A special edition of our True Issues poll looking at interest in sports and attitudes to high performance sports funding is now available.

Australians are more interested in the Summer Olympics than any other major sport or sporting event. The Summer Olympics also has the most cut-through, as the only sporting event that attracts higher interest among Australians than their interest in sport in general. 32% of all Australians have ‘very high’ or ‘high’ interest in the Summer Olympics, higher than interest in the AFL Grand Final (28%), the Commonwealth Games (28%) and the Australian Open Tennis (27%).

All other sports attract interest from less than a quarter of Australians, with netball and major golf tournaments in Australia attracting the least interest (at 11% each).

The Summer Olympics is the only sport or sporting event that attracts higher interest among Australians than sport in general (29% interest) and one of the few that attracts double digit ‘very high’ interest (11%), along with the AFL Grand Final (14%), the NRL Grand Final (11%), the Soccer World Cup (11%) and the Australian Open Tennis and the Cricket World Cup (both 10% ‘very high’ interest). 21% of Australians also state an interest in the Winter Olympics, with 6% ‘very high’ interest.

Winning Olympic medals is important to Australians

More than two thirds of Australians think winning Olympic medals is important; a third rate it as highly important. More than two thirds (70%) of Australians think it is important for Australia to win medals at the Olympics, with one third (34%) saying it is either ‘extremely’ (9%) or ‘very’ important (25%).

Our Olympians’ efforts are sound, with Australia’s total of 29 medals at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro rated as a ‘good’ performance by a majority of Australians.

A majority of those interested in the Winter Olympics (57%) or the Summer Olympics (53%) think it is highly important (extremely or very important) to win medals. There is significantly less interest among residents of regional Australia in winning Olympic medals.

For more insights about sports funding in Australia, click below to download the full report.