Crowds peak in the first few years due to the novelty factor and token gesture support then trend downwards year after year until it flatlines, NRL will be subsidizing the sport for the next 100yrs at least.
Most NRL teams can't even turn a profit as it is and we are now funnelling money into an almost guaranteed loss making womans sport, yeah that is real smart.
"Rough contact team sports" will struggle to gain popularity numbers with women to make it sustainable, Mothers already don't want their boys playing Rugby League as it is now, why would they turn up in huge numbers to watch women rough contact sports.
You can talk about "highlights the possibilities for female brands" or any opportunities in general as much as you like but the facts on viewership and general profitability with female team sports show little potential growth medium to long term.
Female solo sports totally different story along with Netball.
If women want to be taken seriously support your female team sports in numbers it's that simple, if there is continued growth without NRL subsidies for many years NRL clubs will then consider investing to speed up the growth for mutual financial benefit, until then we are wasting our time.
Many of the supporter base and a decent percentage of the participation in rough contact female team sports is derived by a particular demographic that makes up less than 15% at best of the population and with Australia having such a small population the time is just not right to invest money into such leagues.
The NBA is still subsizing the majority of the WNBA and crowds have trended downwards for the most part of 20yrs so what chance has Australia got with such a small population.
As Jordan Peterson states
"as societies become more egalitarian, personality differences across genders maximize" we are wasting time promoting using subsidies, but i'm in favour of women promoting the sports they are interested in to generate more support and financial growth.