The success of the AFLW has been clear for all to see, but it’s important to get a handle on just how significant the push for women’s and girl’s football is at a grassroots level.
I wanted to get a handle on exactly how big was the push for female football is. Is it even real, or is it just AFL spin? By using ladders published on SportsTG, a website which details just about every result from each sporting body in Australia, I had a go at finding out.
I was involved, albeit very peripherally, in women’s football a number of years ago through my daughter, who began playing as a young adult with no background in the game except for a bit of kick to kick with family and friends at the oval. Her interest wasn’t sparked via anything I had done but through a Footy for Mums program that was designed for mums to better understand football. My daughter just happened to go along with my wife, and the local women’s club cunningly used the program as a type of recruiting tool.
In Perth around five or six years ago the women’s league was up and running and based primarily on WAFL teams. From memory there were only around eight women’s teams. Fast forward to today and there are 27 teams across the league, plus reserves and colts as well as 18 women’s teams playing in the WAAFL, which started just this year, in two divisions.
That’s without mentioning the hundreds of specific girls teams across the WAFL junior zones that did not exist even four or five years ago. Most of this growth has occurred after AFLW rather than before it.
In Adelaide in 2013 there were eight women’s teams; in 2018 there were 58 playing in the South Australian amateurs, not including the six women’s teams at SANFL level, a number which will become eight in 2019. At a junior level, as is the case in Perth, there would be hundreds of new girl’s teams.
In Sydney in 2014 there were 16 women’s teams. In 2018 there were 29 women’s teams across three divisions. There were only 12 girl’s teams in junior AFL in Sydney in 2014 across the under-14 and under-18 divisions, but by 2018 this had grown to 106 teams across the under-12s, under-14s, under-15s and under-18s and a further 17 specific under-10s teams, although at that age girls regularly play in mixed teams.
Newcastle and the Central Coast have 16 women’s teams in the Black Diamond league and over 30 junior girl’s teams in 2018. In 2014 they had no girl’s or women’s teams. Canberra is at a very similar level, though the national capital traditionally has a much stronger league at men’s level.
(Matt King/Getty Images)
Brisbane and the Gold Coast had 31 women’s teams in 2018 across a number of divisions and a similar number of girl’s teams as Sydney. In 2014 they had just 12 women’s teams.
Melbourne in 2018 had 63 women’s teams playing in the VAAFL; in 2016 they had no women’s teams. There’s a 13-team women’s competition based primarily on the old VFL clubs, with a 12-team colts tournament attached. The Essendon District Football League had 13 women’s teams in 2018, The Northern Suburban Football League had 20 women’s teams, the Western Region Football League had nine women’s teams and the Southern Football Netball League had 17 women’s football teams.
Bar the VAAFL, every suburban league has under-18s and hundreds of lower age group teams for girls. Go back five years or so and basically none of this existed, so when people talk about quick growth, it has simply been amazing.
It’s also worth mentioning that many country leagues throughout Australia now have women’s competitions attached. Even Exmouth, one of the most isolated towns in the world – they undertake a 350-kilometre drive to Carnarvon to play footy on the weekend – runs a women’s night and games during the season.
If a country league doesn’t have a women’s competition attached, you can bet they are in the process of implementing it or seriously thinking about it. Albany in Western Australia will have a new women’s competition in 2019 for EX. There would be 100-plus leagues throughout county Australia and upwards of a thousand clubs.
So what do all these impressive numbers mean? They mean that AFLW was a case of build it and they will come rather than build a solid foundation underpinning the game at the highest level first. So in theory we should see the standard of AFLW rise pretty quickly as girls who have played the game most of their lives come through in far greater numbers.
The questions still remain. Is this a flash in the pan? Will the initial impetus, enthusiasm and fantastic numbers taper off? Is the game really a bit rough for women and perhaps needs to be a bit more sanitised Are injury concerns valid, and what can be done it?
But for now all we know is that women’s football is thriving.
IAP
Guest
How did Perth stadium go on the second game there? We all know the crowd was there to check out the new stadium, not the women's footy. It was another AFL marketing ploy so the sycophants can pretend that they got 40,000 to watch a game of women's footy, whilst ignoring the truth. It amounts to propaganda. If a comp needs to resort to propaganda to promote it then it's got validity issues.
