Because more people watched the women's match than any other Saturday night footy this year, people are asking why female players are paid 125 times less than their male counterparts.

At its peak there were more than a million people tuning in to watch the exhibition game between the Western Bulldogs and the Melbourne Demons. The game was meant to show off the best players in an eight-week women's competition running before the blokes season next year. Each of the players will soon be drafted into one of eight teams.

The success of the night put the spotlight on what female players will be earning in the first season - and it's not much. The top two players of each team will get about $25,000 for the season, and then $10,000 for high profile players, and $5,000 for everyone else.

That's $5,000 for an eight-week season. The players will train about nine hours per week, plus pre-season. This pay scale is set by the AFL, not the clubs.

Compare this with the top men's players - the average player earns just over $300,000 - meaning you could buy an entire women's team for the cost of a single male player.

That's because the men's season is longer, right?

Kind of. Not really.

Reporter Erin Riley compared what the female players were earning and the lowest paid male AFL players - the rookies. She found that a rookie who doesn't play a single game will still earn $57,000 over a 22-week season. If they play, they get paid more.

So even a male player who doesn't play a single game earns 11 times more than a female player who plays every game.

"We're asking [the female players] to work for nothing, or very very low wages," Erin said.

"The proposed deal only has them training nine hours a week, so you're either going to have a competition that isn't of the standard we expect or where the female players have to work out and do the things on their own time that male players get to do as part of their full time job."

It's very disappointing."

Even on a pro rata basis - e.g. comparing what men would get paid if they were playing a nine-week season - the women still get paid far less.

Pepa Randall, a female player who expects to play in the comp next year, said $5,000 wasn't enough for the amount of training. Although she would happily play footy for free, she said it felt wrong to be paid so little for a business opportunity.

"I work in a cafe," she said.

"It's exhausting playing a footy game and then going to work and standing up for nine hours."

But it's because of TV revenue, right?

That's what the AFL says.

Simon Lethlean, the AFL's general manager of game and market development, told Hack the AFL expected it would take a few years before broadcasters would pay for the rights to show women's footy matches.

"The key to any successful sports league is having a few pillars supporting," he said.

"The first is the governing body, then there's broadcasters and sponsors, and the fourth arm is a talent base to sustain a professional league."

"There's a lot of work to do to sustain professional league in Australia."

"The context of men's pay and parity in that sense is not the way we're looking at it. We're looking at an equal opportunity for the best female athletes to play the game."

He said the AFL was in the middle of negotiations with the AFL Players' Association. The association's Libby Lyons, Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, demanded the female players get equal pro rata pay. She dismissed his arguments the women should be paid less because the AFL was taking a risk on a start-up competition.

"I suggest when Greater Western Sydney was set up the men weren't paid any less than those from the Western Bulldogs," she said.

"I don't see what's different at the women's league."

"Could you imagine a large resource company investing or developing an asset or new mine and saying we're not going to pay workers the same as we pay at the other mine?"

"It wouldn't happen because you have to invest in any new part of your business. You recognise there is some risk involved and that is how business works."