So you've never seen valid criticism be shut down?
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Repeat again.""There is a reason why its free admission"
I don't comment on AFLW. But I think there is a difference to the basketball analogy. Some people, myself included, get irritated that AFLW gets blended into AFL coverage, in a way that does not occur with the NBA and WNBA for example. There is a fairly constant attempt to leverage AFLW off the AFL brand, whether in terms of pay deals, the AFL website, club marketing, or TV coverage, and it is done so in a way that presumes that fans have, or should have, a common interest in the two. For those of us who have zero interest in AFLW, this can get irritating, and so sometimes such fans feel the need to bob up and say hang on, we actually don't want this; to us it's no different to junk advertising of a product we don't care about. I think people would be less likely to harp on about AFLW if it was kept quite separate from AFL, and stood or fell on its own strengths or weaknesses.
Same with Gold Coast. Cant keep handing out millions. You've got x amount of years to start building profits or bye bye
North Melbourne has made profits for nine of the last ten years.
I see your point, but I think you're being a bit precious. They play AFLW out of AFL season for a reason. So it can get some air time while AFL is quiet. Have you ever been "spammed" with an integrated AFLW article in the middle of July?
Would love an explanation of this considering St Kilda receive greater funding than North
Every club gets funding from the AFL.
Yes, they have bank rolled it. Its an aknowledgement that unlike when the free market pushed male leagues from backyard ammos into professionals, therr is actually some competition for women's leagues in making the same jump.... a brand that is faster , harder and stronger.
Doubt it, it's an investment. They knew full well that it was going to be losing money in the early years.
Check your clubs debt level.
I'm no more prescious than someone who gets irritated by cricket commentators continually plugging the network's other shows. That example, just like when AFLW gets promoted within AFL formts, is simply embedded advertising for a separate product. I normally mute the TV during adds, so I really hate embedded advertising, since you can't escape it, and that is the primary mode of marketing of AFLW.
I'm not saying it's being precious because it's embedded (I don't particularly like it either) it just that it's the off season for the men's game. There is * all happening that talk of AFLW is taking away from.
It's embedded, even in the men's off-season, to the extent that my team's webpage and the AFL web page is full of stories about the Richmond AFLW team. That is all about marketing and brand-building. To me, it's a fairly cynical strategy - it's a means to an economic rational end. The AFL has realised that women represent too big a market to ignore, and even though a high percentage of AFL fans already are women, they want to ensure they maximise this market by buliding a women's football brand, which might attract even more women fans. It's the same reason they back expansion teams in western Sydney and the GC - the markets are too big to ingore. Their strategy to achieve this is to blend the new women's product with the long-established, successful product of men's AFL. But this blending of AFL and AFLW, as though they are two parts of the same whole, is an artificial construct, based on nothing other than a longterm corporate strategy. That is not what happens in sports like basketball with the WNBA, where there is no real overlap between men's and women's teams. I don't lose sleep over a few articles on a website which I'm under no obligation to read, but in principle I don't like the cynical, corporate, manufactured nature of it all. It would be more authentic if they were kept as more distinct, unique entities with their own traditions.
Yeah I agree completely. I think the strategy I described is indeed the actual strategy of the AFL, but like you I think it's a bad strategy, because like you say it assumes (against all evidence) that a lot of women will only watch a sport if they get to watch other women playing, which ironically enough is actually pretty patronising towards women, not progressive.
