May was the best and worst of times for the AFL.
The AFL administration responded to a siege with a cabinet reshuffle that should appease agitated clubs and create clean air for chief executive Andrew Dillon, who finally emerged from the shadow of Gillon McLachlan to put his imprimatur on the competition.
Crowds remained huge, which suggested that, in defiance of the apparent dysfunction at headquarters, the on-field product wasn’t too shabby.
Andrew Dillon has defended his leadership team at the AFL.Credit: Getty Images
Good Old Collingwood continued to set the pace, Hawthorn went into a downturn, St Kilda maintained their form of complaining about AFL nepotism to northern teams and mediocre performances. Bailey Smith stayed on-brand as the game’s premier rebel without restraint.
Then, on Thursday night, as Brad Scott’s plucky Essendon mounted a spirited challenge to the 2024 premiers at the Gabba, another game of much greater consequence for the AFL’s future took place in the rain in Newcastle.
The NRLW State of Origin game between Queensland and NSW drew a national peak television audience, on free to air, of 1.965 million.
Jocelyn Kelleher fends off Queensland skipper Ali Brigginshaw during the women’s State of Origin series.Credit: Getty Images
What’s the relevance of a rugby league women’s game to the AFL? Plenty.
The previous instalment of the women’s State of Origin franchise, played a fortnight apart in May, drew audiences with peaks of 1.897 million and 2.079 million respectively, and with “average” viewership approaching or exceeding a million sets of eyeballs.
Those numbers are impressive – not quite Married at First Sight level, but large enough that if a single AFLW game came within cooee, the AFL would be doing cartwheels (as distinct from customary backflips) and telling us all about it.
So, herein lies the nub of one of the AFL’s greatest challenges/problems, which will prove more important to the code’s future prosperity than the tribunal’s travails, Tom de Koning’s call or whatever Smith posted on Instagram.
Rugby league supremo Peter V’landys.Credit: Getty Images
The AFLW’s lack of marquee events.
The AFL is more successful than the NRL on most fronts – crowds, sponsors, participation and relative spread of tentacles. The AFL has clubs that make the NRL look like minnows, on the measures of bums on seats and intensity of followings.
But the broadcast ratings is one facet that is heavily contested, in which the omnipresent Peter V’landys can spruik that “rugba league” has the edge.
Whatever one makes of the competing claims regarding TV audiences, it is clear that State of Origin represents the NRL’s greatest advantage – and point of product differentiation.
This has become even greater due to the rise of women’s State of Origin. Further, the ratings for each code’s 2024 W grand finals show that the AFL is some goals behind and kicking into the wind.
The AFL just released a meat-and-three-vegetables fixture for the AFLW last week. Highlights? A reprise of Carlton v Collingwood as the season opener, some double-headers, and little else that garnered media attention. If the AFLW fixture was an election campaign by a political party, it would be labelled a small target strategy.
To avoid continued stagnation in the growth of the women’s league (as distinct from growth in grassroots women’s footy, which has boomed), the AFL has a desperate need for events that would be a rejoinder to rugby league’s Origin franchise.
So, what are the options – bearing in mind that the AFL needs at least two major event games for women?
TELEVISION AUDIENCES FOR AFLW AND NRLW
AFLW grand final, 2024
Total national reach (peak): 1.048 million
National average: 379,000
BVOD (Broadcast Video on Demand): 17,000
NRLW grand final 2024
Total national reach (peak): 1.473m
National average: 697,000
BVOD: 102,000
*The NRLW grand final was a curtain-raiser before the men’s grand final at night.
NRLW State of Origin 1
Total national reach (peak): 1.897m
National average: 992,000
BVOD: 189,000
NRLW State of Origin 2
Total national reach (peak): 2.079m
National average: 1.088m
BVOD: 203,000
Source: VOZ
1. A grand final curtain-raiser
Some months ago, Essendon president and television executive David Barham proposed to the AFL that they consider playing the AFLW grand final as a curtain-raiser to the men’s grand final (as the NRL/W does).
This would ensure the season climax an automatic peak or even average audience of more than two million viewers, and build the occasion; naturally, it would also mean pushing the opening of the W season earlier, to around the bye period of rounds 12 to 14.
Captain Emma Kearney celebrated as North Melbourne took the premiership last November.Credit: AFL Photos
Both Seven and Fox Footy stand to gain from two or three marquee ‘W’ event games.
2. Grand final during the bye before men’s grand final
If that curtain raiser concept faces opposition from those who contend that the AFLW cannot be subsumed by the men, and that their grand final must stand alone, an alternative that this column has proposed is to play the AFLW grand final in the middle of a bye weekend between the (men’s) preliminary finals and grand final.
This would mean scrapping the pre-finals bye and replacing it with a fortnight’s break before the grand final, which would also reduce the risks of gun players missing the grand final via concussion protocols.
Joe Daniher’s last game of AFL footy was a grand final win. The AFL should give serious thought to having both its men’s and women’s grand finals on the same day.Credit: AFL Photos
3. All-star representative games
State of Origin originated with the native game, but the NRL stole the franchise (from the then VFL) and produced an improved and superior product. Apple didn’t invent the smartphone, but look where they’ve taken it.
NSW v Queensland, of course, works in a way that the more geographically diverse AFL cannot emulate. South Australia and Western Australia aren’t anywhere near Victoria’s football size or depth, and, as Queensland’s grassroots grows, a reprise of State of Origin is difficult.
Too many players are excluded from a state v state, mate v mate Origin framework in the modern AFL.
But the AFL can still trial an All-Star game, pitting two teams of elite players against each other. It might be Daisy Pearce’s team versus Erin Phillips’. Or East versus West. Seven could televise the selection of the teams, as if this was a reality TV show.
Such a game would allow the elite players to show their skills, raising the standard of footy and the horizons of the entire competition that expanded too rapidly; for those knockers of the AFLW and fans who don’t follow their own club closely, this would be a glimpse of the future.
Irishwoman Orla O’Dwyer is a two-time AFLW premiership star.Credit: AFL Photos
4. International rules: Australia versus Ireland
This has been mooted as a potential event for the AFLW, and it would be easier than the men’s version because there are so many Irish players scattered among the AFLW cohort (33 at last count); you wouldn’t need many to travel out from Ireland.
It’s conceivable that they could compete in a game that is entirely Australian rules – which would be groundbreaking, and more so if the Irish managed to beat the Aussies at our own game.
Whichever option is most feasible, the goal must be to maximise the audience and to grow interest in the women’s game.
Women’s tennis reached parity with the men and became the most commercially successful women’s individual sport globally by dint of historical quirks, and pioneers such as Billie Jean King.
One advantage that tennis owned was that the women shared the stage with the men at the peak events, the grand slams, for many decades before it turned professional.
The Matildas have raised the bar. The NRLW has jumped ahead via Origin. The AFL cannot create a larger footprint for women without thinking bigger.
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