Swans co-captain Maddy Collier and new recruit Hayley Bullas have been ruled out of Season 8:
I’m guessing now Sydney get to sign two injury-replacement players.
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At this afternoon’s press conference in Hobart announcing a new Tasmanian men’s team into the AFL in 2028, AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said a timeline for a women’s team into AFLW would be worked through in the coming period.
Currently a combined North Melbourne-Tasmania side plays in AFLW.
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Sounds good. 10 rounds is way too short.
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Especially to follow 10 rounds up with 4 weeks of finals, just seems really unbalanced.
4 more weeks and you could do 17 rounds and then a 1 v 2 Grand Final, just start two weeks earlier and finish two weeks later.
Over time they could expand the finals series, but getting to the starting point of a fair everyone plays everyone competition should be the first step.
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No chance they will have just a 1v2 GF in an 18 team comp.
Should be a gradual progression to 17 games…
12 games - 2023 S8
14 games - 2024 S9
17 games - 2025 S10
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This sounds really good.
Progression of rounds in AFLW
7 games - 2017 S1 (1v2 final)
7 games - 2018 S2 (1v2 final)
7 games - 2019 S3 (top 4 finals series)
6 games - 2020 S4 (Covid-19 affected season, top 8 finals system)
9 games - 2021 S5 (top 6 finals)
12 games - 2022 S6 (top 6 finals)
10 games - 2022 S7 (top 8 finals)
Would like to see stability in the number of rounds going forward
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Only finals were affected, the regular season ran as scheduled.
I would rather an increase each season to get to 17 home and away games, holding for 3 or 4 seasons before increasing upwards to the AFL men’s equivalent schedule length.
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No, the final two rounds of the season were scrapped
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And then the last two finals?
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Collingwood have won the VFL Women’s minor premiership in 2023.
These (I assume after looking at the finals structure) are the first finals match ups this season:
1st Elimination Final
Box Hill (4th) v Essendon (5th)
2nd Elimination Final
Williamstown (3rd) v Carlton (6th)
Qualifying Final
Collingwood (1st) v Port Melbourne (2nd)
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Television ratings for the AFLW are down 70 per cent on season one and crowds are down 60 per cent at a time when players are demanding more games, according to figures presented at a meeting of club chiefs last week…
TV audiences for the AFLW have fallen from an average of 180,000 per match in the competition’s first season in 2017 to just over 53,000 for season seven, which was the second AFLW season held in 2022 and overlapped with the men’s finals series.
The AFL shared the figures with 18 club chief executives at a meeting in Melbourne last week before the Australian Football Hall of Fame dinner.
They were presented as average audiences for home-and-away matches across Channel Seven and Fox Footy.
EDIT 7/7
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Well yeah, more games is going to equal lower averages, especially with more interstate clubs added.
The Age’s Marnie Vinall has done a follow-up report on the AFLW’s TV ratings slump.
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Certainly playing games at 11AM is a TV thing rather than a fan friendly arrangement, when the comp was 8 and 10 teams they could market themselves on being in the family friendly Night or twilight slots. With 9 games now per weekend unless there’s overlap somewhere or they schedule almost every QLD/WA game after October for late night East Coast viewing the early starts is something they can’t really avoid.
Ratings probably matter more to the FTA partner than Fox who’d be grateful for live content post season as opposed to wall to wall repeats of the same games or Bounce snippets every fortnight or so. That said if this attracts new advertising dollars (and the standard improves to where it becomes more attack oriented rather than defensive battles, which 16 a side to me encourages) then ratings become less important knowing they’ll be on a secondary channel regardless.
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Draw for the 2023 season is finally out. Still a 10 game schedule with 4 weeks of finals, but expect 12 games at least from next year. Significantly we also know where the GF will be played if certain teams are the highest ranked qualifiers. Most of the big venues are unavailable with cricket pitches in them.
POTENTIAL GF VENUES
MELBOURNE BASED TEAMS: Princes Park
GEELONG: Kardinia Park
SYDNEY BASED TEAMS: Henson Park
QLD BASED TEAMS: Springfield (the GF venue for the late season last year)
ADELAIDE: Norwood
PORT ADELAIDE: Alberton
FREMANTLE: Fremantle Oval
WEST COAST: Leederville
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Full Draw…The Home of AFL Women - Matches
Of note
- Hawks home games mainly at Frankston, with a game in Round 8 vs Richmond played in Cairns
- Richmond home games played at Carlton
- Bulldogs return to Whitten Oval after playing last season at Port Melbourne or Ballarat (where a Round 4 match vs Hawthorn will be played)
- all Lions home games now at their Springfield base
- Essendon have a home game vs Geelong at Warrnambool
- Men’s Grand Final Day game between Collingwood and Essendon at Collingwood’s Training ground (can I call it Eddie’s backyard?).
- GF Eve public holiday double header at Carlton during day
- North have 1 home game at Bellerive, 1 at York Park and the remainder at Arden St
- Crows play 2 home games at Norwood and 3 at Unley
- Swans have 2 home games at North Sydney and 3 at Henson Park
- Giants play 1 at Blacktown, 1 at Manuka, 2 at Henson and another TBD
- Round 10 to be determined for venues and times
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Why can’t Metricon host games? They don’t host any BBL this year.
So they can host games in small venues at home but the Vic clubs can’t?
No surprises there if they can’t use Punt Road until the renovation is done, they need the extra capacity.
Now their renos are over it’s back to Whitten for footy.
While good to see games being taken regionally, but with the limited number of games you’d hope they don’t have any more games taken away.
The game at the AIA Centre should be free admission so people can just wander down and have a look.
Would have assumed a third or fourth would be played given they are still North Melbourne Tasmania.
Hopefully they can transition to playing only at Henson soon.
Yuck
Just as with men’s (other than venues)