A couple of suburbs over,Joel Heffernan,manager of The Toxteth in Glebe,said their numbers for Matildas games were also similar to,if not more than,what they would see for State of Origin.
“We have to have every screen on. Even for the Bledisloe or the Ashes we don’t have enough people interested to have every screen on,” he said.
In Melbourne,the Empress Hotel in Fitzroy North ispouring a Golden Boot Draught from Stomping Ground brewery,created in honour of the Matildas.
Gen Dohrmann,president of Women Sport Australia,said the Matildas’ widespread popularity was a wake-up call to those who think women’s sport exists solely to inspire little girls or appease a female audience.
“That has definitely been a way that people have thought about women’s sport previously:that the audience is going to be largely female,” she said.
“But what we are seeing now is teams,like the Matildas and like the Australian Women’s Cricket team,that have transcended to make themselves just as popular if not more popular as the men’s sides.
“You’ve got men at the coffee shop talking about how good the Matildas were last night,and I don’t think you would have had that a decade ago.”
Describing this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup as a tipping point for the nation’s women athletes,Dohrmann said the shift could be traced back to the success of women’s domestic sports brands,such as the W League and the WBBL.
“There has been a big push around developing those female sporting personalities:for people to know who the Sam Kerrs and Ellyse Perrys are,” she said.
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Indeed,after their parents saw their enthusiasm for the Matildas,the Brice brothers attended their first NRLW game last week.
Dohrmann said parents may see encouraging boys to idolise women’s sports stars as a “safer bet” amid recurring incidents of bad behaviour from male players in the NRL,AFL and rugby union.
“Female athletes are always so humble about the opportunities they have been given because they’re never expected them ... they’ll go there and they’ll sign every autograph because they want to inspire and they remember not having anyone to look up to,” she said.
“But in another 10 years hopefully our female athletes are used to this level of excitement and coverage and fervour.”
UTS sports business academic Lewis Whales said the Women’s World Cup was probably the biggest sports event Australia has hosted since the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
“The longer term will be the real challenge,” he said,adding it would be necessary for both governments and associations to work together to hold on to the enthusiasm whipped up by a home-soil international tournament.
“The legacy impacts are really going to be determined by how well those organisations can convert what exists now.”
Soccer fanatic Orlando Rizzi,11,from Preston in Melbourne had watched some Matildas games before,but says the World Cup really got his attention.
As an Arsenal fan,he likes Caitlin Foord,who plays for the club’s WSL side,although his favourite player is probably the Player of the Match from the Australia’s victory over Canada last week,Raso:“She can create options out of nothing,” he said.
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Rizzi said he and his friends,who have played soccer together for three years,were dissecting each match,and discussing key plays in the playground. As for the gender of the players? That hasn’t come up.
“It’s not really men’s football or women’s football:I think it’s just good football,” he said.
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