AFL Women's season seven was the seventh season of the AFL Women's competition, the highest-level senior women's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season began on 25 August and ran until 27 November, and was the second AFL Women's season to take place in the 2022 calendar year.[1] The season was the first to feature 18 clubs, an increase from 14 the previous season, and the first to have an August start date.[2]
The season comprised ten home-and-away rounds, just as the previous season was scheduled to before it was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,[3] and a four-week finals series featuring the top eight clubs, like in the Australian Football League (AFL), took place for the first time. Melbourne won its first AFL Women's premiership, defeating Brisbane by four points in the AFL Women's season seven Grand Final, played at Brighton Homes Arena.
In August 2021, Essendon, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Sydney – the four Australian Football League (AFL) clubs yet to receive an AFLW licence at the time – were granted licences to join the AFL Women's competition in what was then slated to be a 2022–23 season, meaning all 18 clubs would have an AFLW team for the first time.[5] In May 2022, a one-year bridging collective bargaining agreement (CBA) was announced which would see the competition's seventh season begin during the AFL pre-finals bye in the last weekend of August and conclude with the grand final in the last weekend of November.[4] The CBA also saw player payments rise by 94% across all four payment tiers, with eight players per club occupying the top two tiers and the minimum (tier 4) wage increasing from $20,239 to $39,184.[4] Later in May, AFL head of women's football Nicole Livingstone revealed that the season would be named AFLW season seven, in a deviation from previous seasons.[6]
The season seven fixture was announced in early July.[7] Match times on Saturdays in September (except 24 September, the date of the AFL Grand Final) were floating to maximise doubleheader opportunities, and the final round was released as a floating fixture to be determined later in the season, like in the AFL;[7] the round 10 fixture was eventually announced in early October.[8] In August, after the round 1 match between Essendon and Hawthorn was moved from ETU Stadium to Marvel Stadium following a sell-out,[9] Livingstone said that the AFL would consider moving more matches to larger venues depending on ticket sales;[10] the round 2 match between Melbourne and North Melbourne was rescheduled and moved to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to act as a curtain raiser to the AFL qualifying final between Melbourne and Sydney.[11]
Season seven's Indigenous Round was launched in early September, and was played across rounds 3 and 4.[12] The round is held to acknowledge the significant contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls to Australian football and the broader community.[12] Aunty Pam Pederson, the youngest daughter of Sir Douglas Nicholls, was announced as the round's honouree, and all 18 teams wore specially-designed guernseys across the two weeks.[12] Melbourne rebranded itself as the Narrm Football Club for Indigenous Round, as it did during the corresponding round of the AFL season; Narrm is the traditional name for Melbourne in the Woiwurrung language.[13] Pride Round, which was played in round 8, was launched in early October.[14] The round is held "to promote and support diversity and inclusion of LGBTQI+ communities and families, and acknowledges the AFL's journey to being a more inclusive sport"; this season's iteration also celebrated allies of LGBTQI+ people within the sport.[14] Like with Indigenous Round, all 18 teams wore specially-designed guernseys for the occasion.[15]