When it comes to accurately gauging whether soccer's, err football's, World Cup will impact on the AFL and NRL seasons now at their mid-point, the agendas fly thick and fast.

The AFL and NRL maintain they are not worried about an event many regard bigger and more important than even the Olympics.

"It's business as usual," said one AFL insider.

For soccer, whether that is Football Federation Australia or individual A League clubs, the World Cup represents a time to, excuse the cliché, put the boot in to the AFL and hopefully reap financial rewards.

"This is a great time for football to make some inroads and get more children playing the sport," a FFA insider said.

"Hopefully the Socceroos can hang in there."

Soccer has long been dubbed the "world game" but it's really only been since the Socceroos qualified for Germany 2006, and now South Africa, that Australia's national team has had an impact on the general sports fan.

Soccer, like all sports, has had its diehards, with the local popularity of the English Premier League through the years attesting to that. But as Michael Visontay, a lecturer in sport and media at the University of NSW and the University of Technology, recently noted, "the 2006 World Cup changed Australia".

It was reported up to 60,000 Australians converged on Germany, while 43,000 tickets have already been bought by Australians for the South African campaign, behind only soccer-mad England and the US.

That may be all well and good but it's debatable whether those figures will have AFL boss Andrew Demetriou and his NRL counterpart David Gallop worried.

As AFL and NRL officials point out, Australia's three World Cup pool matches won't interfere with their supporters and television viewers for they fall in the middle of the night.

Australia opens its campaign against Germany on Queen's Birthday Monday at 4am, then plays Ghana on Saturday, June 19 at 11.30pm and finishes against Serbia on Thursday, June 24 at 4am.

Four years ago, the popularity of Australia's matches meant they rated nationally in the top two "programs" of the week in official ratings.

Yet, overall, the highest of those ratings, Australia's tournament-ending match against Italy, was only the 16th most viewed program for the year, well behind the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony (No.1), the AFL grand final (No.2) and the NRL grand final (No.7).

Clearly, the AFL is still the king.

"It's not like the matches this time are on at prime time, that would be a different story," said a NRL official.

"People can watch NRL games at night and stay up and watch the Socceroos.

"Who knows if they (Socceroos) will even then advance from the group stages?"

That doubt has also been expressed in the usually upbeat round-ball community by the likes of former Socceroo Craig Foster, who fears a lacklustre campaign could even hurt the sport.

For the sake of the FFA, there's plenty riding on a fruitful campaign. The Socceroos and A League attract about $24 million yearly in sponsorship, with Hyundai investing $10 million.

Information analyst IBISWorld believes the FFA will ask for about $30 million for new naming rights sponsorship next year, while hopefully negotiating a $300 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel.

Obviously, a successful campaign will strengthen those talks.

If that happens, the AFL says it doesn't have any special plans to negate the glorifed headlines the likes of Tim Cahill and Lucas Neill will generate.

However, BackPageLead understands the AFL does have some concerns with the impact soccer is having on its entrenched support in Melbourne.

It's believed sports radio station, SEN, has been encouraged not to expand its coverage of Victory matches next season, already restricted to the station's digital band.

SEN has become a major player in the broadcasting of AFL matches and relies on that relationship to attract listeners in the Aussie Rules heartland that is Victoria.

There's no such concern for A League teams this month. Melbourne Victory players, for instance, will appear at live public broadcasts of the Socceroos' matches to help promote the team and sport in general.

A FFA insider said the A League powerhouse was keen to associate itself in any way, shape or form with the World Cup, as this was the moment to "strike".

"We will ride on the coat-tails of the World Cup," he said.

The FFA will also hope a successful Socceroos campaign will generate reams of free publicity in the media.

Despite the country's two biggest media empires, News Ltd and Fairfax, sending reporters to South Africa, coverage in the lead-up to the tournament so far has generally been restricted to the inside pages of newspapers - not the coveted front or back pages.

The timing of Australia's matches mean sports websites will be the place to turn for immediate results and analysis in the morning, and leading sites can expect a major spike in hits.

The AFL and NRL expect newspaper coverage to pick up when the World Cup begins but won't hold off any major announcements of their own through this period.

Indeed, the AFL remains buoyant attendances and television ratings will remain strong.

Australia's second and third pool matches fall during the AFL's split round, with the highlight of that fortnight a Friday-night grand-final rematch between Geelong and St Kilda at the MCG, expected to attract about 80,000 fans regardless of what's happening in South Africa.

Four years ago, after Australia broke a 32-year drought to reach the World Cup and the public interest in soccer surged, then Essendon chief executive Peter Jackson warned the AFL: "Look at history and you'll see that empires don't always stay the same. You'd be a fool to say it couldn't happen to AFL.''

Four years on, however, and the AFL continues to enjoy record attendances and television ratings.

The world game, clearly, still has a lot to do before a sport many have described as a sleeping giant awakes and takes a real hold on local shores.