Just a thought, perhaps both of the Rugby codes and AFL heavily subside rego and throw merchandise at the kids because they are on struggle street and are desperate to get players. Not to mention the flagged risks of serious injuries etc. Football is not suffering from these same issues.

A mate of mine always puts rego costs for young footballers into good perspective. If you had your kid in dance/piano etc and you sent them along every week you would end up paying a very substantial amount of money. We are probably not too bad value at that rate.