SUMMER, winter or spring – the question remains. When should the AFLW season be played?

It's understood a number of clubs have been asked by the League for their preliminary thoughts around a season beginning in round 21 or 22 of the men's season – this year, round 21 ran on the first weekend of August.

With a guaranteed minimum of 12 matches per team next season, AFL CEO Andrew Dillon has already acknowledged the current 10-week period – which this year has seen 11 rounds squashed into it – won't be workable.

It's arguably the most important decision new AFLW boss Emma Moore will make in the first year of her tenure.

While players, coaches and club footy bosses have a variety of views, one thing is for sure – certainty and long-term planning is needed.

The footy year

A 12-round season starting in August, plus four weeks of finals, would see the Grand Final held at the start of November, creating more wriggle room for the trade period and draft.

Currently, the player movement period is crammed into a two-week period in December, and clubs are unified in both wanting a little more time, and for it to be wrapped up by the end of the year.

This allows for players to have certainty around their futures before Christmas, and for staff (particularly those involved in list management and coaching) to have a proper shut-down period, freshening up for the year ahead.

Staffing

The time of the season has an impact on staffing regardless of how a club structures its off-field crew. 

One footy boss said a significant overlap with the men's competition would actually help their club, leading to efficiencies around staffing.

By contrast, another said their club had a number of staff – particularly in property stewardship, footy operations and logistics – shared across both programs, and the smaller the overlap, the more smoothly things run.

The further the women's season moves into the men's, the more likely there will be a facilities crunch, particularly for those clubs (mostly Victorian) with significantly limited ground and gym space.

The summer question

A senior Victorian player – who has featured in all nine seasons of the competition – said she preferred when the season was held in the first few months of the year, feeling that crowds were bigger and there was greater attention on the competition.

She acknowledged the women's finals period was then overshadowed by the start of the men's season.

Those in the hotter states – particularly Western Australia and Queensland – have generally said they prefer playing in the cooler months, given the scorching conditions they were often required to train and play in.

Ground availability can also be an issue in the early months of the year due to cricket.

Broadcast

One stumbling block is around broadcast slots. Eighteen games (nine men's, nine women's) aren't easily spread across a weekend without some unconventional timeslots being employed.

The broadcasters – who pay for the rights to air the product – have some sway when it comes to fixturing, and the reality is the men's broadcast rights are worth significantly more than the women's, and attract more viewers.

That's certainly not to say more can't be done to increase viewership of AFLW games, but the financial reality – which funds the competitions – remains.

The timing of games is also important, particularly around the men's finals period. The decision to not have women's matches directly play at the same time the men's finals is the right one, but Friday 5pm timeslots might not be the answer, given how it restricts both attendance and viewership. Concurrent AFLW games on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon would be a better choice.

It leads onto this year's much-discussed mid-week footy trial.

The mid-week footy dilemma

After a four-week trial, it's fair to say players, coaches, operations managers and media have been pushed to their limits with mid-week footy.

The eye test suggests the quality of football in teams' third games drops significantly, with Geelong and Sydney players noticeably fatigued in the third term of their game, let alone the final quarter. Both teams regularly play a free-flowing style.

Two high quality teams in Melbourne and Adelaide managed just three goals between them, and much has been said about the Western Bulldogs and Essendon's ping-pong game.

A handful of clubs enjoyed the momentum it generated, particularly those on the rise, but most are simply exhausted.

Player availability was also an issue, given a simple week-long ankle tweak could see a player miss two games instead of one.

One football boss suggested there was still a place for mid-week footy games scattered through the schedule – especially during an overlap with the men's season and to tie in with school holidays – but a longer eight or nine-day break is needed, rather than squashing several games in a short period of time.

The double-header issue

It's been a debate that's long bounced around AFLW circles, and greater overlap with the men's season is likely to bring it to a head, particularly given the number of grounds that host AFLW and VFL men's and women's matches.

The turf at Victoria Park, GMHBA Stadium and the Swinburne Centre struggled with a particularly cold Victorian winter this year, the Cats and Tigers often moving training elsewhere and grass re-laid at Collingwood's traditional home ahead of the W season.

Simple maths would suggest that select double-headers may be the way forward, even if early AFLW wisdom was that, understandably, the women weren't keen to be curtain-raisers for the men.

Games at the same ground – even back-to-back AFLW matches at Marvel Stadium, as mooted by Kate McCarthy on the W Show – would ease loads on broadcasters, and club staff if, for example, West Coast's men's and women's team are playing at the same ground.

The issue for fans can be around the lengthy gap between games as the ground is reset, while not every ground has suitable changerooms for four teams.

The state league ultimatum

Whenever the AFLW season lands, there's a strong need for the state leagues to have at least some overlap with the elite competition.

Currently, unselected players are flying around the country to take part in "scrimmages", unofficial matches with mish-mashed teams made up from a variety of different clubs.

While one club said the standard had significantly lifted this year – and another commented that last year's scrimmages had proved to be a valuable way for unselected players to demonstrate their skills and pitch their cases to rival clubs – it's a sub-optimal way for players to force their way back into the ones.

South Australia has long run its women's league in the early months of the year, while the others generally run concurrently with the men's seasons, in the traditional football block of March-September.

Having aligned programs would also help with staffing efficiencies, as well as exposing those on state league lists to a higher level of football.

Where does that leave us?

Many of the 2024 fixturing decisions were made before Moore's starting date, meaning next season is her first opportunity to set the competition up for the future.

The timing of the season is the key decision from which many others will stem.

In the space of seven seasons, there have been three windows for the AFLW – February-March (2017-2020), start of January-April (2021 and 2022), then the move to August for season seven, 2022.

Clarity and a long-term plan will help both the competition run smoothly, and for fans to have an easily identifiable AFLW window, which will help build familiarity and greater attachment to the League.