The AFL is nimbly patting itself on the back while sighing with relief after securing a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with its female players. It receives the warm glow of gender equity without having to pay (much) for it. Another case, in women’s sport, of administrators mastering the art of having it both ways.

This fraught negotiation provided a case study for the struggling professionalisation of women’s team sports. The women of the AFLW had next to no bargaining power. More than 30 per cent had voted against the deal earlier in October, but if they continued to reject it they were risking self-sabotage by putting in doubt a pre-season starting in November.

Illustration: Simon Letch

Those who voted against the AFL’s offer, who comprised a majority of the Greater Western Sydney, Carlton, St Kilda and Geelong clubs, were then gerrymandered by a near-doubling of the electorate from the draft which brought in 180 new, grateful young players. Duly, the majority fell into line.

Even though the deal got done, there are a lot of unhappy women in this game who are not convinced by the AFL’s official line that it is pursuing steady, incremental, ‘sustainable’ growth. Many of the senior personnel in the AFLW believe that the current conditions do not allow enough potential for growth or authentic professionalism and fear the players will be denied the chance to achieve any more than a token of gender equity. The AFL is placing an each-way bet on the women’s game, but unless it goes all-in, it will only achieve each-way results at best.

The situation would be recognisable to women across all professional team sports. AFLW players get a pat on the head from the old men of the league reminiscing about the semi-amateur game they used to play. But the comparison is false and disingenuous.

Today’s median male AFL player earns nearly $400,000 a season. The median woman player will earn between $13,400 and $19,000 for this season’s work. A handful of elite players per club will earn, wait for it, $24,600. In four years’ time, when the current deal expires, the median player will earn less than $25,000, while the elite will make $37,155. Incremental growth, so long as you don’t have to eat or pay rent.

This negotiation was not about the money, the AFL contended, because pay rates had been agreed in the previous CBA. Hint: sports negotiations are always about the money, even when other matters take up most of the talking time.

Now let’s compare the current AFLW player with those men waxing nostalgic. While football paid little, those men were able to work full-time jobs, and many had wives also working to help support their families. They lived in their home towns all year round. Sure, they played for a pittance, but they participated in a six-month season of the highest standard possible in their sport, with wealthy clubs able to provide off-field support.

By comparison, for a wage of as little as $13,400, many AFLW players must move interstate for four months of the year, from November through March. Good luck finding a four-month job in Sydney or Melbourne while playing football. Many are students, supporting themselves with scholarships, part-time and gig economy jobs, living with family or supportive friends, while trying to make ends meet. (It’s an insult to say that whatever other work they can get would ‘supplement’ the money the AFL pays them.)

The ostensible sticking point in the negotiations was not money but the length of the season, currently seven games but growing to 10 by 2022. (Collingwood’s Chloe Molloy wrote, apparently without irony, that a proper home-and-away season would be "the ultimate euphoria".) The length of the season is a symbol for the limitations of the AFL’s commitment to the game. This symbol stands for the restriction on training to 10-15 hours per week, the absence of full-time medical and support staff, ordinary playing facilities and the shortage of dedicated AFLW personnel in either the clubs or the powerful boards of the AFL and the AFL Players’ Association.

Collingwood's Chloe Molloy in action in September this year. Getty

Get real, say the men running this and other sports. When your product makes money, you will benefit. The AFLW saw a TV ratings drop in its second season and the naysayers justify their scepticism. But how can standards improve when the commitment to professionalism is half-hearted? How can a broad crop of superstars be grown on $13,400 for a seven-week season? How can professional entertainment be nurtured on an amateur wage?

When it comes to income, the AFLW is held to a false standard of accountability. The $4.7 million in this year’s total player payments might exceed the AFLW’s direct profit, but consider this. The AFL’s total revenue last year was $668 million, of which it granted $307 million to the men’s clubs, $170 million in salaries. The league’s total distributions were $417 million, which still left a surplus of $50 million. Out of all this, it can find less than a Deliveroo rider’s wage for women players. Total women’s salaries amount to one-fortieth of what goes to the men.

Do women generate so little income for sports? The AFL also boasts that one-third of its participants, more than half a million, are female. Look at any AFL crowd, extrapolate this to TV audiences, and it’s clear that women contribute at least a third of the vast income-producing viewership. When it comes to sponsorship income, there is considerable monetary and reputational value in the AFL having a women’s league. Leave aside the pipe dream of equal pay; does one-fortieth seem quite fair?

Little wonder that cricket is running ahead of other professional women’s team sports in Australia. A proper-length season, decent pay and conditions and growing respect from audiences have all contributed to cricket’s headstart, which is now feeding itself by attracting the most talented young multi-sports players. Cricket has decades of incremental growth on its side, but it is setting a standard for women’s sport that the AFL cannot match until it offers talented women a fair-dinkum professional alternative.

The AFL gets a lot of good vibes from its AFLW initiative. Mainstream sports are all jumping on the bandwagon. But some are more serious about committing to professionalism than others. ‘Sustainable’ competition can be a code word for having it both ways, trying to get good publicity on the cheap. If the AFL is lucky enough to have a watchable women’s competition in four years, it must then take the plunge, stop dipping a nervous toe into the water, and show it is serious about a professional league.