It's great to see that the viewership of the Women's Big Bash League — the numbers are greater than the A-League, Alex Blackwell, vice-captain of the Australian women's cricket team, said in an interview on the ABC's RN Drive program on February 9, 2016.
Ms Blackwell's claim is a fair call. No direct comparison can be made between the two competitions because the claim was made before the A-League season had been completed or its finals played. However, experts told Fact Check it was nevertheless legitimate to compare the television ratings for the full WBBL season with all the A-League games broadcast during the same period. Ten WBBL games were televised live, three on Network Ten's primary free-to-air channel TEN and seven on its subsidiary channel ONE. Over the same period 27 A-League games were shown live on pay television channel Fox Sports 4, five of which were also broadcast live on free-to-air channel SBS 2. The average for the women's cricket was 142,000. The average for the men's football was 43,000 on Fox Sports and 47,000 on SBS 2.
Fact check: Did the 2015-16 Women's Big Bash League attract more viewers than the men's A-League?
['Australia', 'A-League', 'American_Broadcasting_Company']