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Sport inOceania varies from country to country. The most popular playing sport for men in Australia isAustralian rules football,[1] while for women isnetball.Rugby League is the most popular sport in terms of audiences.[2]Rugby union is the most popular sport among New Zealanders,[3] while in Papua New Guinearugby league is the most popular and enjoys the highest television ratings.[4] Cricket is another popular sport throughout the Oceania region.[5]
Australia has hosted two Summer Olympics:Melbourne 1956 andSydney 2000. Also, Australia has hosted five editions of theCommonwealth Games (Sydney 1938,Perth 1962,Brisbane 1982,Melbourne 2006), and (Gold Coast 2018). Meanwhile, New Zealand has hosted the Commonwealth Games three times:Auckland 1950,Christchurch 1974 andAuckland 1990.
ThePacific Games (formerly known as the South Pacific Games) is a multi-sport event, much like the Olympics on a much smaller scale, with participation exclusively from countries around the Pacific. It is held every four years and began in 1963.Australia and New Zealand competed in the games for the first time in 2015.[6]
Association football is a popular sport in Oceania in terms of participation. TheOceania Football Confederation (OFC) is one of sixassociation football confederations[7] under the auspices ofFIFA, the international governing body of the sport. The OFC is the only confederation without an automatic qualification to theWorld Cup. Currently the winner of the OFC qualification tournament must play-off against a team from eitherAsia,North America, orSouth America to qualify for the World Cup.[8][9]
Currently,Vanuatu is the only country in Oceania to call football its national sport. However, it is the most popular sport inKiribati,[citation needed] theSolomon Islands[citation needed] andTuvalu,[10] and has a significant (and growing) popularity in New Zealand. Oceania has been represented at four World Cup finals tournaments —Australia in1974 and2006 andNew Zealand in1982 and2010. In 2006, Australia joined the Asian Football Confederation and qualified for the 2010 and2014 World Cups as an Asian entrant. New Zealand qualified through the Oceania Confederation, winning its playoff against Bahrain. This made 2010 the first time that two countries from (geographic) Oceania had qualified at the same time, albeit through different confederations.
TheOceania Football Confederation was founded in 1966. It organises theFIFA World Cup qualifier, theOFC Nations Cup for national teams and theOFC Champions League for clubs. TheFootball Federation Australia left the OFC in 2006 to joinAsian Football Confederation.
The most successful Oceanian countries in international men's competitions have beenAustralia,New Zealand,Fiji,Solomon Islands,Tahiti,New Caledonia,Papua New Guinea,Vanuatu,American Samoa,Samoa,Cook Islands andTonga. In women's football, Oceanian team have been dominant, especiallyAustralia,New Zealand,Papua New Guinea,Fiji,Samoa,Tonga,New Caledonia,Cook Islands,Solomon Islands,Vanuatu,Tahiti andAmerican Samoa.
Football has been regularly included in thePacific Games, the multi-sports event forPacific nations, territories and dependencies, since 1963. Until 2011 the competition was known as the South Pacific Games.[11] Since 1971 the men's tournament has been held every four years, but was not played in 1999 due to contractual issues.
In2007, the men's competition doubled as theOceania Football Confederation's preliminary qualifying competition for the2010 FIFA World Cup.[12] The men's tournament also became the Olympic qualifier for Oceania forthe 2015 edition.
The women's tournament was introduced in2003, and has doubled up as the preliminary qualifying competition for theOlympic Games since 2007. Football was a compulsory inclusion at the Pacific Games for men's teams for many years but was made a core sport for both men's and women's teams in 2017.[13]
Football has also been held at several editions of thePacific Mini Games, starting with the first tournament in 1981.[14]
The top three most popular football clubs from Oceania as of March 2023:[15]
| # | Football club | Country | Fans |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sydney FC | Australia | 693,000 |
| 2 | Brisbane Roar | Australia | 595,000 |
| 3 | Melbourne Victory | Australia | 590,000 |
Australian rules football is most popular in Australia[16] and is the most popular football code in Australia in terms of attendance.[17] It has a modest following in Papua New Guinea.[18] It is the national sport of Nauru.[19]
Basketball is notably popular in Australia and New Zealand, in terms of their national leagues and teams, participation, as well as the NBA. Australia has its own basketball league called the NBL (National Basketball League) which New Zealand competes in as well. The Australian national team (sometimes referred to as the Boomers) as of 2016 was ranked 4th in the 2016 Summer Olympics, and New Zealand (also known as the Tall Blacks) are ranked 29th according to FIBA. It is the 4th most popular sport in terms of participation in New Zealand and is the 3rd most popular in Australia.Australia has had a lot of NBA players, such asAndrew Bogut,Ben Simmons,Matthew Dellavedova, andPatty Mills. New Zealand has also helped to create some NBA players as well, such asKirk Penney,Steven Adams, andSean Marks.
