Who owns the AFLW and Women's cricket? There is your answer to why they get more media coverage than the NBL.

Mainstream media will only cover the sports which are shown on their channel. It doesnt have to be news worthy either. A puff piece will do. If there's a commercial interest in it - eg they have invested in the sport and advertisers are funding it, then to keep advertisers happy, they need to promote thier investment.

Womens AFL and cricket are essentially products of the AFL and Cricket Australia, and there's plenty of commercial interest there, thats why they get covered.

Its BS - news should be news regardless of the sport. But with mainstream coverage, especially with sport, its all to do with advertising $$$.

Give up on mainstream news and follow your sport online. You'll be happier for it.

Should news be based on attendance?
I was at an AFLW game on Saturday. There were 35k+ other people there as well.
How many were at all of the weekend's NBL games combined?

The 35000 at the Freo-WC game was an outlier. 1st derby match and I think first West Coast game in their existence. Plus admission is either free or a tiny admission cost (I heard $3 but I think games are free usually??)

Yes an impressive crowd, but absolutely not sustainable. When the season is done, all teams will be scraping for a few thousand a game, as interest will have waned by then.

The NBL on the other hand has had an average crowd of 7500 all season - for an indoor sport with limited capacities and competitive ticket prices, and with at least 3 teams that dont play in venues that are even that big, thats impressive, and it deserves better from the media.

The 35000 at the Freo-WC game was an outlier. 1st derby match and I think first West Coast game in their existence.

TV is just a marketing device and sport is just "bread and circuses" on the small screen.

So, TV stations buy the rights to show sport and as such the TV station has effectively got something that gives them a platform to sell adverts. Selling advertising is the name of the game and news broadcasts are the way to get people watching via promotion.

The sports sections of TV news are just advertorials for future game, ie advertising. Thats why they have so many puff pieces.

The AFL is broadcast on 7, so that is why 7 goes all out in the sports and every segment has at least one AFL story, and why there are so many puff pieces on AFL players across all of their programs.

It is all to do with advertising. The push for women's sport is promoted under the guise of "let's give these girls a go" - ie the whole victimhood sob story, but in reality women account for 80% of consumer spending, so trying to get women watching sport is important as it means that marketing departments can now target FMCGs that women want to buy as opposed to "men's products", which is basically beer.

So, the OP asked the question regarding why the sports section had so many female sports reports? Say, just follow the money. If you get people watching women's sport, you can get more advertisers.

"35000 went to a game. You can call it an outlier but it's still proof that there are people interested in it. "

A lot more people than that turned out to watch a giant puppet piss in the street.
Should we make that a national sport?

I'm not a huge fan of WNBL, I think there are better Women's sports around. But compared to the AWFL, its world class.

The AWFL really is just a sick joke. Seriously, you'll see more skills watching the local juniors.

No shit. The league didn't exist a few years ago and even today half its players are poaches from various other sports.
It'll be a decade before the ALFW is full of players who grew up playing the sport. That's when it's at least got a chance of looking like normal football.

None of that changes the fact that there is still a lot of interest in it today though. You can mock it all you want but as long as people are turning up and/or tuning in, it will keep getting coverage.

Would 35000 turn up if they had to pay to watch? Or at least a fraction of the cost of a Wildcats game (which was just about a sellout as usual, played at the same time in a meaningless game from a standings POV)?

Would 20,000 turn up to watch a non-derby or a low profile match?

Im not trying to be aggresive against the AFLW, but I feel the coverage and interest it has is a bit blown out of proportion.

You could say there is interest in womens footy (no doubt there is), but there's also interest in the NBL and NBA too. The mainsteam media will continue to give it token coverage until it can generate revenue for them.

Till then, have to deal with sitting through segments of womens AFL, cricket, tennis, surfing, golf, AFL offseason, soccer etc etc... or just follow it online and save yourself 5 minutes if your not interested in the sports that the media wants you to follow!

I'm team NBL here, I just don't see the problem with other sports being included in the sports news too. I don't gaf about rugby, soccer, surfing, horse racing, golf,... so I hardly ever watch the news live. I record it and skip over what I'm not into.
I think the NBL gets a pretty good run in the sports news though. In Perth at least - I can't speak for other places.
The AFL has immense marketing power and it's using it to push the women's version. Which is smart of them IMO. No one is forcing people to watch or attend games so I don't get why people can't just ignore things they're not into. What is it about women's sports that seem to make some people become so irrational?

