Peter Twomey

The Guardian says 68% of Australians have low or no interest in the Melbourne Cup. Here’s what it left out. First, the poll jumps around massively from year to year. It asked just 1,003 people, and low or no interest went from 52% in 2022 to 62% in 2023, then back to 52% in 2024. Without a major crisis, public opinion doesn’t swing 16 points up and back down in two years. Small polls do. Even taking it as fact, the Cup is right where you’d expect. If 68% aren’t interested then 32% of Australians have an interest in the Cup. When the same pollster asked about other major events: Australian Open: 45% Cricket World Cup: 42% Melbourne Cup: 32% Australian F1 Grand Prix: 23% Bathurst 1000: 14% Nobody is writing headlines about the Grand Prix losing the nation’s interest... Even the footy codes don’t reach most of the country. 42% of Australians call themselves AFL fans and 30% call themselves NRL fans. The AFL and NRL grand finals are two of the most watched programs of the year, and each was watched by less than 25% of Australians. And the people who care still showed up. 97,112 people went to Flemington yesterday. That’s the biggest Cup Day crowd since 2016. No sporting event in this country has most of the population on board and The Cup is no different. The same numbers could’ve read “Almost 1 in 3 Australians show an interest in the Cup” but there’s no prizes for guessing why they didn’t 😂