 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Further implications
Women's sport in Australia appears to be going through a period of relative growth and success.
The Matildas reached the quarter-finals of the Women's World Cup, a feat the men's team has never achieved. In cricket, the Southern Stars dominated the Ashes, in contrast to the male cricketers, while in basketball the Opals qualified for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
The Australian Sports Commission Chair, John Wylie, has suggested that the success of female athletes on a national stage has the capacity to change long-standing perceptions about women's sports - particularly that people are less interested in watching women play.
Wylie has stated, 'People are watching major sporting events like the Netball Cup final on Sunday. They're seeing high quality sport. We think the community's appreciation of women's sport is increasing.'
Wylie noted by way of example, 'The Netball Cup drew record television ratings but the real story was on social media, with 1.1 million tweets mentioning the game.
What that shows is that there is a very high level of community engagement through social media in top-level women's sport.'
The AFL's decision to begin the women's competition in 2017 when at one point it had been proposed for 2020 can be seen as an attempt to capitalise on this trend.
The AFL is currently the only major sporting code in Australia that does not have a women's national competition. There would seem to be a clear need to address this deficiency.
It remains unclear what the impact of a women's competition within the AFL will be on women's sport. It would seem likely to increase the profile of women in sport and, if the new competition is well-resourced and presented, it should extend community appreciation of women's athleticism and sporting skills. The existence of a national competition within which women can play should also increase the interest among girls and young women in playing AFL football.
There is some concern that the very profile of the AFL may have a downside, with skilled players in other codes leaving cricket, netball or basketball in order to play football. This could be to the serious detriment of competitions where women currently excel. On September 14, 2016, Netball Australia announced a huge pay increase for players in the new national league. Netball Australia's deputy chief executive, Marne Fechner, stated, 'We want to ensure that netball remains the code of choice ... there was a story that potentially netballers are leaving the sport for AFL and our job is to ensure that over half a million girls want to be Diamond or a championship player.'
While on the one hand it is a cause for celebration that skilled Australian sportswomen at the national level are receiving greater financial recognition; on the other, developments such as this could stretch the resources of existing codes beyond their capacity. This would be to the detriment of Australian sportswomen.