http://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/soccer-wleague-players-eye-switch-to-afl-for-cash-boost-survey-shows-20160907-graudt.html

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W-League players eye switch to AFL for cash boost, survey shows

 

• Michael Lynch

   
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Seventy per cent of W-League players would consider switching to the AFL, with money the major motivating factor, according to a survey by a leading women's soccer website.While the number of respondents is small – about one-quarter of the 128 women who play in the W-League – they were strong in their view that there were big benefits in playing in the AFL's new eight-club women's league, which starts next year. 

Forty per cent of respondents said they would switch, and another 30 per cent said they would consider doing so.It is a warning sign that soccer cannot take player loyalty for granted in the face of a football competition that will offer bigger pay packets, more publicity, increased exposure and a strong career path.The website The Women's Game, which covers soccer, conducted the survey as interest in women's AFL is surging and other sports, such as women's cricket and rugby – the Australian women won gold in Rio – generate great public interest.Soccer may have been the first sport to set up a professional league for women, but the money the AFL has to market and support its new women's competition makes it a serious threat, as many elite soccer players would have the skills to code-switch without too many difficulties.AdvertisementThe W-League has been going for several seasons and is a key breeding ground for future Matildas and Olympians.But women's soccer has failed to generate large-scale financial rewards for its players. Only Melbourne City's all-conquering women's team has the resources and support that top-level players would want to perform at the highest level.Pay packets are poor, except for the very best who play at international level or are good enough to secure overseas contracts.While the website concedes its sample size is small, it says that of the 32 respondents nearly three-quarters had represented Australia at under-17, under-20 or at senior level, and all had played multiple W-League seasons.Money is the biggest issue for top-level sportswomen, who have to make sacrifices in other parts in their lives to compete at the highest level. Many W-League clubs do not reach the $150,000-per-year salary cap.The Women's Game says: "AFL has already made a play for a number of Matildas players and, while they were largely unsuccessful, at the W-League level is where they could have success, and that is an issue for the governing body and member federations. "AFL are already aware of this, with several players from the Melbourne clubs already approached and one player, Jenna McCormick, already committing to an AFL team for 2017."Emma Highwood, the FFA's head of women's football, community and development, recognises that financial issues are a major part of women's sport but says that top-level soccer players had a much wider menu of possible career paths to follow than women playing in the AFL."We know that a lot of players have been approached this year but only two, Jenna McCormick and Brianna Davey, have said they will play (AFL) next year," she said on Wednesday."What we have to offer as a sport is more than just a league. If you are a top player, you can play overseas in club football, internationally for the Matildas, there is the prospect of a World Cup or, as we have just seen, the Olympics."There is more to the decision-making than just money, although that is a factor. It's also important to remember that their league has not actually started yet and they do have to build it. "The W-League is a very important plank in the development of the game and it does help drive grassroots growth. That's why we have introduced double headers (with the A-League) and have worked hard to maintain television coverage."The Women's Game survey asked why so many would consider switching codes, and what the main motivations were. There were numerous answers, but cash, or the lack of it, was a consistent response."The game is still amateur here, therefore we can still do both, and until the game is more professional, people will continue to do both. If soccer had better television and governing body support, it would be the first choice by far," said one player.Other comments on incentives to switch included:"Well organised. Their [AFL] governing body actually seems to care about their game and is giving them the resources to grow.""Straight up they already offer a better income.""Money, publicity, professional treatment.""Greater initial salary…Seems more promising in terms of growth."

Union pressure 

Well, this is timely.

A few on this forum have predicted that the National Womens League will be lucky to last four years.

I can promise everyone that the momentum for the league is huge, media interest is huge, and the recent exhibition game last saturday night got ratings of 543k (5 city metro).

Most of the clubs (if not all of them) have sponsors already lining up.

Holden will sponsor the Collingwood womens team to the tune of $1.5 million for the next two years (that's per annum by the way).

Let me tell you, most A-League clubs would be lucky to have a major sponsor worth that much.

There will be at least one, maybe two games on FTA next season.

All in all, the signs are there for the new National Womens League to prosper, it might be a long time before it can catch Netball in terms of commercial value, but it will by pass all the other womens sports very quickly.

             we may as well pack our bags and leave now hey :crying:

Who is we?

This is simply good news for women who want to play Australian Football at an elite level.  They now have their own league and it will be a huge success.

As big as the Chinese sponsorship deal that was the biggest in Australian sporting history? You know, the one that Port Adelaide actually have initially funded themselves....

we is soccer all the girls will evenrually be taken and then the boys with afl X

I don't think anything as dramatic as that will happen.

Well, ratings for a womens exhibition game of 543k (5 city metro).

To put that into context for you, that's more than double what a full round of A-League games gets on Fox AND FTA combined.

Also, Holden is sponsoring one of the teams to the tune of $1.5 million per annum.  How does that stack up with most A-League clubs?  How many of them would have a major sponsor worth $1.5 million per annum?  2 or 3?  at the most?

I happened to have a Melbourne paper today.  Noticed that there was a story on the new Collingwood womens team in the back pages, and lo and behold, another one in the news section!  And this comp hasn't even started yet.

