That's fine.  Don't follow them but it's also bizarre that blokes (not you) who profess to 'not give a shit' (like you) constantly find time to denigrate women's football at any opportunity.

Honestly hand on heart give zero f**ks about the AFLW and W-League 

Both competitions are crap 

Prize money is crap 

Stakes are crap 

Quality of sports people on the pitch is crap 

The world might be going 'diversity mad but in the end of the day a spade is a spade both are boring to watch and even more boring to follow  

Love football**

This is very true we look foot in Victoria but the Culture is very much AFL esp in cities like Geelong the worst thing the FFA did was start Victoria with only one side 

I heard on the news it was 9 games each and they will not play every team. Is this correct?

i havent seen anybody here say its okay to denigrate womens sport. (if they do, they are fools)
but people get up in arms because when the w league gets trashed because this is a football site and those clowns are trashing our sport and continuing the decades long trend of blindly hating (or fearing?) football.

Aflw match as a small suburban ground in Moorabbin so they had a cap of 3k not much of a victory 

A-League won the attendance last night, but got one quarter of the ratings on Fox.

A-League got about double the attendance last night.

Why is it all right to denigrate one women's sport but get worked up about the wleague when the same thing happens?

There's a fair bit of truth in that.

Aren't we doing the same thing with all the young players in the aleague?

Aflw is used a a massive funding scam by clubs a d councils pretending they’re helping women’s sport. 

Thats right. It comes back to the social and cultural significance of sport

The AFLW was designed to give females (sex) a sporting voice. That they can play a "blokes" game too. Having their girls play or watch gives them some sense of empowerment

I was doing some stats / research when the Matildas were smashed by an u15s team and at a quick glance, every track record by the highest Australian female athlete was beaten by a male at the u16s level. Females are biologically weaker. Comparing male sport and female sport is like comparing grey hound racing, and horse racing, and then also comparing that to humans. AFLW has to be taken in the context of the athletes that are delivering it. Its not about the best human ability but the best female ability and this will improve over time and develop its own quirks (note: this is why transgendered people should stay out of sport subdivided by sex. Acting feminine does not make you a female. Nor does it give you the same biological, social and cultural disadvantages that makes female sport in its own category relevant)

Football on the other hand has less cultural and social traction in Victoria. And those who do follow they game might feel closer to the leagues of their other nationality

We all have that one example of a sport that we started watching because it was on TV or heavily promoted. Maybe the odd baseball game, or the superbowl, or even championship darts. But its a personal experience and doesnt translate into real growth, fan base or commercial gain. Its fickle at best. Football's hope for traction in this country is the same problem as we had in the NSL days - how do we turn support for football into support for the local game. A bunch of franchises operating under salary caps and concessions with all good things dished out in excessive quantities taking it in turns in winning wasn't the answer

Seriously, why are we worrying about other sports. Doesn’t matter whether it’s men or women it’s a different game, James Johnson has said as much. 
This obsession with what other sports are doing is crazy. True believers should be doing all they can to ensure football remains front and centre and stuff anyone else.

To a degree I agree with you BB however womens sport, especially over the last decade or so, seems to operate a little differently, at least as far as support. I have a daughter and naturally socialise with the parents of her girlfriends. The conversations about womens AFL, especially amongst the mums, is more about womens empowerment, gender equality and having strong role models for young girls to emulate.  Alot of the mums say they hate the AFL and always did growing up but take their little girls to Auskick because, if its good enough for the boys the girls can do it too. When I naturally mention the Matildas and womens soccer I sort of get blank stares and mumbled comments about, "yeah soccer is good too."  This is purely anecdotal and just my personal experience ofcourse, so take it as you will. What I think it shows is that Wleague (just like the rest of football) doesnt do a good enough job of selling the narrative down here in Melbourne at least. 

It goes for 9 games and not all teams play each other lol. Calm down. 

But you pretty much made the point

Aussie Rules fans like the AFL, and some of them like the AFLW. Football fans like the A League, and some of them like the W League

The amount of marketing does little to aid the decision. To follow a sport you need to understand the rules, have some social / cultural connection to the league, have a team, and it also depends on match importance, etc...etc...etc... Its not like watching Master Chef or listening to a new band 

The A League struggles for fans because the fan base for the Australian leg of our code is small, the league instead of country smaller yet, and the interest in the womens game smaller yet

The AFLW fairs well because of a much much larger established fan base. Not because of the number of ads or column space in newspapers. And you are right, the support drops of drastically when the AFL starts because it has higher caliber among its elitist fans

I dont think its true to say if we had 1/2 or a 1/4 of the marketing the AFL has our code would be fairing better

It's bizarre that's for sure.  5 minutes reading the comments when optus sports post anything on facebook about women's football makes you wonder what is wrong with some blokes.

Instead of being proud that women's football is huge, part of our game and our girls are actually pretty good they just get ragged on again and again.  

Got to honest tried to watch this but the average skill level is not much different to high school AFL, pretty atrocious. I would expect any athlete on TV needs better skills than myself but am not convinced they do. 

Admittedly more Wleague than Aleague on tv because a lot of the girls from South tend to play there in the off season but yeah only on ABC tv to be honest.
I do tend to at least try and attend South Melbourne WNPL games and always go early to catch the girls play when we have double headers.  If South Melbourne was IN the Wleague then I would watch and attend a hell of a lot more... simple.
All Im saying is that womens soccer SHOULD appeal a hell of a lot more, especially with the fact that we have a fairly successful national squad, players playing in the best leagues in Europe AND a World Cup we are hosting coming up .... sadly in Melbourne, Footy dwarfs everything else.

i get the obsession with the AFL, cos it's a competitior.

but AFLW ????

Do mens tennis fans look at womens golf ratings and get all pepped up?

the AFLW is a mickey mouse token comp.  people give it way too much credit.  comparing it to our top football league??  jayzuz. 

Okay?

There are players in the AFLW who had never played a single game of Aussie Rules before signing a professional AFLW contract. Says all you need to know.

Oops forgot about that league.

The afl starts in 2 months. The die hards will watch afl on fox on repeat. The same diehards shit on the aflw because its not the greatest 

Haha..true!

Dude people were watching the Belarusian league myself included 

I know when the pandemic was at full flight last year & no live football was on for a few months. Then the Korean league started & people all over the world flocked to watch the Korean, so starved of football.
The AFL Grand Final was in October later then normal, it's now nearly Feb, if I was an AFL fan I'd be gagging for live AFL. They have nothing else.

The wleague is what it is. Is it better than the aflw? Yes but its comparing apples to oranges.  A lot of men like to hate on women's sports but those same people have daughters sisters other women in their life that maybe want to play professional sport and having that attitude says a lot