AFLW Player Wages Released - No Private Health Insurance Covered
- Thread starter CrowdedHouse
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wing it
Club Legend
- Jun 6, 2013
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But it's not the girls' job either. It's just a 6 week tournament.
I sort of agree with you really. It is a toe in the water sort of start up league, and it is toe in the water type player payments. It was unrealistic to expect more at this point.
What I am anticipating is, they will wait and see the sort of sponsorship they can get and how much it pulls in, and then ramp up from there.
The league will never make a profit, any revenue will get plowed back in, much of it to player wages, expanding lists and new teams. They will look to run between break even and tolerable losses.
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Do the men get their insurance paid?
- Moderator
- #58
Clubs have insurance for the professional players. The women arent being defined the same way under the agreements with the AFLPA for the piurpose of this contract - which ill note will only pertain to this coming season.
For the length of their season, the women are professionals, surely?
If a player was injured during preseason training or in the game, the club would have to pay for it? How could the AFLPA not ask for cover for this period, at least?
Do you have any links that pertain to this?
- Moderator
- #60
They arent being paid as professionals and they arent going to be treated as such - limited to tiny amounts of hours at the club, playing 6 to 8 games over 6 weeks....there are kids who spend longer at auskick programs.
Its an interim agreement to cover what is essentially a promotional run before it gets into full gear the year after.
I'm pretty sure that Freo's medical staff and fitness staff would be available to the women, which is heaps more than a kid at an Auskick program would get. I just hope the players get looked after in the event of injury during this period.
I can fully understand the lack of cover for the rest of the year, until the competition takes off, but if some of the clubs are trying to do this on the cheap, there will be problems.
Listened to the outersanctum Podcast which covered this, and they said it was standard in professional contracts for players to bring their own insurance, so men are not covered by the league.
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The WAFL is one level below the AFL, on the same tier as the VFL and SANFL. It has one game per week televised and players a salary cap per team of $294k - for a full season. As a basis of comparison it shows that if you are just outside being on an AFL list then footy isn't something that you can make a living from. In terms of standard, your average WAFL team would beat the Women's All Stars by 20+ goals. I'd be surprised if they got near a Reserves or Colts side. There's no argument for 'deserving' a level of pay based on standard of play.
You could compare the women's AFL to other national women's competitions like the W-League, WNCL, ANZ Championship etc. and none would really suggest that female footballers are getting a raw deal. The women's BBL is probably a reasonable comparison because it's also a short form tournament and player contracts are $3-10,000. The only difference is that cricketers can get central/state contracts and play outside the WBBL.
Without the support of the AFL, female footballers wouldn't be paid a cent. The competition is piggybacking off the strength of the AFL.
How financially viable the league will be I don't know. Too many unknowns at this point. The 'someone' right now is the AFL, and how much they are prepared to pay is what they have just announced. Gold Coast and GWS are money pits but the AFL want 9 games a round and a game each week in NSW/Qld so there's a commercial basis to their investment even short term. Long term they want kids in those states playing footy. As I see it they are investing into the women's game for the PR value. The cost isn't that much compared to how much money they turn over, but they don't want women (who have historically been huge contributors to the code while only playing in small numbers) turning away from the game. IMO the league won't attract a huge interest from TV audiences, sponsorship etc. but it's all part of the AFL grand plan.
The point most have forgotten on here is that that the AFL boss was very very surprised that 60,000 players (Incl Auskick) had registered in QLD a Rugby Code State in 2015. He made a special TV appearance on this point and said -- "We cannot let those Women/Girls go to other sports so we will bring forward the National League". Of course while that is what he said, also the growth around the country was impressive.
We are in a very competitive Womens sports marketplace in Australia now and the AFL`s timing on this new league is not far out.
The Women involved will now start to receive top shelf training, facilties, support that other Womens sports only dream about, and this will over time lift the standard a few notches.
LeverPuller
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- Jun 23, 2011
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This has already been in place for MFC women, someone (Kara Donnellan?) did their ACL in one of the exhibition games earlier on and the club fully supported her recovery.
I am comfortable with the AFL being EXTREMELY conservative with their initial budgeting since they have absolutely no sense of what this league will be earning on Day 1. You don't want the media coverage to be about how much of a white elephant it is (like the GC Suns is in danger of.)
