Women's Footy Melbourne captain Daisy Pearce slams suggested changes to the AFLW fixture as ‘gimmicky’

[TimmeT]

AFLW star Daisy Pearce has slammed proposed changes to the competition’s fixture, saying they make it a ‘gimmicky tournament’ rather than a legitimate league.
On Friday, a report in the Herald Sun said the AFLW was considering a fixture comprised of six home-and-away games, plus two finals — despite expansion meaning the competition will have 10 teams.

A six-game season would mean teams would fail to play every team once.

Speaking on radio on Friday morning, Pearce said the AFL’s approach didn’t “sit well” with players, noting there were frustrations in the sense that players and staff were expected to treat the AFLW as a professional, elite competition — and changes like the proposed fixture went against that.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/wo...y/news-story/ff29a611094e7ef6882f7b17fcc010dd

One might argue that aflw is already a bit of a gimmick with many supporters not interested and/or not willing to take it seriously. I understand Pearce's concerns as the season should have everybody playing once and semi finals however I feel that there is a fine balance between being viable in terms of interest and maximum viewing capabilities without competition from the afl and other sports and the viability of the competition.

I personally think that the afl should start it earlier even if it is over the tennis as this way it will give the players what they are after while still offering the best exposure. Those who really want to watch womens afl can and will while the majority who won't care less will not have any impact.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

What happened to Nathan Jones and Jack Viney?

 

[Toump Ass]

How good is Daisy Pearce?

 

[Fat Nyfe]

She's right it's a big step backwards. AFL house have not had a good few weeks

 

[astro1212]

Is it still going to be free entry?

 

[Burzum]

I don't watch AFLW so I don't care.

 

[SuperSteele22]

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/forums/womens-footy-aflw.352/

 

[Back One Out]

Trust the AFL to ruin the national women's football league

 

[gavaniacono]

Good on her for using polite language when one could be forgiven for profanity.

 

[Pack Specialist]

Now it makes sense!

The AFL has destroyed the fixturing, rules and umpiring for the men so that the women can't claim discrimination.

Nothing to do with incompetence...

Nothing at all.

 

[Rich]

Gill comparing AFLW to the FIFA World Cup is a howler that will stay with him for some time.

Absurd.

 

[Oldman Docker]

The fundamental issue with women's football is an undeniable economic reality - the product is simply never going to reach the level to compete with the men's game.

Give consumers a choice to pay for a superior product, or an inferior product, and they buy the better product every time, whilst well intentioned it really has been one of the most mis-guided attempts to create parity between the sexes - the physical reality will never allow the womens game to be on par with Mens AFL. We have to be big enough to accept that, it will forever be a side-show, it's just not a good product.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

The fundamental issue with women's football is an undeniable economic reality - the product is simply never going to reach the level to compete with the men's game.

Give consumers a choice to pay for a superior product, or an inferior product, and they buy the better product every time, whilst well intentioned it really has been one of the most mis-guided attempts to create parity between the sexes - the physical reality will never allow the womens game to be on par with Mens AFL. We have to be big enough to accept that, it will forever be a side-show, it's just not a good product.

It’s never been about creating parity. It’s the best tool possible to better engage 50% of the population. It’s had a big impact on girls participation. More numbers at junior clubs, more numbers at senior clubs, more lifetime supporters of AFLW teams, more lifetime supporters of AFL teams.

 

[Oldman Docker]

It’s never been about creating parity. It’s the best tool possible to better engage 50% of the population. It’s had a big impact on girls participation. More numbers at junior clubs, more numbers at senior clubs, more lifetime supporters of AFLW teams, more lifetime supporters of AFL teams.

Which should be applauded, but the expectation that the product will ever sit on the same pedestal as the men's product is very naive.

 

[The Prosecutor]

The AFL's issue is they went too deep too early with AFLW. Now they find themselves in this positioning of trying to scale back as the product develops.

 

[Oldman Docker]

The AFL's issue is they went too deep too early with AFLW. Now they find themselves in this positioning of trying to scale back as the product develops.