Cricket is one of the most prominent sports in Oceania.[20]Australia had ruledInternational cricket as the number one team for more than a decade, and have won sixCricket World Cups and have been runner-up for two times, making them the most successful cricket team. New Zealand is also considered a strong competitor in the sport, with theNew Zealand cricket team, also called the Black Caps, enjoying success in many competitions. Both Australia and New Zealand areFull members of theICC.
Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea are some of theAssociate/Affiliate members of the ICC in Oceania that are governed byICC East Asia-Pacific.Backyard cricket andBeach cricket, which are simplified variants of cricket played at home or on a sand beach, are also popular recreational sports in Australia.Forms of cricket that have been adapted to local cultures are played in Oceania, such asTrobriand cricket in theTrobriand Islands andKilikiti inSamoa,Tuvalu and in other Pacific Islands.
Cricket is culturally a significant sport for summer in Oceania. TheBoxing Day Test is very popular in Australia, conducted every year on 26 December at theMelbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne.
Rugby league is the national sport of Papua New Guinea[21] (the second-most populous country in Oceania after Australia) and has the largest overall audience of any sport in Australia.[2] It attracts significant attention across New Zealand and thePacific Islands.[22]
Australia andNew Zealand are two of the most successful sides in the world.[23] Australia has won theRugby League World Cup a record eleven times while New Zealand won their first World Cup in2008. Australia hosted the second tournament in1957. Australia and New Zealand jointly hosted it in1968 and1977. New Zealand hosted the final for the first time in1985–1988 tournament and Australia hosted the tournament again in2008. In 2017 the tournament was jointly host by Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
TheFiji national rugby league team, nicknamed the Bati (pronounced [mˈbatʃi]), represents Fiji in the sport of rugby league football and has been participating in international competition since 1992. It has competed in theRugby League World Cup on three occasions, with their best results coming when they made consecutive semi-final appearances in the2008 Rugby League World Cup and2013 Rugby League World Cup. The team also competes in thePacific Cup.
Rugby union is the national sport of New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga.Fiji's sevens team is one of the most successful in the world, as isNew Zealand's. TheFiji national sevens side is a popular and successful internationalrugby sevens team, and has won theHong Kong Sevens a record fifteen times since its inception in 1976.[24]
New Zealand has won theRugby World Cup a record three times, and were the first nation to win back to back World Cups. New Zealand won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in1987 which was hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Australia hosted it in2003 and New Zealand was the host and won it in2011. New Zealand also won in2015, defeating Australia in the final. TheSuper Rugby features five teams from each of Australia and New Zealand.
Rugby union is the national sport ofTonga,[25] and thenational team (ʻIkale Tahi, or Sea Eagles) has performed quite well on the international stage. Tonga has competed in sixRugby World Cups since1987. The2007 and2011 Rugby World Cups were Tonga's most successful to date, both winning two out of four matches and in a running chance for the quarter-finals.
| Rank | Stadium | Capacity | City | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sir Hubert Murray Stadium | 25,000 | Port Moresby | Papua New Guinea |
| 2 | Sir John Guise Stadium | 15,000 | Port Moresby | Papua New Guinea |
| 3 | HFC Bank Stadium | 15,000 | Suva | Fiji |
| 4 | PNG Football Stadium | 14,800 | Port Moresby | Papua New Guinea |
| 5 | Lawaqa Park | 12,000 | Sigatoka | Fiji |
| 6 | Apia Park | 12,000 | Apia | Samoa |
| 7 | Churchill Park | 10,000 | Lautoka | Fiji |
| 8 | Subrail Park | 10,000 | Labasa | Fiji |
| 9 | Stade Hamuta | 10,000 | Papeete | French Polynesia |
| 10 | Stade Numa-Daly Magenta | 10,000 | Noumea | New Caledonia |
| 11 | Pacific Games Stadium | 10,000 | Honiara | Solomon Islands |
| 12 | Teufaiva Sport Stadium | 10,000 | Nuku'alofa | Tonga |
But it would still be one of the biggest shocks inWorld Cup history if Papua New Guinea -the only country to have Rugby League as its national Sport - were to qualify for the last 4.
