This has been a great week for women’s sport in Australia, with two significant announcements on the same day.
In women’s rugby union, the Wallaroos – Australia’s national women’s team- now has a sponsor, and will be playing against the New Zealand Black Ferns in a series of two Tests in October.
This announcement is a major boost to the women’s game in advance of next week’s National Women’s Rugby XV Championship being played in Sydney and in the lead up to the Wallaroos competing in the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup in Ireland.
On the same day, the AFL announced that a National Women’s League would be launched in 2017, with eight clubs granted full licences to compete over a season of six matches beginning in February.
A further five provisional licences have been granted, with those clubs potentially joining the competition in future years.
Unsurprisingly, much of the discussion has focused on the AFL announcement. One commentator has suggested that the AFL women’s league, bringing player payments and profile, has the potential to impact on other more established women’s sporting competitions including netball, basketball, hockey, soccer, cricket and softball.
Really? Isn’t the end game the need to increase women’s participation rates in sport and activity in general, and not for well-resourced codes to cannibalise other established competitions?
Is the establishment of the new league primarily a business development opportunity aimed at increasing AFL club memberships, or is it based on building the game at a community level?
In developing the women’s league, the AFL will need to address a number of challenges. Firstly, many of the games that are more traditionally played by women have an international presence.
This means that even at the junior and schools level, these other sports offer an opportunity to travel and play in many different countries. At the elite level, Australian women’s teams have enjoyed a strong record of success on the international stage from hockey, netball, water polo and more recently rugby sevens.
In addition, it will be interesting to see how the game of AFL is equipped to deal with diversity in its full sense, while a culture of fans booing remains part of the game. Do women AFL players really want the level of media intrusion currently provided to their male counterparts, while elite athletes in other sports enjoy a level of anonymity (admittedly with requisite lower levels of pay)?
Overall, the establishment of the National Women’s League and the bolstering of support for our national women’s rugby team are great developments for women who want to participate in or watch sport played by women.
With a greater variety of sports on offer, girls of all abilities, interests and body shapes may find an activity that bests suits them. Let us hope that the overall effect is greater participation rates of women at a grass roots level across all sports.
Pats
Guest
Rubbish. There are not 60,000 women playing AFL in Queensland. There is no junior girls comp in Cairns and only 5 senior women's teams of reduced numbers per side. AFL is supposed to be big here??..Smoke and mirrors. Hockey has three women's divisions, and extensive age groups including for example over 30 girls teams in Year 1&2 comp. netball is massive, not to mention basketball. Numbers should be based on club registrations only, in which case AFL has 50 girls playing in this city.
TW
Guest
The AFL Commission Boss Mike Fitzpatrick announced the new League and in his speech he revealed the following participation figures. Very interesting indeed - See below.. Womens Footy has been around for many years so it is not new, but what is new is the growth in recent years, along with other Womens sports. Netball fans dont have anything to worry about - Their total figures are huge - 820,000 players at last count, plus a new National Comp without the Kiwis next year, and with a Free To Air TV contract. AFL Clubs - Collingwood and Greater Western Sydney will provide support to Netball teams in that sports new 2017 comp, as well as having teams in the new AFL Womens League. GWS are looking in every nook and cranny to find supporters in a tough area. The AFL CEO Gillon Mclachlan got stirred into action last year, when the 2015 figures revealed a big increase in QLD Womens footy numbers which had surged to 60,000 with out any fanfare. That was the catalyst that drove the AFL into action- He did not want to lose those QLD numbers, and said so publicly This bring us to the figures as mentioned above. These are some of Mike Fitzpatricks speech comments-------- "The concept of a national competition has been put together in short space of time but this day has been a long time coming. The number of women and girls playing club football has doubled over the past five years, as record growth year-on-year has seen female participation reach 25 per cent of the total number of Australians playing our indigenous game. In 2015 there were 163 new women’s teams and more than 318,000 total female participants. This year(2016) we are forecasting 250 new teams will take the field" ---End of Comments. . The forecast 2016 figures will be extraordinary if achieved, If we allow say 10 players per team that is 250,000 players in one year. But we are more conservative and think half of that number, but it does appear that the AFL Has tapped into something.
Simoc
Guest
Strange. Anyone that goes to AFL sees the girls play at halftime with the boys at junior level (U12) . An abundance of the girls are star players. Near half the AFLcrowd appear to be female. It has the potential to be the best womens sport in Australia.
Dmak
Guest
From what I have heard a large number of players of other sports have been targeted to play in the new Womens Comp. As the league only runs for a few months it will be interesting to see how many of the professional players will continue and play in the amateur aussie rules comps once the league is over . Or is it more likely that they will take their money and just return to their old sports once the season is over. The players will be much fitter then they were before the start of the comp. I
Mike
Guest
I think there is a danger that the AFL will use it's money and resources to attract the best athletes to play their game rather than the more established womans sports. This could cause some animosity among ladies sport that could actually backfire and be a turn off for the AFL.