Which is frustrating, as it has occurred with female cricket as well.

A mad rush to appease the global female equality movement, a top down approach which inevitably fails.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Which should be applauded, but the expectation that the product will ever sit on the same pedestal as the men's product is very naive.

I don’t think anybody reasonably expects that.

The AFL's issue is they went too deep too early with AFLW. Now they find themselves in this positioning of trying to scale back as the product develops.

The expansion was done way too early.

 

[mouncey2franklin]

Surely the premier competition for womens football in this country deserves a complete home and away season.

If this means taking even more money out of grass roots development pathways, or charging more for punters to access the mens game, then this is what must be done.

Christ, let's just pay people to turn up the womens games so that we get some crowd-size equality.

 

[AndyD]

It’s never been about creating parity. It’s the best tool possible to better engage 50% of the population. It’s had a big impact on girls participation. More numbers at junior clubs, more numbers at senior clubs, more lifetime supporters of AFLW teams, more lifetime supporters of AFL teams.

And it’s created how many new paying customers? How many paying customers is it really likely to create in the next 10 years (and that wouldn’t have turned into paying customers just by living in Melbourne/Australia). I haven’t noticed an explosion of females attending the footy the last 2 years since the start of AFLW, because that potential effect was way overstated to begin with. In my Bulldogs reserved seat area there are just as many females as there are males, of all ages and had been like that before 2016.

I think it’s asking for trouble to overlap AFLW with the men’s season. There are only finite amount of resources at a club and during the season, pretty much all football resources (phsiyos, rooms, equipment etc) would be devoted to the men’s team.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bunk Moreland]

And it’s created how many new paying customers? How many paying customers is it really likely to create in the next 10 years (and that wouldn’t have turned into paying customers just by living in Melbourne/Australia). I haven’t noticed an explosion of females attending the footy the last 2 years since the start of AFLW, because that potential effect was way overstated to begin with. In my Bulldogs reserved seat area there are just as many females as there are males, of all ages and had been like that before 2016.

I think it’s asking for trouble to overlap AFLW with the men’s season. There are only finite amount of resources at a club and during the season, pretty much all football resources (phsiyos, rooms, equipment etc) would be devoted to the men’s team.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The new “customers” are playing local girls under 10s.

The expansion is dumb.

 

[AndyLucimitis]

The fundamental issue with women's football is an undeniable economic reality - the product is simply never going to reach the level to compete with the men's game.

Give consumers a choice to pay for a superior product, or an inferior product, and they buy the better product every time, whilst well intentioned it really has been one of the most mis-guided attempts to create parity between the sexes - the physical reality will never allow the womens game to be on par with Mens AFL. We have to be big enough to accept that, it will forever be a side-show, it's just not a good product.

The point is, it's not men's football, it's women's football. Consider it almost a different sport.

I have daughters who now play Aussie rules. It's changed their life.

VFL football is not on a par with AFL and no-one watches it but they still play a whole season.

For AFLW - just play 6 games prior to Christmas and 6 games after Christmas with a 4 week break in between.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

I think it brings the whole expansion thingy into serious question. Us traditional AFLW clubs suffer dilution of the talent pool, their unfair start up concessions, and now an absurd fixture.

Seriously good on her for advocating for the AFLW comp. Daisy's a class act to me. Great player and insightful commentator.

 

[Toump Ass]

I'm fairly certain people who hang s**t on AFLw have never actually spoken to a woman.

 

[mike91]

I'm fairly certain people who hang s**t on AFLw have never actually spoken to a woman.

AFLW is s**t. I have a girlfriend, she thinks it's pointless and a waste of money. Most people that defend AFLW just love to play the sexist card.

 

[Tarkyn_24]

New clubs never should have been admitted if the competition wasn’t viable enough to support each team travelling to play each other team at least once.

Daisy’s right, it’s a joke for them to propose such a ridiculous fixture. Fewer teams and allowing the competition to gain some traction in its existing form was the logical way to go about it.