Yesterday on Offsiders they started the show gushing all over LK & the NBL for how it has grown while other major sports were going backwards. I'm pretty happy with how the league and basketball in general is tracking. Let's not pretend it's on footy's level though. How many workplaces run an NBL tipping contest?

Not enough - there was a Townsville law firm that ran one and even made it public on the internet (lol) so got reamed by us diehards. Memories.

There were cash prizes.

"So, the OP asked the question regarding why the sports section had so many female sports reports? Say, just follow the money. If you get people watching women's sport, you can get more advertisers."

Money Talks
It's the root of all evil

So glad to have all of your thoroughly male perspectives in this chat. Particularly the comment that "AFLW is a sick joke"

To criticise what the AFL is trying to do by properly promoting AFLW is to look your daughter (real or hypothetical) in the eyes and tell her, "Don't bother honey, your dreams aren't as important as the dreams of young boys who are more athletic than you".

You should know better.

Sexist crap from incels! You're running down women to make yourself feel better about your pathetic life.

Very difficult to gauge with AFLW crowds as they don't pay. The AFL and Cricket Australia use their money and media rights to get on the news. Use their leverage to control everything as they hold a lot of media junkets, press conferences, etc. If you don't show their stuff on the news, you don't get your press pass and invites to their junkets, presentations, award shows, etc, etc. The government is also getting in on this as they give huge sums of taxpayers money to cricket and AFL and are also lobbying television stations to show womens sport.
Can't believe they don't charge for AFLW admissions yet but they are going to have to soon to start covering some costs as the Mens games and sponsors is paying everything at the moment. Be interesting to see what happens when people have to pay.

FWIW women's sport is huge, there's an equivalent womens league to every mens league all over the world. Then theres specific female only sports like netball, which is also taking off here.

This conversation shouldnt be about about sexism. The OP was debating about the level of mainstream coverage the AFLW was getting and why the NBL (and also other summer leagues) seem to be moved down a notch to accomodate it.

Here's a question for you - would the AFL move the AFLW to winter so its inline with its season, or are they satisfied keeping it in summer, so it goes up against basketball, soccer etc. Good to see women play football professionally, but is there an agenda the AFL is pushing also? And is this what irritates the critics?

The AFLW and most womens sports are just a charity case. The men's side of the sport subsidises them and then the media over-inflates their importance as to not ever find themselves in a Clementine Ford article. The reason for the crowds is because the tickets are free and because the women's game is still a novelty. From the perspective of trying to make it sustainable they're doing the right thing to try and put eyeballs on it but the product just isn't very good so it wont be sustainable, their successes are being overinflated, and even though the AFLW makes absolutely no profit, the calls for "equal pay" despite not bringing anywhere near equal revenue are already being heard. It's a Pandora's box I almost wish they didn't open because the whinging from now until forever will never cease. But on the other hand, I am jealous on behalf of the NBL for the "helping hand" they're getting. They're getting an absolute dream introduction from the media and the AFL into the sporting landscape. Don't expect for a second for any of them to appreciate it though.

"To criticise what the AFL is trying to do by properly promoting AFLW is to look your daughter (real or hypothetical) in the eyes and tell her, "Don't bother honey, your dreams aren't as important as the dreams of young boys who are more athletic than you""

This is ridiculous. No one for a moment said the AFLW doesn't deserve to exist or that little girl's dreams are rubbish. We're talking about the AFLW getting way more media attention than it warrants for the quality and interest the league actually has. I mean I am sure there are little boys who grow up wanting to be netball players, but did you even know there's a men's professional netball league? Well there is. It's allowed to exist but the media isn't blowing up our arses because it fills a stadium on free tickets.

"Sexist crap from incels! You're running down women to make yourself feel better about your pathetic life."

I am just going to bet that most of the guys who speak ill of the AFLW have actually had sex, and probably have it regularly, so this "incel" slight is you running people into the ground to make yourself feel better about your pathetic life.

"The old "the men didnt play at a high level the first decade +" argument;
The men also had full/part time jobs for 80-90 odd years
We are a few years in of AFLW and already complaints about working part time or pay."