IAP
Guest
What? You mean the men go and play netball? Have you ever actually been involved in a footy club? What you're suggesting is not how they work at all.
Penster
Roar Guru
Sure, but only if the men are prevented from playing during that time and are relegated to unpaid support positions on the sidelines like canteen duty and washing the socks. That'd even things up.
IAP
Guest
Maybe the women can play as amateurs for 130 years too then. That’d be equal.
IAP
Guest
The real reason was that they wanted to keep their “brand” in the public eye after the explosion of the BBL and success of the A League moving to summer and introducing a women’s comp. No, this is about nothing other than money for the AFL. The confirmation of this is in their actions; they rushed to introduce the women’s league when the standard was about 20 years off being ready. Brand is everything to the AFL - they knew that people will follow their clubs regardless of who’s wearing the jumper, so they introduced women AFL teams instead of starting their own comp with their own teams, which would have been the right thing to do; now it looks like the women are just sponging off the decades of hard work from the AFL (particularly VFL) clubs.
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
@ Mike 3.48 pm above, and your comment “The (AFLW) playing standard was lampooned even by hardcore AFL fans”. This has an element of truth. However, you are misleadingly ‘cherrypicking’ ONLY the AFLW naysayers- there are MANY AFLW fans who enjoyed going to games/watching on TV. The Perth Stadium AFLW attendance of about 43,000 holds the record in Australia (and probably the world) for a stand-alone, female non-international Home and Away competition match; and a few, early female matches in prime time peaked around 1,00,000 viewers. Your comment has, inadvertantly, boosted considerably the proposition that the AFLW, and female community Australian Football, is a juggernaut- as it is true (for now!) that the average AFLW player skills are modest (due to previous bans/lack of female football promotion). DESPITE these modest average skills, the female football boom, since 2017, is indisputedly happening. These skills will inevitably increase with AFLW professional training; and females, who have played since they were 5 y.o., start to join the AFLW in large numbers from about 2028. A virtuous loop for the AFLW’s popularity. The female Australian Football boom is inexorable- explaining the consternation and actions of other female sports in Australia since late 2016, and 2017.
Aligee
Roar Rookie
AFLW came about for 2 very big reasons. 1- there was an increasing demand for womens football- netball and womens cricket and soccer were drawing huge numbers of females who although interested in the indigenous game could not play at a decent level ( Sam Kerr!!). 2. The AFL saw an opportunity to increase its brand, its demographics, its reach and possibly make $$, it makes sense to include the 50% of people who in large parts decide where kids play sport, one part of the AFL may interested in women's football for equality, virtue signalling and other modern PC reasons, but the AFL overall exists (IMO) like any any corporate model to grow the base and make money, i am sceptical of the AFL on one hand, but on the other they also do plenty of good things as well.
Cat
Roar Guru
Those are separate paragraphs. You just don't get double spacing.
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
Typo.-at 11.48 am above, my number “30000” should be “3000”. Also, I write my comments in separate paragraphs- but all appear as one paragraph, which is unsightly. Reasons?
Randy
Roar Rookie
the netball was already popular up here in QLD and firebirds vs lightning was a big occasion before the AFLW came along. its only in Victoria where if you dont play afl then you don't deserve any attention.
Aligee
Roar Rookie
I don’t think the editors changed the premise at all, I wanted to see if the hype about AFLW had any substance below and IMO it does, I try to deal in facts, boring old stats that show quite huge increases, not AFL promo, school visits etc but real teams from real clubs playing on weekends.
