The A-League needs organic growth

After the Fury were kicked out of the A league, Lyal Gorman suggested the FFA would look at the possibility of a Youth League team could be based out of Townsville. The financial backing was there ($750k) however FFA said it would be too expensive to fly teams to Townsville. All the good work done by the Fury with the indigenous kids has all been undone. Alot of the young football players in North Qld have left for Brisbane. I totally agree that any new franchises shoulld start with W league and NYL team and not rely on billionaires.

Field hockey might have something to It. But again, as you said, most of it comes down to the media treatment. The BBL is an amazing example of what is possible with the right marketing and media. I agree that I think the is a potential market and that there really should be more work done in this. ANZ Championship is a brilliant competition and I'm full of praise for what they done for women's sport. A $300,000 cap across 10~12 players, Australasian, televised, watched, attended, developing standards. They've done it all and I hope that they can take it further. These are good players and deserve to be fully professional.

The likes of the W-League and WNBL will always struggle for sponsorship dollars caused primarily due to their second class treatment in terms of media attention and exposure. Sad but true. Though, the W-League could conceivably improve on their current standing with some creativity and ambition. If I had the appropriate financing to do so, I would look to invest in the W-League as I actually think there's a market for women's sports in Australia. Field Hockey as well. Don't know why, but just think the opportunity exists there. Wouldn't be easy for anyone who did, a lot of innate stereotypical perceptions in regards to women's sports that are traditionally commercially male, still exist. Of the above Women's Leagues above the ANZ Championship stands the best possible chance of any women sporting championship to develop to a point where women can earn a a living professional wage to play their choosen sport. Either that or the Lingerie Football League when they start operations here if all goes to plan. Don't laugh. They are very serious about getting an Aus based League up and running.

I actually think the W League could be one of the best sponsorship opportunities in world spot. With the US league folding most of the women have gone back to their own countries league. There was a story on one of those football magazine TV shows (those 1/2 hour shows that cover about 4 stories) about one of the Japanese stars going back to play for Kobe. With a few $$$ and just a few you could have the number one women's club team in the world. Sign Mata, an American international and a Japanese international and for the price of a Kewell you would get a lot of world wide exposure. A lot of football shows, newspapers and websites like to run something on women's football and here's a chance to grab a big slab of that. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

0.5% of the money probably leads to much of the skill difference. Give the women genuine shots at a number of full time professional contracts, promote the idea that this is a valid career and watch technical proficiency and physical conditioning explode.

hardly surprising though, i enjoy watching the matildas and w-league but many others will not because all they will see is a difference in skill to mens sides

"Unfortunately W-League and NYL sides do not stroke the ego’s of football’s financial backers quite the way an A-League side does." Read on the Guardian not too long ago that a university study of sponsorship dollars found that men's only sport got 61% of dollars, mixed-gender (sort of: tennis, golf, etc) got 38% and women's only sport got a mere 0.5% of sponsorship dollars. An absolutely appalling situation, in my opinion. Glad to see leagues like the W-League, WNBL and ANZ Championship starting to make strides. Hopefully, financial backers will stop being such fools about it.

The Illawarra Stingrays tried to enter the W-League last year after the demise of the Central Coast. Champions of the state league for the last 3 years they are trying to enter the next W-League.

Organic is the best way, it is the rage right now in the industry doing things by organic.

Very interesting, W-League and Y-League are extremely community based, and even though their crowds are in the hundreds, it doesn't matter because most of these people are extremely loyal to their club and community, and most of them that have strong links to their women's team also attend and are loyal to their A-League team. W-League salary cap for the entire team is $150,000. Would also be traveling expenses and stadium hire costs etc, they would also get a little bit of money from tickets, ABC television rights and club sponsors.

Excellent article. You suggest that clubs should be built from the bottom up, and not from the top down. Makes sense! It would be awesome to have a youth team in Darwin, would be great for their community, great for the Y-League and great for Australian football. I just wonder what the operating costs of Y-League and W-League teams are, and how much money they can generate on their own 2 feet. I could be wrong but I think some of the A-League clubs see these leagues as a cost burden to them, remember when Mariners ended with Women's team? But at the same time I think it is compulsary for us to have a national women's and youth leagues as part of being in the AFC?

Interesting article, but ignores the elephant in the room - who's going to pay for it? A W-League or NYL team will pull in virtually zero revenue and have all sorts of expenses that need to be paid for. At least an A-League team has some appeal to a private owner who can cough up his own cash, but who on earth would want to prop up a womens team? It's the same reason as to why a 2nd division doesn't exist.

Surely organic growth is best obtained by starting up a second division?. Following on from that I ask the question what is a youth team or w-league team going to do that any existing state league downwards team in any area in Australia can't achieve? There are football clubs that exist throughout the land . Football is already being supported on a level equivalent or better than W-League or youth league by some state league clubs. Why not build one of those up in a second division? Better still theres several in some areas,why not join them together & plonk a composite club in a second division. Lets be clear the appeal in any sport is the major league. In the case of football in this country, the A-League. Just because 2000 odd turned up for the W-League final in Canberra ,doesn't necessarily translate into a future A-League side being successful. However if you have a second division where an aspiring Canberra team knows its a chance of first division football then it can build support from there. There is of course a major proviso,any second division needs massive ongoing financial back up. If this can't be found then just continue adding new clubs with due diligence to the league(even then as we know you can't get inside the head of some owners). Otherwise I see little value(apart from aiding women & youths football to develop) in placing women & youth's teams in any potential future A-League clubs area.

Ben Will comment latter ... very good article ... however she who must be obeyed has other things on her mind today...

Interesting read Ben . It's like the old saying -" Patience" it's for free but rarely used .

Great Idea, I believe organic growth from the bottom up is the only way to achieve expansion. Whether it is a second division or a bigger youth league.

great article Ben, NYL could effectively be a de facto second division for the short to medium term. Bringing in new regions in a more sustainable way.

Agreed FU, good article with an interesting thought as its kernel. Why cant Western Sydney(as just one example) start smaller and build a club from the ground(NYL) upwards? If Sydney2 was admitted to the NYL with the widely publicized mission statement of "we eventually expect to get a full HAL team", then surely the fans who would come out for the HAL team would also get in on the ground floor and support the NYL team in their club?

Good article. These potential regions should be looking (and allowed) to bolster a A League bid with a positive performance in the NYL, on and off the pitch. Regions like west sydney, wollongong, geelong and tas would be able to show why the ty would be a good addition to the league rather than the FFA just picking the best paper bid and hoping for the best. It would also allow time for local fans to get behind a new team rather than having instant large crowd expectations. This type of pathway to the top tier is how the americans were able to succesfully implement teams like seattle, portland and soon montreal fairly seamlessly.