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Yep im all for equality. But if you want equal attention, pay and focus then it needs to be equally entertaining.

It's not even close.

When the mens BBL started there was a lot of people commenting that it would never work, just rubbish cricket etc. Well they have been proved wrong. Equal pay?? You must be joking, the women are not getting a fraction of what the men get. Also many of these women are not rookies, they have been playing in their local leagues for many years and are skilled players. Why shouldn't we increase the profile of womens sport in Australia, they make up half the population after all? As I said there is always the off switch if you don't find it entertaining. I think its a great initiative to profile these athletes so that young girls are inspired to follow their lead and participate in sport rather than just sitting around watching their boyfriends/husbands playing

no arguments from me on everything you've said mike but call me a cynic if you like imo the AFL doesn't spend big bucks on the women's comp out of the goodness of their collective hearts no matter what Gil says...they're doing to engage with women at a base level to increase television and game day audiences of the mens version. get women involved on tv screens both playing and watching and that will spill over into increased gate takings and advertising revenue. it will also increase participation rates by females with the view of stemming the avalanche of kids leaving aussie rules in favour of soccer etc. so to my mind it's not about raising the profile of female athletes in Australia, it's about increasing the AFL's revenue streams. football is a business with the mighty dollar taking front and centre after all with social benefits coming a long way behind.

mikeh wrote: When the mens BBL started there was a lot of people commenting that it would never work, just rubbish cricket etc. Well they have been proved wrong. Equal pay?? You must be joking, the women are not getting a fraction of what the men get. Also many of these women are not rookies, they have been playing in their local leagues for many years and are skilled players. Why shouldn't we increase the profile of womens sport in Australia, they make up half the population after all? As I said there is always the off switch if you don't find it entertaining. I think its a great initiative to profile these athletes so that young girls are inspired to follow their lead and participate in sport rather than just sitting around watching their boyfriends/husbands playing

If i want to watch a sport played without skill ill be down Saturday morning to watch the Auskick. At least the kids are entertaining.

mikeh, one thing I do agree with you is equality and think it is fantastic the women at the Australian open get the same prize money as the men. The only thing I am disappointed about is the fact they aren't allowed on the courts for as long as the men.

24 500 attendance tonight and they turned at least 1000 away. Even allowing for the novelty factor that's a pretty impressive turn out.

mikeh wrote: 24 500 attendance tonight and they turned at least 1000 away. Even allowing for the novelty factor that's a pretty impressive turn out.

It maintained my interest for about 5mins but the lack of skill etc made it boring, crowds will come back to reality fast..Our Swans womans team look better than those two sides tbh

Good luck to the girls and great to see them playing the game we all love but sheesh 25,000 to a game and most of those that went along have probably never attended a VFL, SANFL or WAFL game in their life sadly!

Massive overreaction by McLachlan apologizing that they should have allocated a bigger venue than the ground that catered for one of most successful and popular VFL clubs because a little over 20,000 rocked up for free admission. Fair dinkum what a wanker sucking up to the ladies and PC enthusiasts.

Once the novelty factor (honeymoon period) has passed and people have to fork out 20 bucks to gain entry see how many turn up then, and add winter into the equation. Out of interest how much did it cost to put on this match with no gate takings? Hmmmm who has paid for this?

Seriously who really wants to watch that dog shit, don't know what's worse, that or green vs mundine. You can see a better skill level from the u/12 boys down at the local oval. Let's face it, even a lot of the men's afl matches are not up to scratch skill wise these days, never mind wasting time watching this rubbish. I mean they don't even wear skimpy outfits as the gridiron girls do, what an absolute disgrace