I'd say that will represent double the space the socceroos win against the UAE will get in the same paper.

So yeh, media interest is huge.

Allyse Perry has pretty much doing soccer just for media interest now the womens 20/20 is running here & overseas.

Ellyse.

I don't actually care.  Woman's football is subsidised by the men's game anyway.

If they want to be paid more then they better provide evidence as to why they deserve it rather than throwing another tantrum. Otherwise they can feel free to fuck off.

You're using a one off match for a comparison? 

oh this is rich. here's numbers for this huge new women's AFL. Each club has a designated marquee player. That is 8 women in the league that can earn 25k per annum.

The playing salary for the rest of the players is 5k.



Football is just shitting itself right now mate.

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An entire women's AFL team costs less than an average male player

POSTED MON 5 SEP 2016, 7:25PMUpdated Mon 5 Sep 2016, 7:27pm

• An entire women's AFL team costs less than an average male player
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Because more people watched the women's match than any other Saturday night footy this year, people are asking why female players are paid 125 times less than their male counterparts.At its peak there were more than a million people tuning in to watch the exhibition game between the Western Bulldogs and the Melbourne Demons. The game was meant to show off the best players in an eight-week women's competition running before the blokes season next year. Each of the players will soon be drafted into one of eight teams.The success of the night put the spotlight on what female players will be earning in the first season - and it's not much. The top two players of each team will get about $25,000 for the season, and then $10,000 for high profile players, and $5,000 for everyone else.That's $5,000 for an eight-week season. The players will train about nine hours per week, plus pre-season. This pay scale is set by the AFL, not the clubs.Compare this with the top men's players - the average player earns just over $300,000 - meaning you could buy an entire women's team for the cost of a single male player.

That's because the men's season is longer, right?

Kind of. Not really.Reporter Erin Riley compared what the female players were earning and the lowest paid male AFL players - the rookies. She found that a rookie who doesn't play a single game will still earn $57,000 over a 22-week season. If they play, they get paid more.So even a male player who doesn't play a single game earns 11 times more than a female player who plays every game."We're asking [the female players] to work for nothing, or very very low wages," Erin said."The proposed deal only has them training nine hours a week, so you're either going to have a competition that isn't of the standard we expect or where the female players have to work out and do the things on their own time that male players get to do as part of their full time job."Even on a pro rata basis - e.g. comparing what men would get paid if they were playing a nine-week season - the women still get paid far less.Pepa Randall, a female player who expects to play in the comp next year, said $5,000 wasn't enough for the amount of training. Although she would happily play footy for free, she said it felt wrong to be paid so little for a business opportunity."I work in a cafe," she said."It's exhausting playing a footy game and then going to work and standing up for nine hours."

But it's because of TV revenue, right?

That's what the AFL says.Simon Lethlean, the AFL's general manager of game and market development, told Hack the AFL expected it would take a few years before broadcasters would pay for the rights to show women's footy matches."The key to any successful sports league is having a few pillars supporting," he said."The first is the governing body, then there's broadcasters and sponsors, and the fourth arm is a talent base to sustain a professional league.""There's a lot of work to do to sustain professional league in Australia.""The context of men's pay and parity in that sense is not the way we're looking at it. We're looking at an equal opportunity for the best female athletes to play the game."He said the AFL was in the middle of negotiations with the AFL Players' Association. The association's Libby Lyons, Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, demanded the female players get equal pro ratapay. She dismissed his arguments the women should be paid less because the AFL was taking a risk on a start-up competition."I suggest when Greater Western Sydney was set up the men weren't paid any less than those from the Western Bulldogs," she said."I don't see what's different at the women's league.""Could you imagine a large resource company investing or developing an asset or new mine and saying we're not going to pay workers the same as we pay at the other mine?""It wouldn't happen because you have to invest in any new part of your business. You recognise there is some risk involved and that is how business works."

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Women’s AFL salaries at odds with TV ratings

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Moana Hope of the Bulldogs, left, holds off Ceceila Macintosh of the Demons. Picture: Getty

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• 10:47AM September 5, 2016
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• KATE SULLIVAN

  

  Senior news producer

  Sydney

  @katesullijourno

  

Melbourne’s Whitten Oval hosted a women’s AFL exhibition match on Saturday that attracted a crowd of 6365 and peak TV ratings of 1.05 million.

The numbers for the match - which saw the Western Bulldogs defeat Melbourne Demons 14.6 (90) to 7.9 (51) - far exceeded the league’s expectations, but stand at odds with their proposed salary changes for female players.
“We feel both excited and humbled by the support of the community for the women’s game,” AFL boss Gillon McLachlan said. “These are massive TV numbers and beyond our expectations. It is thrilling for the AFL and our women players”.
The league will launch an eight-team women’s competition in February 2017, with the season to last eight weeks, but the AFL and AFL Players’ Association are still negotiating the standard playing contract, with AFLPA chief Paul Marsh recently saying “we are some distance apart”.
Under a proposal put forward by the AFL last week, the majority of players will receive $5,000 for a 22-week contract - including superannuation but excluding private health cover.
As The Herald Sun reported in May, high draft selections (possibly four at each club) will be paid $10,000, priority pre-signings (one at each Victorian club) will command a proposed $10,000, and 16 marquee signings across the league will receive $25,000 (combining a $15,000 playing fee and $10,000 marketing component).

