IN the summer of 2012-13, the A-League was the hottest summer property in Australian sport.

Western Sydney Wanderers arrived with a bang while Alessandro Del Piero headlined an influx of international marquee stars as record crowds and TV ratings followed.

It prompted Cricket Australia and the AFL to act and four years on, the A-League is battling to stay on the summer podium.

Cricket’s Big Bash has gone gangbusters, with extra content added to the crammed six-week schedule as the TV networks vie for the rights.

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Even the NBL, thanks to the drive, vision and $7 million-dollar injection of Dodo founder Larry Kestelman is closing in, with regular sellouts piquing interest and two international franchises set to join an expanded 10-team league within two years.

But the mega opening round of the AFL Women’s — headlined by last Friday night’s Ikon Park lockout — would have caught Sydney-centric FFA off-guard.

In a season that the W-League has trod water and been affected by water (a game was called off prematurely when the automated sprinklers turned on), Melbourne City’s dramatic, high-quality win against Canberra United on Sunday night didn’t register on the radar.

media_camera A packed house at the opening Women's AFL at Ikon Park.

It’s taken one round for the AFL Women’s to surge past the stagnant W-League, but make no mistake — it’s threatening to overtake the A-League.

The AFLW ratings dwarfed the A-League’s — Friday’s Fox Footy average audience of 123,000 for Carlton-Collingwood dwarfed the following night’s Fox Sports broadcast of the Melbourne A-League derby (83,000).

After one round, there is a push to expand the eight-team AFLW competition, extending the season, and schedule the grand final at the MCG.

While FFA is struggling to attract corporate support and its turnover has remained at around the $100 million-dollar mark for several years, at the AFLW the sponsors are queuing up.

Meanwhile after almost a year of discussion, would-be A-League owners and fans are still awaiting an A-League expansion blueprint.

Crowds and TV ratings suggest soccer is failing to capitalise on the Tim Cahill shot in the arm, just like 2012-13 when the game failed to exploit the Del Piero (and Shinji Ono and Emile Heskey) effect.

As for the W-League and women’s soccer, that’s in need of a complete overhaul with the legitimate international pathways — the sport’s point of difference — completely under-utilised (the Matildas haven’t played since Rio 2016).

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