FFA, could you please focus on the W-League?

WSW v Adelaide with Mary Fowler etc was entertaining but disappointed the crowd was sub 1000.

I enjoyed the Wanderers match on Thursday on the TV, but not sure I would go out to Marconi to watch. I will go down and watch the double header on Friday. I am on the fence on double headers, I agree that the W League having their own identity and not playing warm up act for an A League game. But it does attract a bigger crowd and gets more people watching, which might attract more to watch in future., so swings and roundabouts. I don't mind the suggestion of what they are doing in England by putting the majority on Sunday, maybe having one double header on the Saturday before the 7.30 match, and then the rest on Sunday. But from a Wanderers fan I have never been as excited as this year for the W League, we look like we have finally got a decent squad

Already going to watch all the Adelaide United W-League games. I am a passionate Portland Thorns supporter so will be keen to see how Caitlyn Foord, Hayley Raso, Ellie Carpenter, Celeste Boureille, Emily Menges and Simone Charley at their respective clubs as I bring Thorns banners to games in support. Also keen to see how Mary Fowler goes for Adelaide. I went to Brisbane last January for the Sydney FC v Brisbane Roar game. Out of all the W-League clubs off the field the Roar Corps do a great job and hopefully in time we see more specific W-League active groups spring up league wide. Brisbane sets the trend here with active support at W-League. It is quite different from what you expect at an A-League game but they are there every week and even do away games to during the season. hopefully we can see more actives for the W-League teams venture down this path. The W-league actually helped me re-love the game in this country so I am looking at seeing the standard continue to rise. Even if its a 12 game season from where it is come from it have improved immensely over the last 3 years.

To be fair to the W-League they're not the only league struggling with giving the women's league a separate identity whilst at the same time ensuring they are rightly recognised as one of many teams within the one club. In England they seem to be settling on Sunday as being the main day for games as there aren't as any mens games as on a Saturday. I understand your point about back to back games from a fan viewpoint but the reality is the majority of fans are still prioritsing the A-League match over the W-League even when there is a double header which doesn't help. Living in Melbourne whilst I get annoyed at the self-congratulatory tone of much of the AFLW coverage (memo Victorian media - the AFL didn't invent women's sport) it's been interesting to note it's brought a lot of new fans to the sport that for one reason or another didn't previously follow the AFL. Having attended men's world cups and then attending my first women's one this year I noticed quite a different audience in France than I have noticed at men's WC. So we can acknowledge that there are fans who want to attend both their men's and women's teams games and try and schedule games on different days but also understand that the W-League can bring a new audience to the game by being it's own separate entity and everyone wins in this case. Either way it's a discussion the game needs to have if the whole of the game is going to grow.

How about "The Roar" giving the W Leaguesome focus

Interesting now the discussion around a separate A-League vs W-League fan base. Both want to grow their respective attendances but to fail to realise that there is some crossover between them would be remiss. Given A-League averages are higher than W-League may not matter as to before or after when the W-League team plays if fans cannot turn up to both and choose one over the other. I think this is – well not a problem exactly – something that will face a club that fields teams in all competitions, even potentially a championship or eventual A2/W2 if reserve teams are permitted; and let’s not forget fans of youth teams for boys and girls. From a Jets perspective it is one club with many teams. While years ago the W-League team wanted the opportunity to play at their own ground (No. 2 sports ground) in front of their own fans, collectively there is the realisation that not everyone who follows both can attend all matches all the time. So back-to-back games caters for fans seeing their club’s teams play in the one location at the same time.

How many A-league teams actually financially support their womens team. City do , MV didn;t even pay for their youth team to start off let alone their womens team. State associations apart from Melbourne City are paying either part of the bills or the whole thing for the other teams.

Last night's game was trending on Twitter and probably got a larger audience on Fox than normal because there's nothing else on. I agree it's not great for crowds, but it's not the difference between getting 700 and 4000. You might lose a couple of hundred people by not playing it on the weekend.

Could a team from Woolongong survive in the W-League as a standalone team though (from a financial viewpoint)? Canberra United struggle as a standalone club with no mens team to help support them (financially, facilities etc.) Don't get me wrong I would love to see a team from Wollongong in both the A-League and W-League but with the lack of money in womens football at a domestic level at the moment not sure standalone teams are the way to go. And we also need to link up with the NPLW a lot better. As much as I hate the links with the NWSL for the short term we need to accept these links and be content with a full home & away season featuring the current clubs whilst laying down the foundation to expand in the coming years (starting with teams from the Mariners, Western United and Macarthur) and creating a league to rival those in Europe (and really only the WSL in England is a fproperly competitive league in Europe as things stand). And work on the pathways from grassroots to NPLW to W-League

Not having a full home & away season is more to do with the FFA and the clubs not taking the W-League seriously so a shorter season allows players to play both in the NWSL and W-League. And now with the rise of Europe the FFA's answer seems to be to double down on the links with the NWSL rather than try and build the W-League to compete with Europe (which it can by attracting the top Asian, African & South American talent as well as top line Australian talent). Read the interview Greg O'Rourke gave to the womens game recently - "We want to have more games, the question is, do we want to have more games through expansion or a home and away season," said O'Rourke. "What we ask of the NWSL we ask of ourselves and what they ask of us is if we go to more games, where does that fit into our calendar? Does that come up against NWSL pre-season?" So the FFA seem happy for the w-League to play second fiddle to the NWSL and a short season is part of that.

