The veteran American rock star's decision to play a second AAMI Park show in February has the AFL tinkering with Collingwood's fixture for the opening round of the inaugural AFLW season. The league had planned for the Magpies women to host their first match at the Holden Centre on the night of Saturday, February 4.

But it's understood Springsteen's concert that night has led to a rethink, with the Pies likely to host the match in a different timeslot that weekend given the AFL's wariness of a fixture next door to Springsteen's show. Springsteen's first Melbourne show is at AAMI Park two nights earlier.

The unexpected musical twist isn't the only obstacle confronting the league as it formulates the fixture for the historic season of women's football.

Having been unready to release the men's and women's fixtures simultaneously last month, participant clubs were contacted on Thursday informing them that a tentative announcement date on Friday would not materialise due to a broadcast deal not yet being struck.

While Channel Seven and Fox Footy are both set to televise games, the details remain up in the air, meaning timeslots cannot be finalised. The AFL recently provided clubs with outlines of the fixture for planning purposes, but clubs remain in the dark as to specifics ahead of the start of pre-season training next week. While insistent that the broadcast deal and fixture are close to completion, the league remains unwilling to pinpoint a date for the announcement. Next Friday night's men's draft in Sydney is a potential factor in the timing of the release.

The league is also yet to announce its fixture for the 2017 men's pre-season series. The series - known in recent years as the NAB Challenge - will have a different name next year after the bank chose to direct its sponsorship to the women's league instead. It's understood the AFL is in the process of finalising a new partnership arrangement for the series, which since 2014 has not been played as a competition.