As the AFL men's Grand Final weekend approaches, so does Round 7 of the AFLW'S 10th season.
The usual narrative of 'footy's over' will likely begin next week, but fans of the women's game know it isn't.
The enormous influence the AFL's most significant and lucrative day of the year has over the country cannot be understated, but it begs the question as to how the league can leverage this to help the AFLW who desperately need to lift attendance and viewership numbers in order to expand the game, in accordance with the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
The current CBA states that the AFLW season length will increase to 14 home-and-away rounds in the next two years, based on achievement of two key audience metrics of an average of 6,000 fans a game and 100,000 broadcast viewers.
There is no women's footy on Saturday to give the men's game clear air, but is having double-headers the solution to getting AFLW where it needs to be, through incidental supporters and getting more eyes on the game via the established men's competition?
The inaugural AFLW game saw over 24,000 fans, the 2019 Grand Final saw 53,034 people packed into Adelaide Oval, and a casual Round 6 game last weekend saw 7,571 people jam into Henson Park to watch the Swans play cross-town rivals GWS.
These are substantial numbers but week on week, the consistency of these crowds oscillates, and having women play before the men could be just the ticket to unlocking these important targets.
Speaking to the AFLW Weekly Podcast, General Manager of AFLW Emma Moore said the reason behind thew AFLW remaining at smaller venues is that the league wants to be in a place where the demand for seats requires bigger venues, not vice versa.
If double-headers were to be played, it would automatically mean the women's games are played at bigger venues, where the men play, and would in turn compromise the AFL's stance on this.
However, it is well known that both the AFLPA and many clubs have actively campaigned for double-headers in past negotiations.
Another key issue is the commercial aspect of it all, with sponsorships, broadcast rights, and fixtures arranged separately for each of the leagues, despite falling under the same CBA.
As of September 2023, a joint CBA came into effect, tying all elite players together under one revenue-sharing model, however many aspects of each game remain separate. For example, a majority of clubs sell their men's and women's memberships separately, the ticketing prices are vastly different between the two and the sponsors base their agreements on each individual league.
Some of these make sense, but how we use the success of the men's game to bolster a league which has decades-less time of development and opportunity is yet to be capitalised on.
The AFL declined an invitation to comment for this article.
Gold Coast Sun and former Melbourne Demons premiership player Lily Mithen said she is a big advocate for the concept.
"I love the idea of double-headers," Mithen said.
"I think you engage a new audience and we can showcase what we can do in front of an audience that isn't typically drawn to AFLW.
"One year they played a game at Punt Road, which I thought was a really cool idea and that was just a free entry game.
"I know there's no games being played at Punt Road this year, but I think that we can maximise opportunities like that again, to have more eyeballs on what we're doing."
Fan of the game and Fox Footy AFLW boundary rider Hannah Davies said her main issue with double-headers during men's finals is the issue of AFLW fans being outpriced.
"All season you've got your standard ticket pricing for the women's and then all of a sudden it becomes this big price that you know is really just there for the men's game," she said.
"I don't want to have to pay the men's tag when I'm there as a women's supporter.
"I'm happy to pay a premium price to see a women's game if I know that it's going to the players and the league to grow it but that's when it becomes tricky because you know it's not an equal share.
"During (AFLW) finals times you see sold out games and you do wonder, could we fit another few thousand people in this stadium if it was bigger?"
Davies, based in Queensland, has a unique perspective as her home team, the Gold Coast Suns, is the only side which plays in the same stadium as its male counterparts.
"The biggest thing is just the lift of facilities, something that's often forgotten is it's not just about the quality of the field, it's the entire stadium, it's the changerooms and the opportunity that comes in the men's stadium," she added.
A quick survey on AFLW fans saw one say "unity for the competition, it's too disjointed having them play at separate times of the year", and another respond "club staffing and resourcing purposes it means teams aren't understaffed on match days because they're all in one place".