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Same Game, Different Spotlight: AFLW media recognition is significantly lower than the AFL's, But why is this? 

By Jazz Cowling.                                              22nd October 2025

Whilst the AFL and AFLW each represent Australian rules football at it's highest possible level, the media attention that is given towards each tells a different story. 

Through the forever lasting developments of the AFL and AFLW, conversations surrounding gender equality has highlighted the differences in how each is representing through the media. 

Media coverage plays a vital role in shaping how the public see each side of the game, yet the AFL still dominates through the mainstream broadcasting with many news articles, prime time exposure and major sponsor deals. However, the AFLW is often left in the dark and receives a significantly inconsistant media profile, despite the progress that has been made to close the gap between AFL and AFLW. 

In the Prime of AFL season, people across the country settle in front of the TV or even their portable devices to support their favourite teams during their fight to finals footy. However during the prime of the AFLW season, often the community reacts very differently. 

Some of Australia's biggest media companies invest significant amounts of time and money into making sure the public has access to watch our great sport. Something that often many Australian's take for granted.

 The AFL is the main attention seeker in this aspect with companies such as Channel 7, 7 mate, 7 plus, Foxtel, Fox footy, Binge, Triple M, Fiveaaa, and ABC all broadcast AFL games through radio, live tv and portable services that allow you to replay and watch the match in your own time. 

The AFLW often attracts much less attention from major media companies compared to the AFL, with only ABC, Fox Sports, Fox Footy, 7 mate, 7 plus, Fiveaaa, AFL nation, Warf radio, Kayo and Binge offering coverage of the AFLW. In addition to the decrease in services that support the AFLW,  not every service will cover each game, making accessible medias coverage of AFLW games extremely limited to the public who can't be at the game.

There are also a number of TV shows and podcasts that have been created to further talk about all things AFL and AFLW including The Footy Show, Sunday footy feast, Offsiders, Kane's call, The Footy with Broden Kelly ect. These services often dive deeper into aspects that surround the AFL and AFLW  and allow for more opinionated views to be sent out into public view, often causing controversy among footy fans. 

Among the significant growth of the AFLW over the years, major developments in the media sector have proved a vital part in the success of this elite competition. 

The AFLW was first broadcast free-to-air for the public across some of Australia's major streaming platforms and TV channels in 2015 during the preparation for the NAB AFLW competition that was then established in 2017 and helped to promote the competition before it had even begun.

However this major breakthrough often flew under the radar due to this already being a factor to the AFL for many years prior, making the public often disinterested in the fact that the AFLW had followed in its footsteps.  Despite the development of the AFLW, many still believe that increased media coverage will help to bring the game more to life towards the public to help create a more positive reaction.

Award winning sports journalist Marnie Vinall stated in an interview that "the coverage of the AFLW has definitely seen an improvement from the start, but I still think we can push this further to promote the women even more" 

The AFL also saw saw a slight decline towards it's media coverage in recent times after Saturday footy coverage was kayo'd with Channel 7 putting a halt to  free-to-air AFL coverage on Saturdays following their statement "In the rest of the country there will be no live free-to-air Saturday games for at least the first 8 or 10 rounds, depending on where you live as the AFL's $4.5 billion broadcast deal struck in 2022 starts this year, and lasts through 2031" which resulted in much of the 2025 season not getting Saturday media coverage from Channel 7.

Along with gaining millions of fans on the field, off field promotional measures have proved to be a hit as social media accounts go viral, However for the AFLW, this is often flown under the radar.

The AFL and AFLW have official accounts across popular platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X with individual clubs also joining in the fun and creating their own accounts. however despite both leagues taking the same measures, the AFL has gained significantly more attention compared to the AFLW.

The AFL official instagram account has currently attracted 1.4 million followers and millions of views and likes on their regular posts, with individual AFL teams also attracting hundreds of thousands of followers across their accounts. This is often the same on other social media platforms.

However despite playing the exact same game with the only main difference being gender, The AFLW attracts much less online attention with the AFLW official instagram account only having 222k followers and individual teams only attract tens of thousands of followers, a big difference compared to the AFL. 

The difference in the way that the public support each competition within their media interaction relates directly to the gender stereotypes that surround the game and women in sport, unfortunatly acting as evidence that support some of these claims. But with the prolonged development of the AFLW, there are hopes that this can be eliminated and media engagement from the public towards the AFLW will be improved.

Award winning sports journalist Marnie Vinall is a proud and passionate supporter of all things AFLW and strives to make a positive impact in promoting the women to the same level as the men currently receive. 

In a recent interview with Marnie, she revels that often "people can have some very opinionated views and say some pretty out of pocket things about the AFLW, whether its an article or simply one of my posts. Whilst there are plenty of people out there who love and support the upbringing of women in sport, its really sad to see and know that we live in a world where women in sport are still under-appreciated". 

Marnie aims to look at the positive side of people's negativity, revealing that she finds it "funny how people will get all up and negative online and send those nasty hate comments and opinionated messages and try to bring you down, but it's almost as if they forget that we are real people and we actually reply back that they either dont respond and stop interacting with our pages or they send an apologetic message. Personally I see this that the people who do contribute to this almost don't agree with what they are saying themselves and have focused their opinion around gender stereotypes". 

Despite the negativity that Marnie along with other sports journalists endure when reporting on the women's games, Marnie is still passionate and believes that one day the public will appreciate the women to the extent that they deserve and is committed to contributing to make this happen. 

Ultimately, AFL and AFLEW share both similarities and differences in the way they are promoted through the media towards the nation.

Media coverage and recognition continue to shape the way that both AFL and AFLW are portrayed in Australian culture and continue to contribute to the development of our great game.