lachy
Premiership Player
As long as the games are played at night the heat will be a minimal factor.Summary from today's AFLW announcements...
Season 2021/22 will start in early December and run through until a week before R1 of the men's competition in March.
Increase to 10 home and away rounds, finals remain at 3 weeks.
2 new teams admitted in season 2022/23, remaining 2 in season 2023/24.
Personally I'm looking forward to seeing how a full AFLW season plays out with no interference of any men's games. Of course in the long run I'm still in favour of a full 23 week home and away season running concurrently to the men's competition, but I understand the reasoning for the Dec-Mar timing in the short term.
For those concerned about the summer heat, it won't be drastically different to what the first five seasons were.
Average maximum temperature for December-March over the past 30 years...
Melbourne
26.7 (Feb-Mar: 26.4*)
Adelaide
28.4 (Feb-Mar: 28.2*)
Perth
30.4 (Feb-Mar: 30.6*)
Sydney
26.3 (Feb-Mar: 26.2*)
Brisbane
29.9 (Feb-Mar: 29.7*)
*94% of all AFLW matches have been played in February/March.
If the AFLW is ever to build its own brand it should never try and run concurrently with the Men but expand deeper in to the offseason starting the week after AFL Grand Final to the week before round 1. This would allow for 17 H&H rounds and 3 weeks of finals. Run concurrently and the brand will never grow