Women’s rugby league is on the up, thanks to record State of Origin ratings, packed crowds and the addition of two fresh franchises in 2025. But on the eve of the NRLW’s seventh season, the game’s pillars of pace and power are joined by another: patience.
The AFLW grew to 18 teams within six years, and the A-League Women now has more than two dozen rounds. By comparison, the 10-team, 11-week NRLW season is positively restrained.
Georgia Hale, Gold Coast Titans captain and the woman named the world’s best in 2023, says the players have come to terms with the NRLW’s more conservative growth. “If you’d asked us seven years ago, we’d be like, ‘the more games, the better’. But we really trust the process of it, having a slow build to make our competition as competitive as a product as we can,” she says.
The Titans were the story of the 2023 season. Under Jillaroos legend and coach Karyn Murphy, the club launched themselves from last place the previous year all the way to the grand final. There they led Newcastle Knights until some late Tamika Upton brilliance wrenched the title – which would have been the first in any major code for the Gold Coast region – from their grasp.
Off the field, too, the Queensland club is building steadily after debuting in 2022. Titans owner Rebecca Frizelle says commercial revenue has almost trebled in the past three years, and girls playing league at local schools has quadrupled to more than 1,000. “The Titans have taken a long-term view,” she says. “Like any new business or start-up, it takes time and financial commitment. As clubs, we need to be patient and invest for the long term. It wasn’t that long ago that the men’s game wasn’t financially sound.”
With the re-introduction of New Zealand Warriors into the NRLW next year, as well as the addition of a Canterbury Bulldogs women’s side, only five NRL clubs remain without two top-level teams: Melbourne, Manly, Penrith, South Sydney, and the Dolphins. Most are currently developing the infrastructure and pathways required to support a team, though an NRLW with the same number of teams as the men’s competition might still be years away.
Storm chief executive Justin Rodski says, regarding spending on women’s programs, “you need to look at it as an investment, not a cost”. His club is eyeing entry into the NRLW around 2028, and to debut with 50% Victorian players.
“Of course, if someone said you have to come into the competition next year, we could find a way to make it work, but in line with the NRL expansion strategy for NRLW – which I agree with – we are equally ensuring that we’re ready from facilities, development pathways and commercial perspectives, to give us the best opportunity to enter the competition and give these young women the best environment to be successful.”
Frizelle says the main obstacle preventing more rapid expansion is simple. “Funding is the No 1 hurdle,” she says. Although growing, crowds for NRLW matches are typically still in the low thousands, and the women’s competition can’t yet attract the same level of commercial and broadcast revenue as the men’s.
The NRL will reportedly go to market on its next broadcast deal by the end of the year, to explore options with streaming companies like Amazon who at this stage aren’t prevented by the government’s anti-siphoning scheme from buying online rights. But the NRLW and Women’s State of Origin have found a TV foothold thanks to Channel Nine’s free-to-air coverage – struck only last year and running until 2027 – and hiding the competition behind a pay platform is likely to limit its growth.
after newsletter promotion
By the time the parties ink a deal, the NRLW has a chance to demonstrate to potential broadcasters it is worth an increase in investment, thereby sustaining a longer season with more teams. Frizelle believes the next rights cycle will be key, and she’s optimistic, predicting it will deliver “greater financial outcomes for the women’s game, and in turn improved professionalism”.
Despite agreeing with the direction of the game’s development, 28-year-old Hale just wants to play more top level footy. “We are excited to invite more teams in over the next two, three, four or five years. But also, we’ve got a great amount of teams now that if we were just to play more games, we would just be as happy to get our competition structure into some sort of home-and-away system. That would be something we would look forward to and make sure it’s still a competitive product.”
