The AFLW to date, has long been a summer offering despite the frustration of players and supporters for whom summer is no time for footy. For this reason, last week’s tabling of an August start to next season came as a surprise. A decision has not yet been made, but the AFL Commission has approved the concept and it is now up to each club, including the four new inclusions in Essendon, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Sydney.
For these expansion clubs, an August start is significant. We have seen previous first-timers up against well-established teams. That first season is full of discovery and, let’s face it, some pretty ordinary results. With three less months for planning and preparation – let alone list building – it is understandably not ideal.
But the more obvious pain point around an earlier start exists with the current playing groups. They will have just come off an already-gruelling sixth season only to have to back this up again in five months’ time. Between April to August, players must squeeze in a well-earned break, the work and study they may have missed from having to play, a pre- pre-season and then a pre-season proper.
An August start will also mean players with significant, season-ending injuries may not make it back in time.
The AFL has to change the start date. Whenever and however it does this will present significant challenges. An August start this year in particular means for the bulk of the players starting in the competition – mostly school leavers – it will land at the pointy end of their final year of school. Some have suggested raising the draft age to mitigate this, however that poses other issues in an expansion year when the league needs to find 120 players’s worth of new talent.
Regardless of where in the sport calendar the season ends up, the challenge will be in honouring the diverse needs of the not-yet-professional cohort itself. While for some marquee players and others with work flexibility, a mid-year season is fine, in fact welcomed. It means more opportunity to play with little financial impact or effect on work life balance. For others it is stressful and unlikely they will be able to return to play again this year.
Wherever the AFLW lands, the crucial piece of the puzzle that, from the outside appears to be missing, is due process and consultation. While a later-in-the-year start may be welcome and ultimately for the better, the uncertainty and lack of previous long-term planning does seem to wreak of sideshow. While not a one-to-one comparison, the idea of springing anything this significant on the AFLM seems improbable – so why the casual approach for the W?
For all the what ifs, and obvious complications however, there is plenty of upside. Finally the athletes will play in cooler months. While the idea of ‘clear air’ for the AFLW is long gone, their season played in and around the traditional footy season feels right.
More importantly, the athletes of the W will be negotiating their collective bargaining agreement. An earlier start throws open a number of possibilities including a longer contract. The overlap in Men’s and women’s seasons might also be the encouragement of men’s and women’s players need to negotiate a joint CBA.
For clubs there is plenty to work with, too. The W and M overlap should boost numbers in memberships and audience – the ‘one club’ campaigns write themselves. Despite what will be a jam-packed end of season, at least club staff will get an off-season.
As for the fans, August to December does seem like the sweet spot for the AFLW. In the M, the season ramps up into finals, when fans are either at fever pitch watching their team make it to September, in which case watching their W team will be a welcome addition to the hype. Or they are lamenting their team’s slow fade out of finals contention, for which the W season can be the perfect antidote.
There are, of course, those for whom AFLM is simply the bread rolls you snack on before mains.
The other thorn in the side of this seemingly perfect time of year is women’s cricket. September to October sees the international games played and October to December is WBBL season. If women’s footy finds a home in August it will split cross-coders like Jess Duffin, not to mention pathways for both codes. And then there is the question of how the broadcasters and media will service both.
Despite initial concerns there is a diamond of opportunity waiting to be exploited, an AFLW season that overlaps with women’s cricket is extremely good for women’s sport. Both major codes will be forced to compete for audience, memberships, broadcast rights and perhaps even venues. In the capitalist world of sport, this can only be a good thing. Everybody must lift.
Both codes will have to pay attention to audience, trends, cut-through – which will all make for a better women’s sport offering. August to December could become a festival of women’s sport. And maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of the world we have been waiting for.