The AFLW has reached another milestone in its rise in the Australian sporting landscape, breaking the record for club memberships.
As of Thursday, the 14 clubs collectively signed 21,319 members, surpassing the previous figure of 20,849 set last season after two rounds. It is the fifth consecutive year a new mark has been achieved since the women’s competition was established in 2017.
Eight clubs have also set individual records – Adelaide Crows, Brisbane Lions, Carlton, Collingwood, Fremantle, Geelong Cats, Gold Coast Suns and Western Bulldogs.
It comes after another week of strong crowd attendance numbers which featured four sold-out games, adding to the three from round one. That was despite interruptions caused by Covid-19, most recently Western Australia’s lockdown.
Broadcast figures have also increased by 9% on 2020, with a total average audience of more than 1.7 million, according to the AFL.
Part of the uptick has been the league’s inaugural Pride round which featured players in Pride guernseys and rainbow socks, goals kicked from a rainbow 50m arc and umpires waving rainbow flags. The opening match of that round – the Bulldogs’ win over Carlton – was watched by an average audience of 265,000 viewers and
was the biggest Friday night audience to date outside of season openers.
“It’s fantastic to see football fans from across the country show their support for the AFLW competition and get behind their teams, whether that be through club membership, attendance at games or tuning in at home, thanks to the continued support of our broadcast partners, Seven, Fox and Telstra,” the AFL’s head of women’s football, Nicole Livingstone, said.
“The fifth season of AFLW has already experienced a strong start, with high ratings, high scores, sold-out matches and now record AFLW club membership numbers, so we’re excited to see this energy for female football continue to grow throughout the rest of the 2021 season.”