The Australian Football League national woman’s competition is 3 years old. Every men’s AFL team has (or will have over the coming years) a woman’s team...same club name, same club uniform (with minor changes), same club training ground, same club song!
As with the men, there is 1 game per week.
The woman’s league starts before the men’s league starts every year, meaning little overlap and minimal competition for audiences (both TV and attending the game). The AFL off season is 5 months long (6 months for non finals teams) so by the time the woman’s season starts, folks are pumped for football.
Each regular season woman’s game attracts between 10,000 and 20,000 spectators.The woman’s grand final attracted 53,000 people.
While still in its infancy, the league will likely stand on its own (financially) within a few short years. It’s a wonderful success story, and I look forward to it every year.
The only way I see a woman’s hockey league succeeding is to carry the name and colours of existing NHL teams and piggyback on the infrastructure and goodwill of the existing teams.
Men or woman, I find hockey pretty tedious to watch when it’s not my team playing...with exceptions...but if you won’t sit down and watch Minnesota versus Arizona in February, chances are you won’t watch two woman’s teams that you have no affinity for either....which is why the woman’s teams need to be saddled up next to the men’s team.
Regardless, there’s barely enough time to watch half the Flames games in any given season, god knows where I’d find the time to watch another team too. Perhaps the men’s league could be a 60 game schedule to accommodate a woman’s competition?
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