There’s under 2 weeks remaining until the second-ever season of the AFLW kicks off, but unless you were counting down the days to the big red circle over February 2nd on your calendar (which you should all have TBH), you wouldn’t exactly know it’s this soon by looking at media coverage. Channel Seven‘s promotion of the upcoming broadcasts has been virtually non-existent, and in a move that can only be described as “pure bullshit,” the network has very, very quietly relegated the bulk of their coverage to multichannel 7Mate.
Last year’s inaugural AFLW season featured games broadcast on the network’s main Seven channel right up to, and including, round four in the major footballing markets of Melbourne and Adelaide.
This year, however, the Seven Network has seen fit to shunt coverage of all-but two games outside of Round One to either 7Mate or 7Two, in a remarkable piece of short-sighted decision making that has long-reaching and extremely harmful knock-on effects for the burgeoning national league.
The league performed admirably, ratings-wise, throughout its inaugural season, with the first round in particular drawing in solid numbers of 500,000-odd viewers.
However, a shift to the multichannel means less guaranteed eyes on the product, resulting in less advertising dollars and a lowered ability for the game to grow.
Seven has also not come to the promotional plate, with very little advertising and promotional work for the league being run during their coverage of the Australian Open, which is traditionally a time of heavy program advertising for the network.
It should be noted that every game of the 2018 season will once again be broadcast live and in HD on Fox Footy and on the AFL‘s official app.
But without the full and unequivocal backing of the game’s chief broadcaster, the women’s league can scarcely hope to achieve any semblance of parity with the men’s game any time soon.
With Seven not carrying the men’s JLT Community pre-season series, and no other vital sporting events to cover in February, pulling the women’s game from the main channel rates as a baffling decision at best, and at worst is one that could halt the march towards the league becoming fully professional.
It’s piss poor, and they should be ashamed.
The 2018 AFLW season is scheduled to kick off on Friday night, February 2nd with a clash between Carlton and Collingwood at inner Melbourne’s Princes Park.
Peep the full season 2018 match fixture and broadcasting guide via this link.
