threenewpadlocks
Brownlow Medallist
170,000 female participants for footy in 2013. NRL is claiming 190,000 female participants, but that includes touch and tag, and Touch Football claims 600,000 participants and 40% female participation, so the maths doesn't work out there. In terms of participants in tackle rugby league vs women's footy, the VWFL had 34 teams in 2013 (so x 25 = ~850 Victorian adult competition participants) - this contrasts with around 25 adult tackle female RL players in NSW currently, with ~20 players per team is around 500 adult participants in NSW alone.Think he is very optimistic. At best, 3 or 4 years away from where AFLW was year 1, but AFLW will be a 14 team, truly national comp by then. It will still be a mile behind.
Womens footy 3 to 4 years pre AFLW was stronger than women's RL is now.
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And this isn't going into the differences in youth development, which the AFL was miles ahead, for example it was as long ago as 2010 that national U/18 championships were formed.
Also worth noting that I've picked possibly the worst possible dates for this comparison, for example, the growth in VWFL teams from 2009 to 2013 (28 to 34) was less than that from 2013 to 2014 (34 to 41), and whether the massive increase from 2013 onward can be put down to either the increased exposure from the inaugural Melbourne vs Western Bulldogs game, or the simple fact that the youth girls programmes instigated a few years earlier were beginning to bear fruit, either way, the NRL has hardly done either to the same extent that the AFL had done - despite the Womens' World Cup, surely a well-promoted State of Origin would do more for marketing and they've got to pump everything in youth development.
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