BONUS: The AFLW season kicks off - but has it already been overlooked?

[Music] a listener [Music] production the aflw 2024 season kicks off today but not everyone's happy with the fixture after facing public scrutiny it's expected that the AFL will reschedule the AFL W's Western Bulldogs round two game it comes after the release of the men's final draw this week which revealed a timing clash with the club's men's team the timing made it near impossible for Western Bulldogs fans to make both games so why do things like this keep happening to the women's comp even with Grassroots supports growing and girls making up onethird of os KCK players aflw seems to sometimes get the pointy end of the stick and the fixture is so important because crowd numbers are part of the collective bargaining agreement Clause that impacts the season being extended or not so why are there games that are arguably not easy to get to Georgia ragic is a sports commentator and reporter Georgia can you explain what's been happening with the Western Bulldogs AFL and aflw teams fixture certainly so it's the start of the aflw season and it's a really exciting time for the Western Bulldogs they've done this massive refurbishment to Whit noal and so for round two they were having this huge homecoming and celebration because Whit over was such an important part to you know football in Western melan but also really historically to the club but what has happened in the AFL men's is that the final between the Hawthorne and Bulldogs an elimination final also incredibly important for their fans has been scheduled on the same night meant to be kicking off 2 hours after the women's was meant to start so it's a really hard situation not only for the fans and supporters but also for the staff because many of those staff would be expected to work across both teams for their Club but the decision did come out on Thursday that the AFL is moving the women's game from the homecoming to be a double header with the men's at the MCG and it is really interesting because the aflw has so many set metrics against its sucess especially when it comes to attendance it needs that average of 5,000 and broadcast views around 100,000 so there was a discussion with uh Paul Marsh the CEO of the Australian players uh AFL Players Association about the fact that potentially the game would be discounted against those metrics so that it wouldn't count towards whether there's an extra game next season or not but in the end the game has been moved to the MCG and you know there's a lot of stff to be said about the aflw is that so many of these games do happen in the traditional Community grounds and really important places tied to these club's history but instead now it's been moved to the MCG and it is an opportunity for to watch more aflw there but it also really puts the league in a situation where you know the women are the precursor they're the entree for what the men's is I understand it is a final here as well but it also means that the numbers might be incredibly hard to gauge it again is just feels like the aflw is an afterthought we do know that the Western Bulldogs did specifically ask for the game to be put on a Saturday and it is interesting because Sydney in the men's did finish the minor Premier so you would think that they would get the Blockbuster Friday night game but the AFL has now just come out and move the game to be a double header which in some places I would say would be good to see the women play at the G but I also just feel like it's just the worst of every situation because it's going to be incredibly hard for the fans to be able to get there on time it's a Friday night and also it just doesn't have that you know gravitas that what the round two was meant to be for the Western Bulldogs women's team is this a bad look for the AFL to have this blunder right at the start of the aflw season I think it is and I think the reason why it's such a blunder is it's an entirely avoidable situation because if the men's what the men's was only announced as the schedule on Monday this week the aflw fixture has been out already for some time so it's not like this wasn't a known thing that was already happening and you know Western Bulldogs also did ask if the potentially the game could be moved to 11:00 a.m. on the Saturday so there was heaps of different options put forward to try and avoid such a situation and also there were other options available to the AFL as well but it will be really interesting I hope there is a really decent crowd there as well to cheer on uh the Western Bulldogs ahead of the final but it does seem like a mess that was entirely that could have been avoided so why can't we seem to still figure out the fixture it's a really interesting question to me because you look at the fixture this season there is an extra round but there's no extra week so the season goes for the same amount of time and I think predominantly the main issue across the board for the aflw fixturing question is the fact that you it's really hard for it to overlap with other Seasons there's talk about grounds availability and of course you know heading into summer AFL is not a sport that is really you know easily played in hard weather conditions especially with heat I work in the a league women and we've seen predominantly about you know changing game times especially those 300 p.m. Saturday kickoffs because it's not beneficial to the players the fans or anyone to be out there in the sun in the In The Heat Of Summer in Australia but you also look at the fixturing for some of the the extra game we're getting this season and there are games that are going to be at 5:00 pm in on a Tuesday in Frankston but there's also 5:00 pm cranb bur midweek games and it's a a lot of questions to be asked about that specifically about you know how are we going to get people there you know how can people miss work but also just speaking very you know as a melburnian how are you going to get there in traffic what time do you have to leave to be able to get to that game because traveling out to those places we know the roads here are quite busy in peek hour even if it's school holidays it's going to be an hour and a half drive if you're coming from you know Central Melbourne to kind and get out there just because of the amount of traffic on the roads and you mentioned before there's um crowd numbers are part of this collective bargaining agreement Clause that impacts the season being extended or not and it impacts you know the future of aflw so having these G midweek games and games that start at 5:00 p.m. is that not self-sabotaging for the women's uh Branch you can't help but feel like it almost is at times and I know there's a you know there was a great conversation in the