Yep, there is absolutely no interest on the part of female journalists and players when it comes to building the league. They want the AFL to basically gift them a fully functioning, fully paid league, from the revenue of men, simply for existing, and then they want to call that equality. They are in no way thankful that the AFL put their hands in their own pockets and gave them money from the goodness of their own hearts. It's not enough to be given the prototype to build from, they want more, and for free, and if we don't give it to them, there will be hell to pay. It's basically a bad marriage already.

"FWIW women's sport is huge, there's an equivalent womens league to every mens league all over the world. Then theres specific female only sports like netball, which is also taking off here."

Yeah, netball takes off here. It's a popular game for girls, and it is a game girls actually watch. If you're talking TV audiences, those girls aren't directly translating to TV audiences for AFLW, but sure, if they have nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon, they might check out a game for free. Shit, I have no interest in the sport and even I might go see a free game if I am in the area with nothing to do. And I am not sure there's an equivalent women's league to every men's league. Is WNBA REALLY the equivalent of the NBA? One is a global behemoth, the other is a basket case. Is WNBL really equivalent of NBL? Just because a female counterpart exists, I don't believe that means it is of any equivalence.

I've been to 2 AFLW games and neither of them were free entry.

'Equivalent' was not the correct description, sorry. Theres a female version league to every mens league. Even if they are polar opposites from a popularity point of view.

Lets not forget the WNBL has been around for a long time. The AFLW comes in and its hailed as some kind of pioneer for womens sport. This is mot true, but the media and AFL makes it out to be something unique.

Also, this is a winter sport, football is not really suited to being played this tine of year (unlike basketball and soccer which can be), so if the AFL really is serious about growing its own sport, it should be played in winter. And they can figure out how to market it and get crowds there rather than using it as a tool to go up against its summer competitors.

Follow the money is a good answer, with respect to media sports coverage. If sponsors are paying for adverts and media exposure, or the sport is, then the media folks will run with it.

In the case of women's sport, there's also a strong public interest, driven by the groundswell of support for various forms of social equity. I'm sure media folks are focus group testing and finding people are more likely to click on a headline or stay tuned to watch an article about women's AFL than one about NBL. Even though they may not be prepared to go to a game or watch one on TV.

Novelty also helps to generate media coverage. e.g., the public interest generated in NBL due to Lamelo Ball's arrival in NBL this season and Andrew Bogut last season. AFLW has had a lot of novelty to trade on, as the league adds teams and players and is still developing. AFL's aim would be to convert some of that novelty driven interest into entrenched, intergenerational support

AFLW crowds don't justify the weight of media exposure. The average crowd for Round 1 this season was 6,165, with one game getting a crowd of 15,337 (Richmond vs Carlton). Lowest crowd was 1,540.

Average crowd for Round 2 was 9,447, with one game getting a crowd of 31,835 (West Coast vs Fremantle). Lowest crowd was 2,102.

Entry was free to all games in Round 1 and to all games except West Coast/Fremantle in Round 2. The two large crowd games were outliers in that they marked the entry of new clubs to AFLW and were heavily promoted. Past history with AFLW has shown that these firsts usually draw good crowds and ratings, which have then been followed by significant decreases.

Couldn't find much on TV ratings but did find that the three AFLW games last Sunday rated 27,000-33,000 each on Foxtel (live coverage). None of the other games in Round 2 rated in the top 20. So I'm guessing they have similar ratings to NBL games.

No idea what live streaming numbers for AFLW might look like.

Networks & large advertisers are invested in certain products/sports so they'll push those products/sports even if they are run on other networks in highlights packages etc.

The NBL for all the chest beating doesn't et enough interest in the 35+ age bracket which is where most TV advertising (particularly news programs) are aimed at thus meaning why run it when the demographic with money have no interest as opposed to the traditional sports even if played by women are more palatable to the target market.

We need to face it NBL at this point is a long term project to engage the under 35's and the grow/age with them when the spending/advertising dollar and demographics shift.

@Jack Toft probably hit the nail on the head with this! When it comes to crowd numbers I would place more credibility on percentage of seats filled than anything else. If you are at 100% capacity of seating available, you are doing as well as you can be, any other comparisons are irrelevant.

Good news for the NBL I guess is another 3 year commitment from Hungry Jacks, also if the grass roots level of our game from NBL1 down takes off and gains a real foothold, that could be a catalyst for a more broad level of media or TV interest that may spill onto the NBL.

