The AFLW season hasn’t even started, yet clubs are already playing practice matches. Some will play as many as five before Round 1.

On the surface, that’s a good thing. More football means more opportunities for players to develop, coaches to refine game plans and younger players to gain experience. But the more I thought about it, the more one question kept coming back to me.

If we’re already finding room for up to five practice matches, why are we still only playing a 12-game home-and-away season?

Although it’s increased, for years we’ve all agreed that the AFLW season isn’t long enough. One injury can completely derail a player’s season and a couple of bad weeks can put a club on the back foot with very little time to recover.

The timing of the competition doesn’t help either. Because the AFLW season starts as many state leagues are entering finals, it’s difficult for players to simply drop back and play local football if they need match fitness. AFLW clubs understandably want to control their players through pre-season, so there aren’t many opportunities to play meaningful football outside the competition itself either.

That’s why these practice matches are so interesting.

They’ve increased the number of games AFLW players are playing across the course of the year, which is undoubtedly a positive. But they’re still practice matches. They don’t carry the pressure, consequence or significance of premiership points. If everyone agrees that players benefit from playing more football, surely we’d rather those extra games actually counted.

The obvious response is that extending the season costs money.

Every AFLW game is televised. Fox Footy broadcasts every match, while Channel Seven is committed to showing at least 30 home-and-away games, along with the finals as per the most recent broadcast agreement.

That’s been fantastic for the competition. The visibility has helped grow audiences, attract sponsors and inspire the next generation of girls to see football as a genuine pathway.

But broadcasting every game comes at a significant cost. Producing live sport isn’t cheap with every match costing between $60,000 - $100,000 to put on our screens.

Which made me wonder: have we become so focused on broadcasting every game that we’ve overlooked what might actually improve the competition more?

If the choice was between every AFLW game being televised or every AFLW team playing each other once in a proper home-and-away season, which would you choose?

I’m not asking that rhetorically because I’m genuinely not sure of the answer.

The easy response is to say we should have both. Of course we should. But professional sport has always involved compromises, particularly while competitions are still growing. Resources aren’t unlimited, and every investment comes with an opportunity cost.

While I accept the way consume sport now is different, when I think about the AFL during the 1990s, not every game was televised. It would be a few games a week, some on delay. As the game grew, so too did the broadcast product.

I’m not suggesting AFLW should simply follow the men’s timeline. The world is a different place, AFL has had more than 100 years to build its financial strength, and AFLW shouldn’t be expected to mirror that journey year for year. But perhaps we’re so determined to match the men’s broadcast standards that we’ve unintentionally made it harder to grow the part of the competition that matters most: the football itself.

The AFLW is only now seeing the first generation of players who grew up with football as an accessible pathway from childhood. The standard is rising every season, and that’s exactly what we’d expect. But standards improve fastest when players play meaningful football, not just train for it.

Maybe that’s where this generation comes in.

Every generation of players has sacrificed something to leave the game in a better place than they found it. Earlier AFLW players accepted lower pay, fewer resources and less professionalism because they believed the competition would one day be stronger, which it has. My $8,000 a year contract wasn’t to make me money, but was to help create an environment that hopefully one day they can.

So what’s this generation’s role?

Is it to continue pushing for every game to be broadcast? Or is it to ask whether a longer season - even if it meant some matches weren’t televised - would ultimately do more for the development of players and the quality of the competition?

I don’t know which answer is right.

What I do know is that five practice matches and a 12-game season feels like an odd balance. If we’re already acknowledging players need more football, perhaps the next step isn’t adding more games that don’t count. perhaps it’s making more of those games actually count.