out of sanctum as well about the fact that when we had those Co years we had a lot of footy in midweek and that was really well regarded but I think there's all the this question being placed about how are we actually going to get people there to get those numbers to get those metrics because are people going to be expected to work from home so they can turn into the broadcast to get the numbers there but I guess the main you know priority there was because it was school holidays there was already that opportunity for a lot of people to you know not be a working to actually get down to the game at that time and speaking of women's sports what are we looking at with crowd numbers how is the support on the ground well the average was around 2,500 for game attendant last year the Sydney swans really did knock that out of the park they were averaging in the high 4000s and you know their last game of the season they had 5,200 people so they have really built their home base out out of Hensen Park in North Sydney oval they're playing at North Sydney oval this week and they've really made that whole game day experience um SE so many of my friends talk about how exciting it is to go to that Sydney Swans game the whole culture of the game day experience has been brilliant but you know Emma Moore the new general manager for the aflw has said that expecting a 25% increase in attendance this season which is great to hear potentially you know I'm going to be heading out to Windy Hill this Saturday to watch the bumbers play and they're expecting 3 to 5,000 so it does sound like there is a massive boost and we've seen around the grounds in other sports in recent years especially a league women and the sunp super npple they've been smashing attendance records getting above 300,000 attendees for their season you know we saw about 280,000 for the aflw last year so potential to keep moving forward and you mentioned there Emma Moore she's the new head of aflw what do we know about her and do we have a sense of the direction she's wanting to take aflw well she's still pretty new to the role so I think this might be a hard season to really gauge her impact I think we're going to see a lot more of what she wants next year she has come from nav which are the major sponsor of the aflw so she has been involved in the sport for quite some time but it is interesting to see she wrote an article for the herald son about how this is going to be the best season yet and also spoke about the importance of uh the growth in the community game as well participation for women has gone up 20% we're seeing almost a third of O KCK participants now being girls and we're also a massive development and growth in the officials in the game as well so it does seem like there's a real you know bottom to top approach making sure that all aspects of the game will be covered but I think the real thing with EMS Moore's new involvement in the game we will definitely see that really to play in future Seasons so taking all of that in mind with timings and fixtures and and support for aflw what do you say to people who say women's AFL is just not as good as men's AFL I asked them if they've even watched it because that's the big thing if you come along you watch the games you get to enjoy the environment because it is footy it is proper footy and what we're also seeing now that you know as we reach season 9 of the aflw that the opportunities that potentially weren't around for a lot of the players to begin with in Pathways and especially in girls participation years we're seeing that there are strong systems and competitions all the way through so they're not missing any key years of development which a lot of players were 10 years ago they have been able to play since they first picked up a footy potentially as a toddl and then gone all the way through so it is a great time to get involved and and with all the games personally speaking as someone who lives in quite Central Melbourne being at these Community grounds it does feel like you have such a great connection to the players as well yeah and I know that that grasp groups development is so important I know we spoke off air that when I was in high school and when you were back in school that you weren't actually able to play aflw in year 12 or year 11 it wasn't really a thing then it was just for the boys so seeing that Grassroots involvement and support is really great and it will only build the game if you did have a magic one though what would you change about the aflw I would honestly love to see more games I think it's really hard at the moment with 11 games and 10 win weeks I think it makes it such a short season that if you get off to a bad start you pretty much know you're not going to make into finals if you sport particular teams or that so I do want to see that little bit of an extension in we are seeing you know the player payments have been boosted significantly there's also weal about these players coming through who've never had to miss out on pathway opportunities there are players who are now coming through who will never have to work multiple jobs just to be able to play this sport so I think my thing about this as well is it would be great if this was just a you know we had a couple more games in the season which I'm sure plenty of other aflw fans also agree with just because I feel like it goes in the blink of an eye and what are you looking forward to this season who are the teams or players that we should watch out for well really interesting start about the aflw is the team that has finished the runner up in the Grand Final those who have not won have gone on to win it the following year so North melan lost to Brisbane at Icon Park however they have had a brilliant vflw season they won that as well and they didn't even use any of their aflw listed players that's the depth of their current Squad so I think they must really the team to beat and look out for my other pick is and I've seen a lot of people talk about this is jazz Gardner has not won a league best in Ferris but she's been in ripping form so I think potentially this is also her year to do so amazing Georgia thank you so much for joining us on the briefing thank you so much for having me that was Sports commentator Georgia ragic thanks for listening to the briefing that's it for this episode but before you go though we'd love it if you could share this app with someone you think might enjoy it too or subscribe to the briefing podcast wherever you get your podcast from it really does help other people find us and if you want to keep up with our other content you can check us out on Instagram at the briefing podcast and on Tik Tok and YouTube just search for listener Newsroom I'm Helen Smith see you next time L now