Footy holds a special place in people’s hearts here in Australia, and now more than ever it’s an historic time for women in the sport.
Since the first official AFLW Premiership in 2017, the league has been growing bigger and bigger every year.
Lucy McEvoy, who co-captains the Sydney Swans, says she found the sport from a young age and had a pretty clear idea of what she wanted to do when she grew up.
“For me, it was never not an option, if that makes sense,” McEvoy says, adding that she wanted to play footy so badly that she couldn’t imagine herself not doing exactly what she does today– being a professional footy player.
McEvoy is part of the first generation of players in an exciting new chapter for professional women’s footy. It’s a chapter being led by AFLW’s General Manager Emma Moore, who was given the reins in April 2024.
“We look at the explosive growth that we’ve had at the elite level,” says Moore. “The AFL is the biggest employer of female athletes in the country.”
“Every year, it’s equivalent to having an Olympics team at scale. That’s the kind of volume that you’re talking about, and we’ve got over 100 players earning over $100,000 now– 20 of those earning over 200,000.”
This is actually a viable elite sport for women to play and to desire to play as an athlete,” Moore says, adding that she wants footy to “be the most loved, the most played, the most participated in, the most watched women’s sport for Australia, and then there’s global audiences there as well.”
McEvoy and Moore speak to Dinushi Dias on today’s episode of The New Rules, a Women’s Agenda podcast taking you behind the scenes of the rise of women’s sport.
The game of footy has come a long way for women. Although women have been playing it since the mid-19th century, it’s taken over 150 years to get their own professional league.
The first AFLW premiership season launched in 2017. McEvoy says she was a teenage at the time and remembers the buzz and excitement around the launch.
“For me, at that point in time, it was just like, ‘okay, well, now that they have that, what are the steps then to get there?’,” McEvoy remembers asking herself.
“So I suppose it sparked a little bit of excitement and ambition from that age, and to know that that was a career opportunity, and I got to do what I love as a job.”
Moore was there at the Icon Park first game, the day the AFLW premiership season began, and she remembers standing next to a woman in her 70s who was crying with happiness about finally getting to watch women play the game.
“She grabbed my hand and she said, ‘isn’t this just the best thing ever?’, and she had tears rolling down her face,” Moore says.
“Those milestones matter because they matter in people’s hearts.”
“There’s this huge connection to the heart through playing the game and loving the game and being connected to your local community and footy club.”
To hear more of the conversation with Lucy McEvoy and Emma Moore, check out the ninth episode of Women’s Agenda’s The New Rules podcast. You can find it below, or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.