The Lived Experience of the Quantified Footballer: Understanding Digital Self-Tracking Among Women Australian Rules Footballers

This thesis explores women Australian Rules footballers' experiences of using digital self-tracking to monitor their physical outputs as athletes. Elite women footballers and their fitness coaches from the Australian Football League Women's (AFLW) participated in a qualitative digital ethnography featuring interviews, surveys and video re-enactments. The thesis found that digital self-tracking is a messy and contested activity that reinscribed onto the footballers that they are gendered subjects to the game of Australian Rules. A player centred framework of practice was developed to empower the footballers and their clubs to engage with digital self-tracking productively, while alleviating the negative outcomes.