Show caption Investment at the elite level leads to growth at the grassroots, which is where the next generation of elite players and fans come from. Photograph: Kelly Defina/Getty Images AFLW AFLW’s true value cannot be measured in dollars and cents Discussion around investment in the league and its profitability fails to acknowledge other benefits Kirby Fenwick @kirbykirbybee Sun 8 Mar 2020 19.50 EDT Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share via Email

A few weeks ago, as Melbourne gave the Western Bulldogs a lesson in wet weather football at the Whitten Oval, I met a young girl named Annabelle in the crowd. Dressed head to toe in Melbourne colours and proudly wearing a Daisy Pearce badge, Annabelle cheerfully told me all about how she played football. Annabelle’s passion for the game as a fan and as a player is not an isolated story. In fact, she exemplifies why investment in women’s sport at the highest level is so important.

It’s a similar story in other sports. In June last year, Cricket Australia revealed that female participation had grown by 14% with women and girls 30% of all participants. When the numbers were released, Kieran McMillan, the then acting executive general manager of community cricket at Cricket Australia said the increase in women and girls playing the sports was “in line with cricket’s long-term goal to be Australia’s leading sport for women and girls”. McMillan pointed to the national women’s team and the standalone Women’s Big Bash League as being huge inspirations for the next generation.

Organisations like CA and the AFL are investing in the women’s game at the elite level. CA in particular has been incredibly proactive. And it makes sense that they are because investment at the elite level leads to growth at the grassroots, which is where the next generation of elite players comes from and the next generation of fans. It’s a pretty straightforward equation. Predictably there is some push back about that investment.

On Melbourne’s Triple M this week, radio broadcaster Steve Price said that the “amount of money we’re ploughing into [the AFLW] is ridiculous”. Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire refuted Price’s comments saying that the women’s game had “absolutely made football so much money in the last three years” and calling the women’s game a “an absolute revolution for our game – it’s the next stage”. McGuire’s comments about the AFLW were echoed by former Adelaide Crows player Mark Ricciuto who said that Adelaide’s AFLW team had been profitable since day one. “We’ve got some big sponsors on board as a result of women’s footy,” he said.

For AFL clubs with an AFLW team, the growth in memberships and sales of –admittedly often somewhat limited – merchandise, alongside new sponsors are undoubtedly making those clubs money. On a broader scale, the growth of the game thanks to the increased participation of women and girls is making a real contribution at the grassroots level. Ask any local club which is bursting at the seams with girls and women keen to play footy. But the value of the AFLW cannot be reduced to a line on a profit and loss statement.

Nicola Stevens, Tayla Harris, Madison Prespakis and Georgia Gee of the Blues. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Photos/AFL via Getty Images

Last week, VicHealth launched the latest This Girl Can campaign. The campaign challenges traditional gender roles and stereotypes in sport and in doing so aims to increase physical activity among Victorian women. Research undertaken by VicHealth revealed that more than half of Victorian women worry about being judged while they exercise and 41% are intimidated when exercising in public.

Women like the Gold Coast Suns’ Jamie Stanton or Carlton’s Maddy Prespakis or Fremantle’s Roxy Roux are doing exactly what the This Girl Can campaign is hoping to achieve. They’re breaking down traditional gender roles and stereotypes in sport. Just like Sam Kerr does every time she takes to the football pitch, or Alyssa Healy or Meg Lanning do when they pick up a cricket bat. They’re inspiring and encouraging a whole generation of women and girls to play sport. They’re reshaping what it means to be a strong woman, and to be an ambitious and talented woman.

The real value of women’s sport cannot be measured in dollars and cents. It’s measured in the 86,174 people (a new attendance record for women’s sport in Australia and for women’s cricket globally) who packed the MCG on Sunday on International Women’s Day to watch Australia win the T20 World Cup final. It’s measured in the young women who crowd the fence at AFLW games, huge grins on their faces as they watch their heroines play. It’s measured in the increased participation of women and girls that is driving the growth of sports like Aussie rules. It’s measured in little girls like Annabelle.