• MORE:Call that a fair go?

Many pundits have criticised the league for forcing female players to pay for their own health insurance.
The average player salary in the men’s league exceeded $300,000 for the first time last season as total player payments across the competition reached a record $200.2 million.
“We haven’t settled on the salaries yet,” AFL’s general manager of game and development Simon Lethlean said on Sunday.
“We want this to be a fully professional league. Next year it’s part time and eight matches but our job is to make this professional for the women as fast we can.”
Moana Hope, who booted six goals on Saturday night and has already joined Collingwood as a marquee signing, insisted players weren’t talking about wages.
“I’m just blessed to pull on an AFL jersey,” Hope said.
“The pay is exciting but right now I get to play AFL. There are generations of girls coming through who are going to be able to fulfil their dreams and in years to come I’m sure that (pay) will be addressed.
“When we are around each other all we are talking about is football (not pay).”
- With AAP

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It's evolution, baby. What's this Mister Eggballs?:hehe:

Not many big picture thinkers here.  W league players would be lucky to earn that.  What if this AFL thing took off and the girls were paid $25k a year as a minimum?  It would rape and pillage the women's game, at the elite level, like nothing else.

The fact Holden is sponsoring a women's team, repeat a women's team, $1.5 million a season should raise more than a few eyebrows.  Most A-league teams would crawl over broken glass to sign a 'Holden' or a 'Ford' type sponsor at that money.  

Sure it may not affect the men's game so much in the short term but every little girl and mum that takes up AFL in either a support or playing role is one less paying soccer fan.  And when you look at how many families attend the A-league that is not going to end well.

It's a real threat no matter how much you try and denigrate the AFL hierarchy.  

Holdens only diverting a portion of the $3m they already give to Collingwood to their womens team as well as communtiy programs and infrastructure. In retaliation to Eddie McGuires comments about drowning Caroline Wilson. Only covering their own arses from backlash.
Harvey Norman already sponsor GWS and Priceline Pharmacy(Bulldogs) already sponsor Adelaide Thunderbirds in the netball but is netball taking over the world?
Visy already sponsor Carlton.
Visy also sponsor Melbourne Victory!

A quick google search will throw up a number of links.

You do realise that these sponsors are only jumping on board to sponsor a brand as opposed to sponsoring Womens AFL. Its no different to Etihad sponsoring Melbourne City as well as Manchester and New York. This is just more AFL sharades, no one really gives too hoots. Every AFL fan I know will admit (with an eye roll) this is just the AFL jumping on the bandwagon of political correctness/equality, throw in Indigenous Round, Multicultural Round, Womens Round, Pride Round. Its squeamish to even the most passionate AFL supporter. Its a novelty, its an 8 game season where the women can earn $5000 for training 9 hours a week.

Your nothing but a troll Mr.Football.

Savage af.

Research/10

If the women footballers want to switch codes and play a shit sport nothing stopping them. 

They threw million dollar contracts at Folou and K Hunt

Where do they play their aussie rules these days

1. No AFL on earth that weekend. 

2. Best players in the country playing in those 2 teams, now divide those 36 players into 8 teams and the quality drops dramatically.

3. One off exhibition game is always going to get intrigue and viewers.

4. That 1.5m sponsor is actually the Magpies sponsor but transferred to the women's team as punishment for Eddies slip ups. The women's team did not go to market and garner that deal on there own, The Holden Sponsorship has merely been transferred to a different part of the Collingwood FC through special circumstances (Eddie acting like a goose) to make it look to the public that they have taken action against Eddie McGuire.

Women's AFL Bigger than the Socceroos.....clear sign you are an AFL fan, deluded as fuck. :laugh:

This. 

They do whatever job they want; farmer, mother, lawyer. 

I would help old people load their cars at shopping centres if it paid enough. 

I just hope the ladies have adequate personal health insurance, because in an effort to keep operating costs down the AFL don't include ANY health insurance as part of their player registration for the women.

Blow your ACL and you're on your own.

A few? I know I have, but I can't say anyone else has said 4 years.  So I know I think a lot of my opinion but I honestly can't believe that my thoughts on this matter should constitute the thoughts of this board.

So my advice stop playing games.

The AFL X story took me to the age fb which gave us this little gem.

AFL 2016: Kevin Sheedy wants Greater Western Sydney Giants to bring back Israel Folau

 

• Andrew Wu

   
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Post of the day! MT wins the Internet.

The only players who would realistically consider this are the ones from AFL states anyway:exclamationmark:...can't picture Michelle Heyman for eg. wanting to give up what she has achieved for the 'honour' of playing alongside Moana Hope or that hot blonde bird from the Dees' team...

Holden's sponsorship of the Collingwood womens team is indeed $1.5 million per annum.

That's serious money.