With numbers stagnating, here's how the league plans to increase AFLW crowds this year

The AFLW burst onto the scene in 2017 with the infamous inaugural lockout game at Prince's Park; over 24,000 filled the stands and thousands more were left outside the gates, unable to get in.

Since then, the last three grand finals sold out, 53,034 people flooded Adelaide Oval for the 2019 grand final, 20,652 showed up for the inaugural Showdown in 2022, and the first meeting between Essendon and Hawthorn was forced to move to Docklands after such high demand.

Yet crowds have dwindled the past few years, which saw just an average of 2,660 fans rocking up per home-and-away game last season.

While this is largely due to inopportune time slots and venues — including a compressed fixture last season with Tuesday and Wednesday night matches and recent expansions diluting audiences — unsurprisingly, one of the AFL's main strategic aims this year is to grow AFLW attendance and fan bases.

Demons' Hore urges calm over AFLW losses Photo shows Melbourne's AFLW captain, Kate Hore, smiles as she walks on the ground leading her team behind her. AFLW star Kate Hore urges league officials and sponsors to stay the course, insisting the women's competition will only improve in future seasons.

It also comes amid reports of the AFL telling all 18 clubs the women's game is losing $50 million a year.

However, AFL executive general manager of strategy Walter Lee stressed the league was not worried about the long-term viability of the competition.

"I want to reiterate, the competition is here to stay. We are investing, but it is here to stay," he said.

"When you sort of take a 10-year vision around this kind of investment, this is no different from how we invest into Western Sydney [or] Gold Coast … It's long-term. It's trying to be visionary about it."

So, here's how the league is aiming to get more bums on seats this season.

Over 53,000 people turned up for the 2019 AFLW grand final at Adelaide Oval. (Getty Images: Daniel Kalisz)

Fan-friendly time slots

Josh Bowler, AFL's head of strategy and scheduling, said this season had gone "back to a more traditional fixture structure" after trialling the compressed fixture last season, which squeezed 11 rounds into 10 weeks.

While this impacted the product, with some teams playing four games within 15 days, and made it hard for crowds to get to midweek games, it also contributed to the "footy fatigue" many fans feel at the back end of the year.

Yet even before that, attendance took a hit after the move to the suburban grounds two years prior.

Essendon and Hawthorn's inaugural clash was moved to Docklands Stadium after selling out. (Getty: Michael Willson/AFL Photos)

For example, Essendon and Hawthorn's inaugural 2022 clash at Docklands attracted 12,092 spectators, yet just 3,778 when the clubs played each other in Frankston the following year.

Another reason for smaller crowds has been the rapid expansions.

Total attendance has risen by 52 per cent since season one (195,000 to 297,000), however, with more teams in the competition, the attendance has become more diluted.

This year, the season length has increased to 12 rounds within 12 weeks.

It could move to 14 by 2027, but to make that move, the league must first meet key metrics agreed to by the AFL and the AFL Players' Association: an average attendance of 6,000 fans and 100,000 broadcast viewers per match.

In 2023, a key metric target was an average crowd attendance of 3,500.

The ABC asked the AFL what its internal targets were for this season, but the league said they would not release those publicly to avoid making them an ongoing narrative.

Lee said a focus this year was "fan-friendly time slots", venue consolidation and allowing for rituals to be created around home venues.

"We're playing in too many different time slots, and we're playing in too many different venues as well. And so as a fan, how do you format ritual?" he said.

"Take an example with Melbourne. They played seven matches here in Victoria [last season] and in seven different time slots … So it's really hard as a fan to build that ritual."

Not with double-headers

One initiative not being utilised in fixturing this year — despite the majority of clubs actively campaigning the league for it — is double-headers.

When the fixture came out earlier this year, AFLPA chief Ben Smith said the union provided the AFL with a submission based on player feedback that included a desire for more "category-one venues and the opportunity to play some double-headers".

Why Giants wanted double-headers Photo shows GettyImages-2178168387 GWS was surprised this year's AFLW fixture would feature no double-headers after being one of the "strong advocates" for the initiative.

The AFL said they did not want to compromise on atmosphere if the crowds weren't there yet to support it.

Last season, the Western Bulldogs' round-two AFLW match was rescheduled at the last minute to a double-header with the men's elimination final at the MCG to avoid a club fixture clash.

