Rugby league is New South Wales’s dominant winter spectator sport, and cricket is the equivalent in summer. Both are organized in local, state, national, and international competitions and attract considerable corporate sponsorship. The National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Rugby League have their headquarters in Sydney, and a majority of NRL teams are from the state. Major advertising and commercial initiatives have sought to heighten the profitability and professionalism of both sports. In terms of participation in organized sports, however, tennis and football (soccer) are the most popular. Swimming, fishing, golf, cycling, running, and netball are also among the preferred recreations.

The Royal National Park, 58 square miles (150 square km) in area and located some 20 miles (30 km) south of Sydney, was established in 1879. It was the world’s second national park (after Yellowstone, in the United States), reflecting the strong association with outdoor recreation from early in the state’s history. Early bushwalking clubs generated their own maps and conservation ethics and, led by figures such as Myles Dunphy and his son Milo, campaigned for the creation of new national parks and the declaration of wilderness areas. Kosciuszko National Park, formally declared in 1967, is the state’s largest with an area of approximately 2,664 square miles (6,900 square km) in the southeastern part of the state. It largely comprises alpine land and contains all of New South Wales’s ski areas. Taronga Zoo, established in Sydney in 1916, and its associated Taronga Western Plains Zoo, an open-range facility in the west-central part of the state, are both popular with visitors and have conservation, education, and preservation programs.

Together with zoological gardens and aquariums, botanical gardens figure prominently in the nominated cultural or recreational activities of the New South Wales population. The Royal Botanic Gardens, founded in Sydney in 1816, is both the oldest scientific institution in Australia and a valued refuge in the centre of the city.

Among sports that originated in New South Wales, two are notable: campdrafting (a competitive cattle-herding event), first staged at Tenterfield in the 1880s, and polocrosse (a combination of polo and lacrosse), developed at Ingleburn, near Sydney, in 1939. The inaugural Sydney to Hobart (Tas.) Yacht Race was held in 1945. Sydney hosted the 1938 British Empire Games (now Commonwealth Games) as well as the 2000 Olympic Games.

Media and publishing

Like many of New South Wales’s other cultural institutions, publishing and other media are centred in the capital. From 1887 New South Wales’s leading publishing house was Sydney-based Angus & Robertson, which combined educational and literary lists. The firm also established a nationwide chain of bookstores. The difficulty of maintaining a broadly based journal of news, comment, and literature in Australia was evident in the successive phases of the magazine The Bulletin, which celebrated emerging radical nationalism from its foundation in 1880, fostered the popularization of Australian literature in the early 20th century, became a leading domestic newsmagazine in the 1960s, and, after a decline in popularity, finally ceased publication in 2008.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s longest continually published newspaper, launched in 1831, was the flagship for one of the country’s most prominent media dynasties, the Fairfax family, until the family lost control of the paper in 1990. Throughout the 20th century the Fairfax Group had grown to control an extensive network of newspaper and magazine publishing. Its reach expanded alongside that of a rival family company, the Packer family’s Australian Consolidated Press, whose flagship was the Daily Telegraph until it was bought by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1972. Throughout various name changes and changes in ownership, both empires have exerted considerable influence over the state’s style of journalism, its cycles of taste and celebrity, and even the fortunes of its politicians.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission, established as a Commonwealth-run national broadcaster in 1932, has its headquarters in Sydney, conferring the subtle stamp of that city on several aspects of its services, from entertainment to current affairs reporting. The Commonwealth-funded national multicultural television broadcaster, SBS (Special Broadcasting Service), launched in 1980, also has its headquarters in Sydney. Australia’s first commercial radio station was licensed in Sydney in 1923, and the country’s first commercial television broadcasts also began there, in 1956. Both the Packer and Fairfax companies already held radio licenses and subsequently secured television licenses, increasing their influence through the ownership of major broadcast networks. In New South Wales, as elsewhere in the world, the concentration of media ownership and influence was an enduring point of concern in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. An extensive network of commercial, public, and community radio stations extends across the state. However, in remote regions the provision of television service and the quality of reception lagged behind the more-urbanized areas.