Common sense and fairness missing in AFL draw

Columnist

By Adrian Musolino, 13 Apr 2009 Adrian Musolino is a Roar Expert

Tagged:: AFL, afl draw, Port Adelaide Power

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Ryan O'Keefe and Port's Troy Chaplin battle for the ball during the AFL Round 02 match between the Sydney Swans and Port Adelaide Power at the SCG. GSP Images

We all know of the imbalance in the AFL draw, a natural consequence of a competition in which there is not the space for the traditional home and away ties. But in addition to this imbalance there is also an element of unfairness for smaller clubs as demonstrated by the Easter Sunday fixtures.

Easter Sunday is always a difficult day to attract fans to a sporting event, a weekend when many head away for the four days or have family or religious commitments, especially on the Sunday, hardly the ideal day for Port Power to host the uninspiring Melbourne Demons.

The Power could attract a crowd of only 21,030 on Sunday, two thousand less than the disappointing crowd average of last season.

It was, in all honesty, the best the Power could hope for and the AFL must take responsibility for this below average crowd.

Why schedule a home game for Port Power, one of the smallest clubs in the AFL in terms of a fan base, already struggling financially as a result of its inability to engage with the people of South Australia beyond their supporter base against a team that finished with the wooden spoon last season and without a significant supporter base in South Australia on Easter Sunday, a day important to the large ethnic community who follow the Power?

Bear in mind too the game was shown live into Adelaide so Channel 7 could squeeze the Power game into its lineup before heading to Perth to show the Fremantle versus Adelaide Crows match.

Of all the possible combinations of games this long weekend it was unfair for the Power to land the Easter Sunday fixture let alone against the Demons.

When the AFL season’s draw was announced the AFL’s chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan said, “Ultimately our overarching priority is to maximise attendances, and that ultimately is the deciding factor in the majority of decisions,” he said.

If the AFL had any knowledge of the Power’s fan base and struggle to draw a crowd it could surely have done them the favour of avoiding that specific date, especially against such competition.

The AFL fixture list has long been topic of discussion and the code is kidding themselves if they believe the current mess of a system is fair, be it the inequitable amount of travel amongst the clubs and the simple fact that in a given season a specific club may face top eight sides more often than other teams.

Such peculiarities go against the very idea of a fair competition.

With round four upon us this coming weekend thus commences the head to head season in fantasy AFL dream team competitions, every team plays each other once before a finals campaign.

Does it not amuse anyone else that the fantasy competition is much more fairer and equitable than the actual sporting competition it is based on?

In addition to addressing the fixture imbalance the AFL needs to better cater the draw for the smaller clubs and worry less about the big blockbusters.

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The Crowd Says (15) | Page 1 of Comments

Dave said | April 13th 2009 @ 8:09am | Report comment

The AFL fixture’s main purpose, it seems, is to maximise attendances (and TV viewership) particularly in Melbourne and if one of the smaller clubs (attendance wise) is sacrificed occassionally so be it. They do a pretty good job of maxing out attendances in Melb but already it seems attendances interstate this season are beginning to slip. Only when the AFL figure out a complete draw where each team plays each other team home and away will this be rectified (BTW that may mean splitting into conferences once the 2 new teams are in).

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Kurt said | April 13th 2009 @ 3:21pm | Report comment

Agree with most of what you say Adrian, but as always the question is what to do about it? I’d love to see a proper home and away season with all clubs playing each other twice, but that would involve a significant extension to the season and I’m not sure various stakeholders partic. the players would cop it. Alternately we could go with a conference type model as Dave says, where each team plays their own conference twice and the other conference once but how to divide the teams? That question alone would occupy the Melbourne sporting media for the best part of a year or so with no resolution. I don’t think designing the draw so as to maximise attendance and ratings is a bad thing per se’ but overall the current situation is definitely not ideal. And let’s not even start on the grossly unfair use of FTA broadcast exposure to reward certain teams…

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megatron said | April 13th 2009 @ 4:03pm | Report comment

It’s simple. Full home and away season. Until then it will never be fair and this way Collingwood and co won’t have the advantage. Get rid of the preseason comp, start end of feb and go into oct if needed.

