So from all the games/fixtures attendances list, 2 were outdoors in Melbourne, solid weather, another 2 were indoors so weather aint a problem and the final one was over in Perth were from my knowledge weather wasnt bad.

However, embarrassing from the 'new regime' for the low crowd caused due to the factor of having major storms throughout the entire weekend, lots of road closures denying access from the coast to Newcastle, the match put at risk of being cancelled and the poor weather which continued throughout the match. 

Gotta hate this 'new regime' clearly investing all there money to the weather systems to make the conditions horrible for our game, stupid new regime!!!!

Pax 6216 at wellington vs city 

Is the AFLW still free entry?

pretty sure it is

It is besides for a few games that will be double headers 

It's almost as if you are trying to defend a 4k crowd.

my my, how far standards seem to have fallen...

Its almost as if New fans have said "I'm out, what a joke of a club" or something.

I am defending it, considering ive spoken to people who considered attending as mariners fans but were unable to get off there own street and away from where they live for most of Sunday and the entire weekend, and also had the possibility of returning home and being unable to get back to there houses with the highly possibly risk of there streets being flooded and blocked. 

Along with that, the weather during the game was a lot nicer then originally forecasted and even then was terrible weather and would have been horrible to attend in. 

Along with that these are the two worst teams in the league and there no debating that, so while 4k is not the ideal crowd, for the circumstances due to the major flooding and severe weather throughout the weekend, im satisfied with it and ill got some major respect for all those who attended especially to the small few who travelled up from the coast

Well, there it is folks. People defending 4k crowds now.

Thanks new regime...

Don’t know how many were there tonight but the atmosphere sounded great on tv 

4k I am led to believe; seems the going rate for a-league teams these days...

Will be interesting to see how many will go if there’s a chance they top their group 

PAX was 6904. wellington vs city last night didn't this match used to get 20k? 

They will be lucky to get 7k, Nix on a losing run out of form and Auckland want there own team.

yes it is. its interesting to note that everyone expected Richmond v Carlton to be a full house, but fell well short. expect the 6,000-8,000 AFLW crowds in R1 to drop by more than half in a few weeks. it happens every year. the initial optimism gets replaced with boredom when people realise how shit the standard is. same with the TV ratings that always drops below the HAL by the end of the season.

Everything you're saying sounds right, but its a bit of a worry if we're starting to use a micky mouse comp like that as our yardstick
It's insane that we are even having a conversation like this

It's just really not that insane.
Yes our ratings and attendances have bottomed out, no doubt.
But we are in Australia and we support soccer.
Any league here even at its peak wouldn't compete with AFL/Cricket here.
Big woop.

For my entire life an AFL player in preseason coming back unfit or having a child was back page news and lead the news reports (not just sports sections).

The AFLW is new, has novelty and political brownie point factor and AFL fans will watch any form of their sport if it's on, it's tribal in a way EPL/Serie A etc etc teams are to Europeans.

Focusing on the fact we get out rated by an AFL/cricket game no matter the gender or teams playing is completely and utterly pointless.

It's a waste of time and anyone who gives it any credence is just doing so to wind people up that a womans sport can outrate our game of choice.

It's low hanging fruit for simple idiots.

the problem is that the media here in Melbourne are shoving the AFLW down our throats. If you listen to SEN, that’s all they are talking about right now. I had Triple M on this morning and an AFLW player was interviewed. read the newspaper and there are pages of it. And people still don't give a crap about it. If only the HAL could get 10% of that exposure. Even the Matildas who are playing Olympic qualifiers atm. it’s very frustrating. 

Fair point, thankfully, we don't get this North of the border.

tbf i have seen quite a few news reports on the matildas this past week 

If people don't give a crap about the AFLW despite heavy exposure then why would the A League suddenly become popular?

This is more fun than tipping 

AUFC v CCM - 8k
Nix v City - 10k in auckland
WSW v Jets - 9k
WU v Roar - 6k

well it won't hurt.


AU v CCM - 6,500
Nix v City - 13,000
WSW v Jets - 8,500
WU v BR - 5,500
 

Hang on, who said people don’t give a crap about AFLW.
It is a relatively new women’s competition in a domestic only sport.

Without any marketing, you would expect attendances in the hundreds and t.v ratings in the single digit thousands.

The competition has shown that marketing works.

Free tickets make it work.

No they don't ask western united 

Garbage. If the AFLW didn't have any paid advertising people would still take an interest in it because its the elite womens league of (arguably) the number 1 football code

Sport is social and communal. Not a TV product. That's why the A League initially grew to the heights it did despite being exclusive to payTV

I didn't say people don't give a crap about the AFLW. I was pointing out a contradiction of expectations in the post I quoted. The AFLW won't soar to the heights of male sports, but it has taken a nice chunk of the pie and its ridiculous to credit traditional marketing. Especially since the seeds of its eventual popularity were sewn over 100 years ago

AFLW target audience is existing fans of the clubs.  Marketing keeps it front and centre of their minds, but probably doesn't have a large effect on people not already fans.  If an AFL club can get 10% to 20% of its existing fanbase involved in AFLW, thats a decent base for a female sport.  The marketing isnt creating support out of thin air.  

I also don’t think the free entry makes a massive difference. 

There's been an elite Aussie Rules womens competition for 35 plus years in Victoria, and it drew crowds of dozens to hundreds. In the first season of the AFLW where do you think the players came from?

People didn't just suddenly want to watch womens Aussie rules. People were sold a product by lots of good marketing and they bought the product.