[Music] well hi all um today I want to talk about the aflw or as I prefer to call it the awfl um in today's paper there is an eight page eight pages of discussions about the AFL upcoming season which starts I believe tonight eight pages quite extraordinary I'd like to talk about the AFL since it's n9th season coming up the last season the AFL W average attendances were 2,679 the men's game was 36,800 for the aflw the average finals attendance was just under 6,000 the average of tents for the men was 74,000 really the attendances at the aflw are virtually nothing uh of those average 2700 people at each of the home and home games as significant numbers will be just Hangers On of the players themselves and many others I'm sure will be free tickets so there's no doubt that the AFL is being extremely highly subsidized uh by the the aflw is being extremely highly subsidized by the AFL and at the same time of course the players are looking to have an extended season and to get a lot more money the trouble is no one is really interested in them not when you look at the actual attendances now television ratings for the aflw were down 70% on season 1 Crowds Are down well as we say more than 60% over season 1 meanwhile the players are wanting more money quite extraordinary they're not doing as well as the women's big bash league for crying out loud which really doesn't have uh uh much interest in general TV a audiences for the awfl whoops the aflw have fallen 180,000 per match in The Season's first competition which was just people were being curious about it I'm sure to just over 53,000 for season 7 only 53,000 it really is very very poor interest in terms of people watching on television and people turning up to play however the the aflw people remain buoyant about it at all uh the one person a former aflw player and a western Bulldogs player said comparing data for Seasons to one 1 to 7 was a big stretch because there were suddenly we've got 10 teams now we only had I think six in the first place um it really doesn't matter people are not particularly interested in it uh just having a look here at the freet to AAR figures freet to AAR figures uh are around about 177% of the free to AAR primary channels uh that people actually watch uh and that is a pretty poor percentage uh the average attendances have dropped from 180,000 sorry the average home and away TV audiences were 180,000 in season 1 was just curious and it's dropped down to 53,000 now really it's uh it's obviously they're going to be relying heavily on sponsors for some reason or another they complain of course that it's on in bad places and bad locations and that the technology at these grounds is not up to the standard that's necessary the reality is however that people simply aren't interested most people aren't interested uh and let's at least call it out and say that the aflr promoting this people are not showing much interest in fact their interest is declining and I can't see this surviving in the in the future without continued heavily subsidized uh through the AFL and presumably the sponsors there a question of course whether the sponsors will wake up that no one is watching either whether they just have the feeling that it's really nice uh to give them a feeling inside to support the aflw or the awfl so that's really all that I have to say I think that uh I have no no objection to the whole concept what I do have objection to is the extraordinary media hype that's been blown up about it the reality is most people don't care uh the level of skill is way below that of men there's no question of that uh it's really just not worth watching in my view and I might add that I don't think AFL men's is a particularly interesting game to watch either but the women are certainly much worse uh I have no great problem with it but let's not get carried away by the media hype that would like to tell us that the aflw is the best thing since lace up boots really the public in general are not interested in it in spite of all the extended media coverage I say eight pages in the H sun today uh plenty of talk about it on the television but uh the eyeballs simply aren't there and the bums on seats aren't there either so that's just about it on my Grump for today I'm going to try and see if I can now use a uh clip chimp to uh improve the start and end of it we'll see how we go bye for now [Music]