While advertising is crucial and the dollar is king, getting the kids hooked on a sport and keeping their interest in it with so much international competition in this media space is the real key...

"We need to face it NBL at this point is a long term project to engage the under 35's and the grow/age with them when the spending/advertising dollar and demographics shift."

As much as I've already spoken about the limits of women's football, NBL in Australia has similar limits. I don't actually see the NBL becoming a top 5 major sporting code in this country. I think the best we can hope for is maybe average crowds across the board of around 10,000 and viewership top average of 80-100K at absolute most. We are going to fill a niche in the market and that's it.

Leverage

Also don't for a minute think NRL/AFL/Cricket don't have off record conversations about challenger sports (Soccer/Bball etc) to media organisations that cover/broadcast it is a business and dominating the opposition is the end game!

All the above is correct - the AFL and cricket have (or had) the money to force it on us and to demand media coverage in order to get a share of the media events. They're also generally run by traditional white males.


I’d also suggest that we look at the audience bias:

Footy - we rule the world
Cricket - we rule the world a lot of the time
Swimming - we ruled the world ages ago, and frequently do really well
Netball - we rule the world most of the time
Tennis - we ruled the world ages ago, and occasionally another great hope comes along
Basketball - we did it once with the Opals, and otherwise we’ve come close a lot of the time, but the NBA is way ahead of us
Soccer - we’re usually competitive, but there are so many better competitions to watch

What do you think traditional (white) males who have time to watch will choose to watch? I reckon they’ll watch what Aussies are good at (when we’re world-class), or just go for the best quality they can get (like the NBA) or Premier League.


And the audience especially loves an 'Aussie battler’ story, such as an Ash Barty or a Don Bradman or a Shane Gould or a Mark Viduka. Apart from Delly and Patty in their early days, who in the NBL or NBA could be classed as an Aussie who battled against the odds to reach the top? Jingles had to battle, and has had a very respectable career, but still hasn’t quite reached the top. Bogey and Ben were born tall, which already gave them a huge advantage to casual viewers, but again ... not quite THE TOP.

How many women in our fairly traditional society have time to sit down for at least 2 hours to watch sports?

I’d also suggest that another reason NBL doesn’t get a huge viewing audience is because the game seems a lot more complicated than most other sports, with so many subtleties in the rules and how they are called. Unless you’re a true fan, if you’re getting frustrated because you feel you don’t understand it, then you’re probably not going to watch it much.

@Hoopie bit of a crack at White males re the coverage of AFL/Cricket but in the end thats where the real spending power is and will be for the foreseeable future.

Think you might find the changing face of Australia is going to assist cricket greatly with India being the largest source of new immigrants to Australia since 2016 and the number is only going to grow, lets face it despite Vivek (4on5) Ranadive's best efforts Indians don't like basketball as a general rule.

Sadly, the degeneration of this threading the name calling/labelling is why women's sport can't be discussed openly and honestly.

The original OP question related to why news sports segments push/promote one sport over another. The basis of that is not some evil planning by the patriarchal illuminati implementing some UN agenda. The bottom line is $.

If Channel 9 had the TV rights for one eyed tidily winks, then every news story would be on the sport of tidily winks to gain interest in the sport to get the advertisers in.

The unique issue with women's sport is that it has been politicised. If you don't follow or take it seriously, then you are labelled a sexist misogynst pig, usually with mummy issues or some inability to form meaningful relationships with members of the opposite sex. However, at the same time if a group of guys actually supported and went along to watch a game of female sport (without a female in the group) then they are seen as a group of perverts only going along to leer at women. As a consequence of this toxic attitude, women's sport is marginalised. And yes, it's always the "affluent, middle aged, cis-gendered white Christian male"'s fault.

However, back to the original Q. Bottom line with everything in life "follow the money"

"So glad to have all of your thoroughly male perspectives in this chat. Particularly the comment that "AFLW is a sick joke"

To criticise what the AFL is trying to do by properly promoting AFLW is to look your daughter (real or hypothetical) in the eyes and tell her, "Don't bother honey, your dreams aren't as important as the dreams of young boys who are more athletic than you"."

Oh Pigs Arse.

I have more daughters than sons. I encourage all my kids to pursue healthy exercise via organised sports. None were particular athletic, but ultimately I found the girls more appreciative of my efforts.

