CAITLIN BASSETT: AFL needs to fix AFLW schedule if league is to succeed in make or break season

The AFLW is already falling below the key metrics it needs to reach to trigger an extension of its season for next year — but is it being handcuffed by scheduling?

The season is two weeks old and fans have already been treated to some good games and some incredible on-field performances.

But this season looms as critical for the growth of the competition, with a clause written into the league’s new collective bargaining agreement giving it tangible markers it has to hit for the competition to expand.

The landmark deal stipulates 11 games this season will grow to 12 next year, but to seal a 14-game season by 2027, AFLW matches must average 6000 fans at each game and an average television viewership of 100,000.

It gives the league a clear idea of where it needs to get too, but this season, it is not getting enough help from the AFL.

In comparison the NRLW season is scheduled so it starts during the NRL season, not during the finals like the AFL, and the grand final is played as a curtain raiser to the men making it front and centre of the biggest day on the code’s calendar.

The NRLW State of Origin was watched by 2.2 million people this year and the code out-rated AFLW on TV last year.

According to the AFL’s annual report, an average of 2606 fans attended the 90 regular-season AFLW games last season. The regular-season average viewership was 54,969 — well below where it needs to land across the next two seasons.

An average of 3272 fans headed to games during the competition’s opening round, just over half its target.

But several of the grounds hosting AFLW games this season don’t even fit 6000 fans.

Overlapping games have long been a bugbear of football fans and that now extends to the women’s game.

Other than the first round, which landed during the men’s pre-finals bye, AFLW games have been handcuffed by overlapping with each other.

In round two, there were three sets of games that began at exactly the same time.

To their credit, the scheduling oversight that saw Western Bulldogs’ men’s side fixtured for their elimination final at the same time as their women’s team was corrected, with the Dogs hosting a double-header at the MCG on Friday night.

But that’s not to say double-headers are necessarily the way forward and, in this case, has inflated crowd numbers for the women’s game.

Midweek matches, which begin in coming days, loom as a further examination of the interest in the competition, with clubs scheduled for matches between Tuesday and Thursday across the next three weeks.

With so many eyes trained towards the men’s finals series, are these games really going to have the cut-through they deserve?

Plus, midweek fixtures create short breaks for clubs, which is never the best scenario for teams putting together the most attractive product they possibly can.

More and more AFLW players are making the shift towards becoming full-time professional footballers and the natural growth is for the league to expand and for each club to — at least — play each other once.

While the markers put in front of the AFLW are fair, the shackles then placed on them by league scheduling aren’t as much.

The future of the competition and its spot on the calendar will be dictated by fans.

Players don’t want to play in front of no one and while the league sits neatly in this summer spot, unless we see a crowd boom once the AFL finals are over, a rethink and a schedule shake-up might be required.