are insanely high – would you put any of your hard-earned money on a stallion with such odds?
No – you'd rather put your money on a broken-down carousel horse, but that's the size of the achievement the Foxes pulled off during the 2015/16 season. Perhaps it's this sheer unpredictability that makes the Premier League so exciting – compare it to the two-horse race of La Liga of Spain, or the completely one-sided Bundesliga of Germany.
Could a Leicester-esque fairytale have happened there? Almost certainly not, so get in touch with Motive Travel today to find our more about our Premier League plans.
