Many non-Australians have trouble understanding Australian football. We must first distinguish between the various Codes of football in Australia. This is an alien concept for Americans for example -- football is football, what is a Code?
Australia has four Codes, all claiming to be authentic football. They all have completely different rules, scoring systems and so on. The four Codes are Australian Football, Rugby League, Rugby Union and soccer.
The most financially viable Code is Australian Football, also referred to as Australian Rules Football or AFL, from the Australian Football League. AFL has at least two teams in all the mainland States. This is the football most people automatically think of when they think of Australian football. AFL originated in Melbourne, capital of Victoria, over 150 years ago. Some AFL clubs are among the oldest sporting clubs in the world. In Melbourne, AFL is not a game, it is a religion. A Melbourian is far more likely to get a divorce than change his or her football team. Your football team is a badge of identity you carry through your life. Conversion from being Protestant to being a Catholic may be considered extreme, but conversion from Carlton to Collingwood would be considered to be sacrilegious, almost insane.
AFL in Melbourne is a universal code. It is unchallenged as the city's first sporting love. No matter if you are a silvertail who supports Melbourne or a battler who supports the Western Bulldogs, there is a team for you in the AFL. AFL is part of the social cement that binds Melbourne together. AFL is part of the social ecology of Melbourne.
The second major Code is Rugby League. Rugby League originated in the north of England because Rugby Union was a purely amateur sport. League players have always been paid. Rugby League began in Sydney in the early 1900s. Rugby League is played mainly in Sydney, capital of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland. The State of Origin series played annually between NSW and Queensland causes great excitement in those two States. The rest of Australia couldn't give two squirts of cat's piss, as my father would say. Attempts to establish Rugby League outside of NSW and Queensland have been marginally successful. The Melbourne Storm have done well on the field and have developed a small following in Victoria. Victorians are always prepared to give a good team a fair go, but efforts by the press to beat up the Storm haven't made much impression. Part of the beat up may be attributed to the fact that Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd has a financial interest in the game. Far more Victorians watched the Storm win the Rugby League grand final in Sydney than New South Welshmen watched the Sydney Swans beat Hawthorn in the AFL grand final in Melbourne.
Rugby League is the working man's sport. Its heartland is Sydney's western suburbs, what is commonly described as a 'lower socio-economic area.' Manly, the Sea Eagles, are known as the Silvertails. The AFL has established an expansion team, the Greater Western Sydney Giants, in the western suburbs coached by Kevin Sheedy, one of the AFL's great characters. Another expansion team has been established on Queensland's Gold Coast, also Rugby League territory. Both have been moderately successful, probably more so than the AFL marketing department hoped.
Rugby Union is largely played by public (that is, private) school boys, mainly in NSW and Queensland. Attempts have been made to establish Rugby Union teams in Perth, the Western Force, and in Melbourne, the Rebels to participate in the international Super Rugby competition with out a great deal of success.
What differentiates Melbourne from NSW and Queensland is that AFL is universal in Melbourne, while Rugby League and Rugby League divide NSW and Queensland along class lines.
If you are confused about the difference between League and Union, first you may wish to follow my wife who calls League 'the stupid one' and Union 'the smart one.' League consists of running head first into your opponents until you break through for a try. Union is said to be 'the game they play in heaven.' The rules are complex but a lot more appears to happen in Union rather than in League. Sorry, New Zealanders, who imagine we Aussies hang on every Wallabies game, most Aussies don't understand Rugby Union and apart from ex players, mostly private school old boys, aren't interested in it. Until recently, Union players weren't paid because they were all gentlemen who played for the love of the game and if you weren't a gentleman and needed the money, well, you could play League. Union is, outside ex-public school boys, a minor sport. That is not to say it is unimportant, as its followers tend to be well educated and financially secure.
I will call soccer soccer, because outside certain ethnic communities, no one calls it football. The soccer federation have been trying for years to get us to call it football, but we're not listening. They have also been trying for years to stop soccer being seen as an 'ethnic' or 'multicultural' sport. Australia has produced a few handy players like Harry Kewell and Craig Johnson but none of them have been world beaters. Until recently, every soccer team had some ethnic allegiance. Soccer has always had bigger crowds in Sydney, further fragmenting the football Codes. Soccer has never been popular among the Anglo Celts.
Frank Lowy, the brains behind the Westfield shopping empire, who is worth some $5 billion, has put a lot of time into trying to put soccer in Australia on a sounder financial footing. Soccer team ownership tends to attract immigrants and the sons of immigrants who have made good, because you need deep pockets to own a soccer team in Australia. However, the international framework of soccer is so corrupt that even Frfank Lowy doesn't have the money to by a World Cup final series for Australia. Frank Lowy was born in Czechoslovakia and is of Jewish origin. He is one of the most successful of Australia's entrepreneurs.
It is unfortunate that a boring, low scoring contest has become the World Game. If there was something to distract the young men who form the bulk of the crowds and allow them to discharge their testosterone, soccer crowd violence would probably be substantially reduced. The rules, apart from the off side rule, are very simple and you don't even need a ball to play -- you can use a rolled up piece of newspaper. Soccer is a good game to play, it's just not a good spectator sport. Australia doesn't have real slums, so you can't call soccer a slum sport. Soccer is popular with mothers who don't want to see their children exposed to the injuries that are an inevitable consequence of participation in the other Codes.
Finally, if you are American, I know it's hard to cope with the fact that there are four popular football Codes in Australia. No one in NSW really cares that the Sydney Swans won the Premiership and not many people in Melbourne care that a bunch of thick heads called the Storm won the League grand final. American Football unifies the nation; in Australia football divides the nation. And a final PS: there is no such thing as 'Australian Rugby football' or similar combinations: there are four distinct varieties of football in Australia and everyone is very possessive about their Code and their team.
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