And for what its worth, in the sports I've been actively involved in, I have vigorously pushed the interests of girls in sport. In one sport, at levels above our club, I argued fiercely for better support for the girls.
BUT I always did it based on FACTS and not on rhetoric.
Many clubs only fielded mixed teams, because girls only made up around 10% of their enrolment.
What I pointed out was that at our club, with separate girls teams, the enrolments averaged out around 2:1. Which meant that whilst boys could be organised on a yearly basis, girls had to be done on 2 years. eg u7, u9, u11, etc.

End of the day, complaining about money in sport is literally insane.

If you want to make a lot of money in the music industry, learn guitar or keyboard, and how to sing and write popular music (bet that "pop", hip=hop, rap, etc)
Don't learn to play the Clarinet, then complain that Elton John makes more money than you.

I commend all athletes, and some, such as Marathon runners, I truly admire. Doesn't mean I want to watch it for entertainment.

I would literally rather watch Lawn Bowls than Golf. Yet billions disagree with me, which is why you make squillions if you are good at hitting that little ball with a stick.

I think part of the problem lies with the women's sports themselves and their desire to compete on equal terms with men.
I'm not a huge tennis fan, but if forced to watch will choose women's because I actually think it is better.
Yet in say basketball, they play with the same height hoops even though women are demonstrably shorter and weaker.

"So many fragile male egos in one thread!"

Yeah, I love when these feminist types hit you with the same cut-and-paste insults. "Fragile male egos". Women's football isn't an attack on anyone's ego. No one is intimidated by the fact that women have a professional league now. I think people are just sick of everything else that has surrounded it, the fact that there is an entire can of worms that has come with the league. The calls for equal pay despite not making revenue. Having the league promoted to us way above the actual interest level. No one is attacking netball for this. No one is attacking sports that actually have carved a niche for women. But I think we all realize that there is a certain unearned entitlement (and yeah, I use the world entitlement) about the AFLW that pisses people off. There is also a bit of a "support us or you're sexist" narrative that seems to permeate the zeitgeist that we're all just sick to the teeth of. Realistically, AFLW has enjoyed some small successes, supported directly from the men's league, yet it has eyes bigger than its stomach for what it thinks it deserves from sponsors, TV, supporters and media. It's basically GIVE IT TOO ME NOW! A lot of these feminist charity cases (and yeah, I am happy to use that term because that is what this is, and what the WNBL is) are the same in that regard. You've got that boofhead Liz Cambage asking why she isn't paid like Lebron James now. I mean.... how many times does THAT need to be explained? (or mansplained).

"t wasn't even Cambage who tweeted that but male trolls have never let facts get in the way of posting something sexist"


Even if it wasn't Cambage it's a prevalent sentiment across the WNBA. They all lack basic understanding of economics. The league and their teams have never made anything resembling a profit. Crowd numbers and viewership is actually at its lowest in history despite being highly promoted via the NBA. And in any league where women are paid less than the men's equivalent, regardless of how much more viable the men's league is, these questions of pay parity persist. They don't understand that they're a seperate business to the men's version, and they want men to subsidise them, "because equality" and because taking the rightful earnings of one group and just giving it to another is apparently justified today

because taking the rightful earnings of one group and just giving it to another is apparently justified today

Because of the AFL

Same as cricket

110% money does talk - importance behind LK investing capital - it opens up a huge amount of confidence investment and a network of people who otherwise wouldn't touch the NBL

But why then doesn't the wnbl get any coverage

You could argue that they failed to get people caring about the NBL either. Got offside with media many years back and it's hard to win them back as (presumably) those writers now enter senior editorial positions.

The media doesn't care about that distinction. Hate-reading is still a click. Pretty much the only women’s basketball topic I can think of that consistently gets replies is hating on Cambage.

ME, what was the point of your post? It really was pure shite from start to finish. Are you trying to assist the women by being a parody of what they are up against?

Even if it wasn't Cambage it's a prevalent sentiment across the WNBA.

They all lack basic understanding of economics.

The league and their teams have never made anything resembling a profit.

Crowd numbers and viewership is actually at its lowest in history despite being highly promoted via the NBA.

They don't understand...

Don't get ME started on Cambage soon he'll work Simmons into this and then rjd will arrive to bang on about eugenics wink wink nudge nudge grrrr get back in the kitchen grrrr sammich.