Interesting you say that about playing W-League after the A-League. Perth Glory have experimented with that a few times but the crowd didn't stick around. I just don't think double headers are a good idea as it erodes the identity of the W-League being a professional entity in its own right. It's a difficult balancing act though for the women's game in leveraging off the men's game whilst building their own identity,rivalries etc. Agree with you about Thursday night games as not a fan friendly time slot at all and reinforces the impression that the W-League merely slots in around the A-League. We really need crowds to go to W-League matches to convince clubs to continue to invest in their teams. Having said that, playing in summer means options as to when to play games are limited unless you schedule them against A-League games?

for the W league to prosper needs expansion too few teams at the moment we need new teams and news regions .great teams like wollongongs Illawarra Stingrays need to be included . football rich regions with strong women football with womens teams in their local comps like all the Illawarra premier league clubs all have womens teams now which are feeder clubs for the Stingrays they have a loyal following its a great nursery the south coast its a no brainer not to include the illawarra Stingrays in the W league .

I deliberately left Canberra out of point 7 as they are a standalone club. But that was remiss of me considering that as they are a standalone club their resources are considerably less than the other teams and thus be much harder to attract kit manufacturer etc. I actually think Canberra are the example to follow for all other W-League teams on how to connect with your community.

I've never been more interested in W-League. Watched nearly every Melbourne Victory match, including at the stadium. But, until the W-League adopts a proper Home & Away fixture with each team playing each opponent at least once at home, it's hard to take the competition seriously. Like so many Aussie sporting competitions, the W-League is treated more as an entertainment product than a sporting product. Watching sport is not just an entertainment option for me. It has to have a contest connection. Getting up to watch Australia's men's team in a WC Qualifier this morning had nothing to do with entertainment. It was about a connection with my national team. No other TV show entertainment will get me up at 3 a.m. on a work day. Football is not just entertainment. And until the administrators work that out, football competitions will never reach their full potential in Australia.

To point 7, Canberra United to a really good job with merchandise. No A league team, and they regularly have 1k average home crowds

As Waz said, the clubs are now in control of the W-League so I have the following bits of advice for them (in no particular order): 1. Sort out the draw. It's a joke that neither Melbourne side plays in Melbourne until round 5 and then it takes place in Broadmeadows on a Thursday night and it takes almost an hour by train from the city to get there. 2. Don't play double headers. It may be convenient for TV but gives the impression that the women's match is secondary to the main event of the A-League. Also sees them playing at the hottest time of the day quite often. 3. Play a couple of standalone matches in big stadiums. Melbourne Victory's mens team have the bye over Christmas so there was an opportunity to play a W-League match against Melbourne City over this period at AAMI and draw a big crowd. 4. Play a full home and away season. 5. Expand to include more teams. 5. Long term stand on your own two feet and don't play poor cousin to the NWSL. This is related to point 4 as reason we don't have full home and away season is because it would eat into the NWSL pre-season. 6. Ditch Fox Sports and help fund the ABC to show all games live (incl. on iView). Also experiment with streaming via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. 7. Create W-League specific merchandise and understand men also like women's football and want to buy merchandise (although credit to Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne City who at least allow you to buy a jersey with W-League logo on it). Talk to anyone at a Matildas game and one of the biggest complaints is the lack of merchandise available (this was a major source of frustration at the recent world cup). The store link on the official W-league website takes you too the a-league official store FFS. 8. Understand that W-League crowds are vastly different to A-League crowds so you need to take a different approach to marketing these games. Active support is growing in the W-League but it needs help. Form connections with your local NPLW teams and give free tickets/memberships to junior players. 9. Don't play games in the hottest part of the day. 10. Talk to your fans and find out what their preferred kickoff time is that's going to make it easiest for them to attend. 11. Have one social media channel for both men and women per platform. I know clubs have said they are going to do this but there is no reason not to do this now. There is so much potential in the W-League because credit to the clubs the majority are starting to really invest now and offer the players access to great facilities which is not always the case in Europe or USA. But there is still so much more work to be done and I really hope the clubs are smart enough to recognise how much untapped revenue there is to be had from the W-League.

As Waz said, W league is not FFA’s problem, and A league clubs only have so much money to throw around