But I would hope those figures increase very quickly.
I'm not even talking about sexism here. If you want this league to thrive, you'll want the players to become at least semi-professional ASAP. When the minimum wage is more in the $30,000-$40,000 range, the standard of play will increase markedly I'm betting.
If this becomes a fully professional league, I expect it will contribute to the generation of many more millions in overall AFL TV rights than it will cost to run.
But I would hope those figures increase very quickly.
I'm not even talking about sexism here. If you want this league to thrive, you'll want the players to become at least semi-professional ASAP. When the minimum wage is more in the $30,000-$40,000 range, the standard of play will increase markedly I'm betting.
If this becomes a fully professional league, I expect it will contribute to the generation of many more millions in overall AFL TV rights than it will cost to run.
Big bash in NSW had a program in the News today to identify athletes from non cricket backgrounds to join squads. The Pro/semi Pro female athletic space is about to get crowded, and this will drive up payments.
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- Moderator
- #69
While Im all for the womens league and its development, thats strictly speaking not true, no matter how much this is proclaimed by proponents. Its run by the AFL Commission yes, but its a different league to the AFL.
Different league, but same organisation. People speak like the women's comp getting an advantage due to the popularity of the men's comp, or the size of the AFL is cheating, or some sort of parasitism. It's the AFL giving an advantage to itself, what else was supposed to happen?
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- Moderator
- #71
Playing devils advocate here -
Well for one, they could have waited until womens football was actually popular enough and had the talent to justify a national competition. It wasnt and didnt, and it still isnt and doesnt, unless there are massive crowds gathering at suburban grounds across the country that im unaware of.
its not cheating, but think of it more like a shark/remora scenario. The shark is the reason theres any food for the remora to clean up on, and when push comes to shove, no one cares about the remora.
Its because womens sport in general, and womens football specifically isnt popular enough at this time to justify a national competition - there wasnt a big push through popular support for its creation. The state comps arent worthy of expansion at this point, and the talent levels arent there to justify the expansion. The league is specifically being created - and specifically piggy backed of long established mens afl clubs and instrastructure - because without it theres literally no support basis., and the leagues aim is to foster development, not exist because the development demands it - its a top down approach. Theres no some sort of paratism about it - unless it fails to develop funding of its own - the funding for this is coming from funds derived from the mens competition. the infrastructure is coming from the mens clubs, and the support is coming from the mens teams members.
- Moderator
- #73
that we wont really know until the season starts. One off games and curtainraisers arent a true indicator of anything.
- Moderator
- #74
The min Wage is perfectly fine. they would get paid more than a similar basketballer or a W-League player. u must remember that an AFL squad would be bigger than any other sporting code in this country.
The biggest thing the afl could do to help the girls game would be promotion rather than wages. throwing money on all the talent(or lack of) would do no one any favours if no one is watching. u just need a wage to entice the girls who want to play.
a professional wage for everyone in the league is light years away. deluded if u think otherwise.
no women's league has that in this country and only a handful are alive in the world. i can only think of Soccer leagues in Europe and USA(and they are brand new) and the WNBA.
The biggest thing the afl could do to help the girls game would be promotion rather than wages. throwing money on all the talent(or lack of) would do no one any favours if no one is watching. u just need a wage to entice the girls who want to play.
a professional wage for everyone in the league is light years away. deluded if u think otherwise.
no women's league has that in this country and only a handful are alive in the world. i can only think of Soccer leagues in Europe and USA(and they are brand new) and the WNBA.
Thunderville
Debutant
Something really ticked me off about the Junkee article comparing the wage of both of the Women's league with the men. I couldn't put my finger on it but then it finally dawned on me "I've heard this before". There is nothing worse at local footy than a kid who has shown up for 5 minutes and starts complaining about sub's, or the lack of facilities, or how they aren't getting the match payment's they expect and they have never contributed to the club. Playing footy on a Saturday is a privilege paid for by 1000's of hours of unpaid volunteer work that becomes instantly under valued when you start whining about how hard you've got it. Sponsorships in footy usually have no ROI for the sponsor, if you poke your head behind the curtain it's usually the director has a personal relationship with a player or another club member. If someone offers you the opportunity to play in a national competition for the first time you'd expect players to be a bit more excited than, " oh great but look how little I'm getting paid"