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Guy Smiley said | April 13th 2009 @ 8:12pm | Report comment

Megatron no can do – too physically demanding, you would struggle to field a fit team by October. As for Collingwood, many clubs request to play them in Melbourne where they can maximise their revenue at the gate. Not really their fault.

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Michael C said | April 13th 2009 @ 11:04pm | Report comment

Dave – agreed. (btw – only Richmond supporters would be disatisfied presently with the cyclical return to ‘power’ of the Victorian clubs. Main test, the next period of interstate dominance if spearheaded by Syd and Bris – - of GC17 & WS18 – - will the ‘balance’ of crowds still relatively even out?)

btw -

North Melbourne regularly have been scheduled for Mothers Day sunday arvo matches……….a fixturing dead end for a hosting club.

It happens.

So long as the distribution of ‘top up’ funds takes these sorts of things into account, then, fine.

Given the amount of ‘requests’ each club puts forward, and all the many stakeholders plus the required access to venues, plus the desire to avoid head to head with RU Super 14s etc etc……..it’s amazing a fixture can be put out at all.

Fairness………..we haven’t had that since a 22 round H&A for a 12 team comp.

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Redb said | April 14th 2009 @ 8:55am | Report comment

What a load of cobblers re Port Power, do you really think if they played another team over Easter it would have added more than 3-4,000 to that crowd number?

All crowds are affected over Easter it’s that simple – If you could view Melbourne from space on Thursday night you would have noticed 5-6 red dotted lines leaving the metropolitan area in all directions as people go on holidays in their droves, I’m certain Adelaide is the same.

21,000 is not bad considering all the factors.

As for the uneven draw well that’s just a consequence of expansion isn’t it. With 10 Vic teams out of 16 clubs it is a difficult balancing act, you would be crazy to jeopardise the Ess, Coll, Carl playing each other in front of 70,000 plus crowds – there are far more fans of those clubs individually than Port Adelaide – who do you please?

In 3 years, it will be 10 out of 18 clubs, in the future who knows.

Redb

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Dave said | April 14th 2009 @ 9:19am | Report comment

Redb

4 points great win…if you remember l predicted a 5 point win! Well done Bombers. Has the whinging from Carlton supporters stopped yet?
re the fixture it is probably why a conference system will never happen because which Vic teams will miss out on playing the big 3?
Although l still think splitting the teams into 2 divisions has some merit. It comes down to economics vs fairness.

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Redb said | April 14th 2009 @ 9:38am | Report comment

Dave,

Yeah a great win for the Bombers, really enjoyed the game and the result was fantastic – what blues supporters?, I’ve been on cloud nine completely oblivious to their whining. Just remind them Fevola 4.7 goals. That’s 4 straight wins – if we lose every game this season we still have this one.

Two divisions presents it’s own problems in terms of splitting heartland support unless you lump all the big Vic teams in the one division.

If you look at the past ten years with the ‘uneven’ draw, teams from Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Geelong have won. Every major city that has a team has won despite their being 9 teams from one city – it’s not that uneven if you consider the impact on the results.

Redb

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Midfielder said | April 14th 2009 @ 9:41am | Report comment

Redb

Sorry Adrian totally off topic …. Redb tho you may enjoy this and with a bit of cut and pace and change a couple of things send into the Herald Sun … it’s very tongue in check.. I am sure but I think you will enjoy… However the lecturer did make Time so can’t be all bad..

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680101041299201.html

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Brian said | April 14th 2009 @ 11:00am | Report comment

The AFL draw has always been imbalanced but until recently at least Rounds 1-15 were fair. Thereafter form and ladder position would usually take over and so although the fixture was unfair it was hardly felt. More recently the all teams play once in rounds 1-15 policy was abolished. The result is you can play Hawthorn or Geelong twice in the first 10 weeks and your season is almost over less than halfway in. For example Richmond will play the Bulldogs again in Round 11 this year, by which time their season could be on the verge of collapse. I think its one thing for the AFL not too be able to play 15 or 30 rounds but the old system of at least playing one fair round was definately better. With regards to scheduling 21,000 is not bad for PA against Melb they should be happy. Also to be fair they should schedule the blockbuster games more on previous season’s results (Geelong v Hawthorn) rather than big teams (Collingwood).

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