Western Bulldogs winger Jasmyn Smith arrived at Whitten Oval this year with just five games under her belt.
But at just 20 years old, she is one of the main faces of this AFLW season, featured alongside Chloe Molloy and Emily Bates on promotional posters. Her face is splashed large inside AFL House.
Jasmyn Smith has a large following on social media.Credit: Joe Armao
She’s now brought her games total to seven. So why is Smith, who began her football career off Broadway at Gold Coast, front and centre?
The answer lies in a TikTok video.
Smith, then 19, was in her second year at Gold Coast after being drafted as an academy forward in 2022 when a fan posted a video using imagery of her in Suns footy gear to TikTok.
Her popularity boomed.
“In one night I gained like 30,000 [followers]. It was really crazy ... Really, really crazy,” Smith said.
“I was like, what’s going on? Especially since, like, I’m a new player, I’m a young player, like, I’m freshly in the system. I’m still just trying to find my feet in AFLW and I just want to play footy and learn.”
Now, Smith has the second-largest number of Instagram followers among AFLW players – behind only Melbourne’s Tayla Harris (125,000). Collingwood’s Sarah Rowe (59,000) comes in next, followed by Brisbane Lion Orla O’Dwyer (46,000), Richmond captain Katie Brennan (38,000), and Fremantle’s (formerly Collingwood’s) Ash Brazill (38,000). Smith also has fan edit pages dedicated to her on TikTok.
Initially, Smith was confused by her sudden online fame, but has since leaned into it – and now friends and teammates send through videos of her that pop up on their feeds.
“So it was a little bit random, but no, I think in a way, I really appreciate it because it has opened me up to a new platform and a new reach to a different demographic that might not have originally been supporting AFLW, and now they’re coming along to our games and things like that.
“So, yeah, honestly, like any exposure is good exposure. We need to get our numbers up.”
‘Sliming’ Sally Pearson
Helping with Smith’s personal exposure is that she was a Nickelodeon kid before her football career. She started on the network at just 13 and was a main presenter on Slime Cup by 16.
As part of her role with Nickelodeon, she was a Kids’ Choice Sports Awards presenter and interviewed and “slimed” Sally Pearson at Sea World.
“I gained a bit of a platform through that but then once I got into AFLW, I gained, like, even more… And, yeah, it’s definitely something that I’m into and I want to use to promote AFLW because the more spectators and the more people talking about it the better,” Smith said.
“Because I feel like every girl that plays AFLW at the moment, we’re good athletes, you know. And I think we deserve a bit of a platform and we deserve people coming to our games.”
Smith was one of 12 players who joined the Bulldogs after last season, including No.1 draft pick Kristie-Lee Weston-Turner.
The young Bulldogs have had a rough start to the year as they embark on a rebuild. They went down to GWS in the opening round by 63 points, and by 40 points to Port Adelaide the following week. But Smith isn’t deterred leading into the side’s first home game at Whitten Oval this Thursday night.
However, she knows the short women’s season – 11 games per team, plus finals – means the hope of replicating a run such as Hawthorn’s men’s team, who have gone from a 0-5 start to finals this year, is a near impossible task.
“We’re definitely approaching every game as if we’re going to win. And I think the fact that, especially the younger girls, have been able to keep that mindset and to keep that positivity after an unideal start, I think it’s been really cool to see,” said Smith.
“And we know that we’ve got a lot to work on but even from game one to game two, internally, we can see that we’re improving on things that need to be improved.”
The Western Bulldogs play West Coast on Thursday at 7.15pm (AEST) at Whitten Oval.
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