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
You previously (11.50 am, above) made the correct comment that it is misleading to simply compare the number of adult female Australian Football teams, to adult female soccer/hockey/netball/basketball teams- as the latter have much fewer players in a team. In your words “around 30/35 players” are registered and play in an adult Australian Football team. In one only Melbourne adult women’s league, the VAFAW (Amateurs), in 2018 it had over 30000 adult female players registered for its 63 adult women’s Australian Football teams. This is an average of about 48 adult women per team! (Ground shortages are one reason for this big problem). There are also now an additional (ie non VAFAW) 7 other adult women’s Australian Football leagues covering Melbourne and periphery suburbs. In 2015, the total number of adult women’s teams, for all leagues in Melbourne, was only about 60! One reason for this very low number is that teenage girls were always banned from playing Australian Football with teenage boys; and teenage girls leagues only started in Australia about 2005, but had VERY FEW teams, and received virtually no strong promotion or funding. This is in contrast to female Australian Football in 2018, where we have the AFLW from 2017- and there has been a MASSIVE increase (both percentage growth, and quantum) all over Australia in community female adult and junior Australian Football playing numbers. Female playing numbers will continue to grow exponentially around Australia, this female football phenomenon has only started to explode since 2017. Most AusKick clinics now have 30+ % female players, about 80% of clubs are expected soon to have female teams, football is booming even MORE strongly in SCHOOLS, and Australian Football Organizations are now (for the first time) heavily promoting female Australian Football. These Australian Football Organizations are, however, spending very small NET amounts on funding the AFLW ( less than $5,000,000 pa, in TOTAL- not including one off establishment costs); and female adult or junior community football. The AFLW and the AFLW Clubs are receiving SIGNIFICANT private sponsorship. Community clubs are also receiving greater sponsorship, after introducing female teams and female AusKick. All AFLW games in 2019 will be broadcast live, on Ch.7 or Fox, and will be paid about $2,500,000 pa broadcast rights from 2019.
Mike
Guest
Fair enough I s'pose. But if the editors added all references to the AFLW it changes the whole premise of the 'rise and rise' claim. The whole thing sounds like a promotional piece from AFL house. Maybe the eds need to edit rather than change the whole point of an article lol.
Aligee
Roar Rookie
I didn’t make any references to AFLW at all, it was added by the editors, not sure whether you have contributed an article or not but some do get changed. However it was my title because after checking the stats against stats 5 years (around) i thought it was a worthy title. Once again this article has nothing to do with TV ratings, skills and crowds but simply a look at women’s team numbers in mainly local suburban/country football V 5 years or in some cases just a couple.
Mike
Guest
No?? The title is the 'Rise and rise of womens football' and you reference the AFLW at the start and end of the article. You then conveniently ignore the massive drop off in the TV ratings and the absolute smashing the standard of play got from almost every direction including head office. If you base an article on the premise of 'the rise and rise' of said product you probably need to be more objective and state the obvious facts lest you become nothing more than a cheer leader.
Aligee
Roar Rookie
@ Mike, this article has nothing to do with AFLW, its ratings, its crowds and its skills, its a genuine attempt to portray what is below it at women's level in this country simply by using team numbers in 2018 and then comparing it to team numbers 5 years ago or so. I have not used any AFL website but use the sporting pulse website that also allows you to look back into the past years ladders and fixtures, FWIU every main sporting body and their senior and junior affiliates in Australia use it for fixtures and results. 3 stats really stand out for me In Adelaide in the amatuers 2013 there were eight women’s teams; in 2018 there were 58 playing. In Melbourne in 2018 had 63 women’s teams playing in the VAAFL (Amatuers); in 2016 they had no women’s teams. Newcastle and the Central Coast have 16 women’s teams in the Black Diamond league and over 30 junior girl’s teams in 2018. In 2014 they had no girl’s or women’s teams
Cat
Roar Guru
Maybe we should trust FIFA or NRL because they are such a bastion of honesty /eyeroll.
Cat
Roar Guru
Sure ... lets trust FIFA ... not. A more corrupt bunch of liars and thieves never existed.
Cat
Roar Guru
No one in the AFL or fans of AFL have ever claimed nor even eluded to such a thing. The only people who make that straw man argument is fans of other sports who are butt hurt because the AFL has done a far, far better job promoting a women's competition than their sport of choice ever did.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Well, Melbourne was Australia's first Olympic City, and has been the home of the Australian Open for a very long time. We have seen women play sport before. All of that aside, the establishment of the women's AFL represents a major step forward for the sport of Australian Football, and for women's sport more generally.