Another interesting thing is the idea that the media, when it comes to sport (or many things, really) should cover things based on public interest metrics or cover all things equally or only profitable things. Each publication can do whatever it wants. I swear I overheard someone heavily involved in sport at this state's main paper say that their AFL fantasy comp coverage was obscenely popular. Obviously a few of these publications in AFL states have determined that hitching their sports wagon to all things AFL (including AFLW) can pay off. Trade coverage for access and vice versa.

We are in an Olympic year and I think we can all agree that Olympic medals are worth the same whether it be male or female, team or individual (but go the Boomers/Opals) yet we are getting zero puff pieces about our best Olympic chances as our news networks focus on AFLW.

The NBL and WNBL are in their post season and yet we have to hear of AFLW trying to make household names out of players that haven't crossed over from other sports...

I actually like that Women's cricket tries and makes household names out of our girls but they are playing for Australia... if you don't like a club in men's AFL then why are you all of a sudden gonna care about the women that play for that club.

WNBL definitely deserves more love than it gets

I thought news was probably one program treated more "neutrally" though in terms of what they cover. i.e. matters of public interest rather than pure revenue driving activity. I guess it's no different to tabloid newspapers that look for the catchy stories rather than the true news stories.

Meanwhile the AFLW comes in from scratch, without a real viewer base or following and immediately commands prime media coverage. I can see why that feels unfair, but I guess life isn't fair.

The ABC always give the WNBL finals a bit of love. Kudos to them for that, because not many other places do.

I didn't see today, but yesterday they had Jenna O'Hea in the studio talking Opals

Link

If we look past AFLW, the AFL is bad enough anyway. It's off-season, but if some obscure port or crows player has a big enough shit today, you'll surely hear about it on 7 news.

The AFL is one of our biggest business. It employs a lot of people. It has a big corporate world where everyone wants to be. Lots of A-listers and hangers on. They control a lot of the media and require them to get their accreditation to get inside. Without it you get no interviews, no free tickets, no invites to events, no inside information and no favours. It has massive corporate sponsorship with lots of corporate events of which certain media organisations get invited to. It's not too hard to work out why AFLW and womens cricket get a golden ticket.
The AFL and Cricket Australia are pushing the womens side of it on TV as the contract for TV rights will be up for renewal. They want more money for the rights so they need the womans side in the media to get that money.

Wow, there are just some really illiterate people posting in this thread. Can't we impose some kind of basic English Comprehension test?

If I had to choose only one sport to watch, tough call, but I would pick NBL. Like I said, I don't like golf even though billions do. It's not sexist, because I don't like men's golf any more than women's. Does it make me somehow evil because I don't like watching all sports equally?

Yes it annoys me the way the AFL has gone about their women's competition. But the thing that annoys me most, is that rather than trying to promote and grow the sport from the grass-roots level, or even draft women already playing footy at WAFL level, they have splashed cash poaching elite athletes from other sports.

And I would ask this; who's more sexist? Me for not liking the lack of skills, or those who watch women's sport purely for the perv factor?

Saying they deserve big coverage because AFL is popular is like saying there should be big coverage of the G league because NBA is popular and they are owned by NBA.

As the Godfather said "It's nothing personal, its business"

The commercial case is strongly affected by the fact that the AFL has a dedicated cable channel on foxtel which is content hungry, particularly in the otherwise dead part of the year - just after the Aussie Open, but before the round one of the mens season. ESPN does the same thing - televising of all things - bass fishing contests to Asian/Australian audiences, so as to fill out their programming schedule. It has nothing to do with consumer demand. If they were not televising AFLW matches, they will be televising contrived sports like AFLX or replays of past matches.

As regards to the astro turf media hype - well - I'm old enough to remember the media buzz around the Opals, which emerged as a global force in the early 1990s.

If you listen to the mainstream media hype you would think that AFLW invented women's empowerment in elite sports. The WNBL and BA should get onto the front foot here and push the message to younger generation that it basketball elevated women's participation as an elite team sport in this country almost 3 decades before AFLW came onto the scene.

"The WNBL and BA should get onto the front foot here and push the message to younger generation ..."

Agree completely - BA and the WNBL are remarkably timid, aren't they?

