A cost analysis of W-League players having a full season and being paid a full time salary equal to their male counterparts proved to be an interesting exercise.
The A-League average salary is $182,000 for a 27 game season. If W-League players played an equivalent full time season (8 teams x 3 = 24 games), they would earn around $162,000.
For a squad of 23 players (Average), the total wages cost would then be $3.7M. We used 23 as A-League clubs have 20-26 players per squad.
The A-League cap is $3.2M for 27 games, pre COVID19. If we worked out the equivalent for 24 games of W-League it would cost $2.8M.
Therefore it would roughly cost $2.8M to $3.7M in wages to go full time for W-League.
The current cost of a W-League team is around $700,000 with wages of $450,000 based on the salary cap. This means ‘other costs’ total $250,000, which is a bare minimum figure.
At the moment there are 12 games. So if we double the ‘other costs’ of $250,000, it would come to $500,000 for a 24 game season.
Realistically it would cost more than this considering you’d have to pay coaching staff, medical staff and other staff a full time wage. But we will stick to $500,000 for the sake of this exercise.
If we add this to the $2.8M to $3.7M in wages, total cost for a W-League team would be $3.3M to $4.2M for each club.
With 12 home games, it would mean each club would need to generate $275,000-$350,000 per home game to cover the cost of their W-League team.
The W-League entry fee is around $10 per adult or FREE if you have an A-League membership. Let’s say A-League memberships didn’t cover W-League anymore and kids got in free.
To cover the $275,000 to $350,000 cost per game you’d rely on ticket revenue, merchandise, food, sponsorship and TV revenue.
With only ticket revenue, you’d need a crowd of 27,500 to 35,000 on average - based on a ticket price of $10 - to cover the cost per game.
If we factor in other revenue like merchandise, food, sponsorship and TV revenue and let's say it covered half the total costs of $275,000 to $350,000, it would mean we’d need ticket revenue to cover $137,500 to $175,000 per game.
Based on a $10 entry fee, this would mean we’d need an average crowd of 13,750 to 17,500 per game.
The numbers don’t lie. Get out there and support your team.
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