SEN Afternoons host Andy Maher isn’t happy with the lack of promotion for the AFL Women’s competition so far this year.
In particular, he expressed his frustrations with the AFL themselves and their lack of advertising of the competition, especially given the work going into the building of AFLX at the same time.
“There’s hardly been a word out of the AFL about AFLW,” Maher told SEN Afternoons.
“You have to work very hard to find promotional material for AFLW.”
Senior writer at the AFL Record Ashley Browne believes there are those involved with the AFL directly who are disappointed with money going into AFLX ahead of AFLW.
“Until recently I worked at the AFL and there will be people within the AFL who, and they won’t say it much, but there is a level of despair in some circles within the AFL and clubland with the marketing and the IP and the creativity that’s been put into AFLX more than what’s been allocated to AFLW.”
“The balance is totally unfair. So much more should be put into AFLW. I can understand the reasoning for AFLX, but I would think they should be putting more into AFLW for sure.”
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Browne explained however why he feels there’s some logic to the AFLX experiment.
“My thoughts on AFLX are the following. I can understand why the AFL needs to develop another form of the game that can played on a rectangular field overseas,” Browne said.
“You just don’t have footy fields in any other part of the world.
“If you have a version of the game you can play on a soccer field or whatever it is, it’s important.
“It is also one night in February. If you’re going to get so worked up about one night in February can I suggest you find something else. Go to the movies.
“Football season is so long and so consuming, AFLW is on at the same time, invest in AFLW that weekend. For one night I can live with it. I doubt I’ll watch it though.”
Maher, who has previously mentioned his dislike of AFLX, believes one serious injury would derail the tournament permanently.
“If someone does a knee playing this thing, it’ll be the end. No one’s playing next year,” he said.
“You can take that to the absolute bank. That’s why State of Origin doesn’t exist, let’s cut to the chase.”