Are they scared of getting into a pissing contest, where they don't have the money to compete? I hope not - all they'e done by being so quiet is handed the initiative to the AFLW to influence the youngsters or those with short memories when the facts show otherwise.

Sounds legit. Can't argue with facts.

I think the LaMelo experiment paid dividends and that can be proven by the rise of away crowds everywhere he went, the sales of his jerseys, the uptick in TV ratings (whilst modest), the international interest (we had 2 million viewers for one of his games).

Indirectly, LaMelo has been a part of a package that the NBL has presented that has given the league relevance in the eyes of many basketball fans who never really gave a second thought to the league. And while at the end of the day, it cannot all be contributed to LaMelo - and in a few years, the direct link to LaMelo will be a bit diluted - the fact remains that he has been a part of a sweep of initiatives that have seen the NBL gain some respect in the sporting landscape.

"...My son is 24 years old and has never wanted anything to do with the NBL because it was a bunch of old hacks that couldn't cut it in the real basketball world of the nba..."

We are blessed to play/follow an international game and see great overseas talent play locally. In his prime, the presence of David Campese or Jonah Lomu would greatly increase the gate in the UK and France. Same goes for the attraction of big soccer stars when they appear.

That said, it is a pity that the writer described the nba as the "real basketball world" when there are many worlds in the great game - the international game, college, and - dare I say it - local leagues like the NBL.

References like this suggest a certain lack of cultural confidence - that one needs the public affirmation of the likes of Stephen A Smith to acknowledge what is valuable and what is not.

"No Lamelo = my son and his friends wouldn't of cared less about the NBL this season,
No amount of flashy lights and smoke machines would have got him to like the NBL not even RJ"


Ever consider the thought that your son isn't the only kid who likes basketball in the world? lol. Jesus Christ. We get it, yes. Out of all of the things the NBL did, LaMelo was the thing that captured him. But he is one individual and the NBL has done other things, and the attendance and viewership was steadily raising before him, with Bogut coming here, NBA/NBL games, etc. So... yeah... it's not only LaMelo, regardless of what got four or five kids you know to jump on board.

What we have here is a tale of an individual's experience. I don't doubt that the person is telling the truth. The issue is whether one can use that tale to project truth at a big picture level. Anecdotal tends to be of lesser value than system wide data, unless it tells a very different story, that chimes with a story that top down data ignores/overlooks. (Think of how the polls got the Brexit vote so wrong ; where anecdotes and qualitative testimony indicated that the polls were wrong).

Hang on, all channels are pumping up Aflw on their news but not all of them broadcast the AFL games so it can't be all about just promoting their own shows

AFLW gets great promotion on 'free' TV and newspapers to create interest.
Make the attendees pay to attend and see numbers drop.
$35 for AFL men to $0 for Women makes a difference for a family day out.
ADELAIDE Lightning struggle to get a ‘match report’ despite a fantastic season which will hopefully continue past this finals series

No negativity?? The AFLW having free entry for most of its games is a constant criticism of them. 3 people mentioned it in this thread alone.
And it's a valid point too, except that AFLW's rich uncle is paying the bills so they are free to do whatever they want. The WNBL doesn't have that luxury.

Isaac

NBL tries to do something "dramatic beyond that" ie factual game reports. Corey Williams. He's arguably good for generating publicity, but is he a 1 trick pony? The purists here seem to hate him, and is there enough substance in what he does to maintain or deepen a new interest in the sport?

WNBL is struggling to just survive. In my opinion, each WNBL team should align with an NBL team. Share resources and pr.

To the best of my knowledge, Every AFL team has a media manager and their own “tv” show streamed from their own studio. One very big team employs an ex ABC editor and experienced sports reporter as “Media Manager”. In the case of the Manager I know (relative) he answers to the Marketing Manager, with whom he worked at a commercial tv network. At least 2 experienced sports journos on staff. Experience. Contacts. Communication skills. What have the NBL and WNBL got to compete with this???

MU advertised for a multimedia manager. That’s a start, but MU has the biggest market and best junior program/s in Australia (Sydney sports market is so fickle, and their regular season NRL crowds are probably the source of AFL Christmas party jokes).

Basketball will never be as big as AFL (or NRL) in Australia. It’s a matter of getting casual fans, leveraging the bigger sponsors for cross promotion and also trying to convert casual fans into regular fans.

"Money Is not the root of all evil."

Not a JJ Cale fan then?