The league used this as an example of why double-headers wouldn't work in the short term.

However, that match was organised the week of, with the women's game starting at 4.30pm on the Friday afternoon, before the men's clash at 7:40pm.

"Even though there were 23,000 recorded [in attendance], the atmosphere at 23 per cent utilisation isn't what we're trying to project," Lee said.

"I guess the conclusion is, like, 30,000, 40,000 — that's when it starts to get sort of more exciting."

GWS was one of the clubs that were "strong advocates" for double-headers in the two-round crossover between the end of the men's home-and-away season and the AFLW, believing it would work for their market.

"We're a young club with a new audience, a new fan base, and we want to be able to build that across our men's and women's program," GWS general manager of AFLW and football operations Alison Zell told ABC Sport.

Bowler added that "the W needs to be built around AFLW", in venues that work for its product, and not fit in with the men's competition.

Smaller venues still being used

The lack of double-headers has also contributed to no category-one venues being used for AFLW this year, limiting the ability to get crowds above the 20,000-plus mark for bigger games.

Category-one venues Adelaide Oval

Docklands

MCG

Perth Stadium Category-two venues York Park

Bellerive Oval

Gabba

Manuka Oval

Carrara

Kardinia Park

Sydney Showground

SCG

While part of this is to encourage fans to create rituals at grounds such as Whitten Oval and Windy Hill, the league said it wouldn't move to larger stadiums until the crowds supported it.

Players have consistently advocated for some marquee games to be played at larger stadiums, such as the Showdown at Adelaide Oval.

Last year, AFL executive general manager of football Laura Kane told The Sydney Morning Herald that for future AFLW matches to be played at Docklands Stadium, games would need to attract 20,000 supporters to justify using the venue.

Over 20,000 people attended the first AFLW Showdown in 2022. (Getty: James Elsby/AFL Photos)

Kane said Arsenal Women were a great example of knowing when to move from a 5,500-seat stadium to 50,000 in the Women's Super League overseas.

"What was really interesting to me is how strategic they were with the one, two or three times that they triggered that big stadium experience," Kane said.

"[Filling the stadium] wasn't because they hoped, it wasn't because they thought 'maybe they'll come'. It wasn't because they thought, 'let's strategically try and leverage the men's'. It was because they knew they were ready.

"So the patience in that … [And] in every single fan survey or every question we ask of our fans, they absolutely love that closeness to the players, [and] the fullness of the stadiums. And so it's one of the single biggest things, biggest decisions and strategic priorities we have is where we play."

Improving the on-field product

Improving the on-field product is another main strategic aim for the league.

"We know what people like watching, because we have AFL every weekend to look at, what are the things that people enjoy?" Kane said.

"They enjoy close games, unpredictable finishes, lead changes, you know, so on and so forth and so, how do we do that? … Investing in the pathway of the young players is the answer for us."

Kane said the metrics spoke for themselves with the talent in the pathways entering the system.

One of the biggest factors to help improve the product, Laura Kane said, was time.

"The quality of the under-18 games is unbelievable compared to what we've seen 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago."

However, in the now, the AFL is strong on wanting an attacking style from teams.

Essendon and the Western Bulldogs' "ugly" clash at the end of the condensed fixture last year was widely criticised for the defensive style of play from both sides. Essendon won 3.8 (26) to 0.3 (3).

"I think Scott Gowans was interviewed last year and said it himself, like, we might lose by a big margin, but we're committed to playing an offensive, attacking style," Kane said.

"It's a lot on the ability of the players to execute the skills, but it's also on us to help set up a framework that allows them to do that more easily."

The 'Caitlin Clark effect'

AFLW's new general manager of women's football, Emma Moore, said the AFL wanted to harness what she was calling the "Caitlin Clark effect": an increase in women's sport viewership and attendance driven by stardom.

This would mean attracting fans to AFLW because of a big name like Sam Kerr (soccer) and Caitlin Clark (WBNA).

"The huge opportunity that we have in AFLW is the vast volume of players that we have to begin with, and the incredible skills, personalities and champions of themselves and the sport they play, what they bring," Moore said.

"So we really want to unlock that opportunity for them and so it's really clear for us that going forwards, a key play in growing our fan base is growing that connection between our fans and their players."

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