Aussie rules, OK? A little bit of Majak shows why footy's No. North Melbourne's Majak Daw congratulated by fans after his debut match. ONE of Australia's greatest Olympic broadcasters once told me privately that the Olympic Games was an event for blokes who couldn't make it as footballers. Harsh; but for boys growing up in southern state schoolyards in the '70s and '80s, there was a simple reality. If you wanted to be considered cool, or the best athlete, you played football. Being tall, handsome, athletic and clever didn't help your social standing if you were a swimmer. If you were the best hockey player in the state, you kept it secret. Heaven forbid you were a fencer. Yet you could be short, skinny, brainless and pimply, but if you could play in a back pocket, you had credibility. It seems not much has changed. Last month, all three Australian free-to-air television broadcasters, Channels 7, 9 and 10, withdrew from the bidding race for the rights to the next summer and winter Olympic Games. And yet all three networks searched for every last dollar in an effort to secure the AFL rights. The Winter Olympics in Russia are just 10 months away, and as of today, you will not see one minute of it. But every second of every AFL game is now broadcast live, with many games shown by two carriers, Channel 7 and Fox Footy, simultaneously. And there are now over a dozen programs spread across the networks dedicated to football. It is a timeless constant that has long bemused Australian Olympians, and made many top international sportspeople jealous. Kids, be it girls or boys, would still rather meet Taylor Walker than Anna Meares. And it's not just the kids. Overseas success, fame and fortune has never really been enough to make you fashionable in the Australian adult eye. Just ask the Woodies. The damning fact is that most Olympians are only relevant for a month or so every four years. Some medallists in minor sports are relevant for a day. Pub debate, schoolyard chat, hairdresser gossip, talkback radio, and newspaper space is dominated year-round by AFL. The added bad news for competing sports, is that it is not only cool to be a footballer in 2013, it's lucrative. Currently over 700 AFL players are employed across the 18 AFL clubs. Roughly 150 new teenagers each year are drafted into AFL clubs and essentially given a minimum of two years employment. Become the best player at your club and you can earn over a million dollars a year without ever having to leave the country. Young boys do have more options than ever when it comes to choosing a sport to play at school. But if relevance and a post-school athletic career is a consideration, the choice is as limited as ever. You were once considered relevant if you played NBL in this country, but not any more. Just ask the Townsville Crocs, which have just folded, not that anyone noticed. Soccer has gained ground and taken basketball's place as a quality local choice, but as with basketball, baseball, tennis and golf, you need to be a freakishly rare talent and be prepared to live overseas to achieve true greatness. Chatting to Australia's greatest modern-day cricketer Shane Warne at the Saints game last week rammed it home to me. Cricket is still one of Australia's most respected and relevant sports. And yet if Warnie had his way as a kid, he would not have played cricket for Australia and been a world class sporting icon; he would have played AFL for St Kilda. He played under-19s for the Saints. His hero was Dermott Brereton, which is why when cricketers began wearing numbers in one-day games, Warne chose 23. Anzac Day is the wrong time to be searching for a reason why. It's too easy and cliched to say Aussie rules is lucky, in that it celebrates many of the traits historically ingrained in the Aussie spirit, like toughness, athleticism, skill, teamwork and unity. To be honest, there could easily be someone writing this same article about rugby league in the northern states. But step outside Australia and you realise that it's not just us. The domestic football codes are top of the cultural sporting pyramid in Europe, Africa, America, South America and Austral-Asia. Thankfully most schools in Australia now celebrate other pathways to self- worth outside of football, by acknowledging and respecting achievements in fields like music, social leadership and academic success. But for some kids around the world, the only avenue is sport. Just hours after talking to Warnie last week, I interviewed the first ever Sudanese born AFL player, Majak Daw, on the morning of his debut for North Melbourne. Born in Khartoum, Daw and his family fled the civil war to Egypt, before finding a home in Werribee in outer Melbourne. His father, brothers, and friends all wanted him to play soccer, because that was their game. But Daw chose football. When I asked him why, he looked at me as if I didn't quite understand the concept, that if you can play AFL, there is no choice.