AFLW 2024 Rd 8: Carlton vs Western Bulldogs @ Ikon.

[kruddler]

Huge Crowd of 1320.
Take away family members and friends of  players etc lucky is there is 500 actual fans attended.

When will they concede this comp wont work.

Thursday night in the rain with 2 teams who have been in poor form was never going ro be a blockbuster.

[Lods]

Nothing succeeds like success...

"If you win them, they will come."...even in the rain.

I remember sitting at Swans games in the wet back in the 1990s when there was only one or two of us there.....and I'm not sure the other bloke was human.
It was a far cry from the Edelstein years.
The Swans were a basket case
Yet only a few short years later they were top of the ladder and played in a Grand Final.
Back came the crowds...and they haven't really left again.

Culture and History doesn't come overnight.
It's particulary difficult to find in a compromised competition, that is still not settled, with a talent pool that is very thinly spread, and a competition that is well short of truly professional

Don't compare it to the men's game.
That's approaching two hundred years of history with support of the game handed down through generations.

[Thryleon]

Most fans are bandwagoners.

Success isnt the sole performance indicator though.  If the product is tough to watch, people just arent going to tune in let alone attend.  I know one person who was happy to go in season 1 purely to witness history so he could say he was there.

Id say he hasnt gone again but AFL level he is a casual oberver at best for the mens game anyway, and I cant tell you if he supports a team.  I don't think you can compare the codes to anything you've seen more than 5 years recently anyway.  Watching some historic Chris Judd footage shows how much the AFL has evolved since his time, and he hasnt been out of it that long by comparison, but 10 years ago seems a far cry to the current game let alone another 10 years before that.


People moan about womens sport, and yes you will see women at the AFL watching men, but historically the ones I know that go, like the mens game not necessarily to watch them play but due to the fact that you are watching chiselled hunks play, and its a reality of the game, that players that are more attractive on the female eye, are more likely to be successful in the game.  Being ugly isnt a hinderance, but you wont be lauded like the others.  I learned that reality from the English Premier League in the 90's where two of the games greats (Peter Beardsley and Matt Le Tissier), were not celebrated as much like a superstar like David Beckham, but arguably played better football.  Of course, being easy on the eye isn't the only thing you need, you must be able to back it up with some substance, else its marketing and not much else, but shirt sales is where the money is at.  Beckham provided his fair share of highlights whilst playing football. 

[northernblue]

Thursday night in the rain with 2 teams who have been in poor form was never going ro be a blockbuster.

But Shauny was there, cheering, waving his flag in support of the girls, trying to lift them.

[PaulP]

I think the standard of the average VFL game is subpar, and I'm not sure I would play money to watch them play.

The girls and the AFLW are experiencing growing pains IMO, nothing more and nothing less.

[LP]

I think the standard of the average VFL game is subpar, and I'm not sure I would play money to watch them play.

The girls and the AFLW are experiencing growing pains IMO, nothing more and nothing less.

I see it as a consequence of a number of things.

Firstly, this stupidity of the pay issues, it's basically bankrupted the competition, they are being overpaid for what they bring in, the AFL might see this as a loss leader, but it's clearly affected funding.

The AFL has limited the AFLW resources and exposure, it's a bit silly like shooting yourself in the foot, as above is also.

NRLW did it much better, playing the girls as curtain raisers in the season proper. There was none of this bullcrap about the grounds being overused or not having enough staff to cover all the games. FFS, AFL is already spread across so many days we barely have one game a day per venue per state, are the AFL genuinely claiming one extra game a day can't share the available resource? I'd assert it's completely bogus.

In effect, we've ended up with a Mickey Mouse competition, games being delivered at a fraction of the skill and professionalism they should be, promoted, reported, broadcast and analysed to a substandard level.

Keep in mind, this my my perspective off the back of being an AFLW booster!

Finally, another thing I'll repeat having stated once before, it was a huge mistake allowing the AFLW to construct itself as a imitation of the men's competition, it should never have been that way but it came about off the back of a noisy minority. A handful of activists who want to play "real footy" with a dream fantasy of one day playing alongside the men!

[Professer E]

Feeble effort last night, really poor.

[dodge]

I don't really follow the AFLW, but my observations/understandings are:
- AFLW is scheduled when it is, as there aren't enough players to support both AFLW and VFLW
- When the players are fresh (ie sufficient breaks between games), the standard is improving
- At a local junior level, the standard is definitely improving
- The schedule of their season is ridiculous and I struggle to see how it caters for anyone: Mid week games during school term with short breaks between the games - who wants to go to 3 games in 15 days?
- The short breaks surely mean that the players are still fatigued and that has a compounding effect, which lowers the skill level
- Is this schedule impacting the number of injuries - they seem to get a lot
- Players need to be paid an amount to give them incentive to play - up to AFLW to sort out how this works.
- Now that footy grounds are needed for cricket, this means that they need to play on 'more obscure' grounds - does a WB fan want to go to Casey Fields on a windy Tuesday night?

This is more the AFL/AFLWs doing.