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Australian Rules has always been a numbers game. In its infancy those numbers were simple. Your number, or score, needed to be higher than your opponent’s number.
As the game evolved so to did how the game was observed. Numbers on the back of jumpers became common practice so the crowd knew who each player was. Goal scorers started to be recorded, then kicks, then handballs, then marks and then came the AFL.
What started as a local competition and expanded to a national competition has grown over the life of one generation to be a multi-national machine that has encapsulated what used to be the humble sport of Australian Rules.
Where Australian Rules over nearly 100 years was primarily about your number against their number, the AFL world says that not all numbers are created equal but every number tells a story in the world of sport business.
So when the AFL commenced, realistically it was the common on-field statistics that were kept. Kicks, marks and handballs. But in reality they meant nothing in comparison to the scoreboard.
As long as your number was bigger, you were happy. Over the past 25 years on-field statistics have evolved at an exponential rate. Statistics are used for just about any conceivable measure in an AFL game.
Tackles, one percenters, rebounds, clearances, clangers, time of possession, conversion, work ratio and rotation numbers are just a series of the measures and that go into making up an AFL team and an AFL game.
Because of the good folks at Champion Data, statistics have taken over the modern game. Every wannabe AFL job seeker looks at the numbers, looks at the analyst and thinks that they have an original thought or idea on the game that will get them a job at an AFL club.
Unfortunately, as the AFL is mass market, ideas around the game are mass market. What once perceivably would have been original can now be found somewhere in the wide spaces of the modern game.
Those who are outside looking into the football industry believe numbers are where the next jobs are at. Come up with the next groundbreaking formula about the game. Come up with numbers that can explain where the game is going next. Come up with a revolution.
The AFL though, is evolution. It has been evolution for 25 years. What was a revolution today will become evolution tomorrow such is the nature and the rapid rise of analysis of the modern game.
So if everyone on the outside is looking in the same wrong place, where is the right place to look, where are numbers of importance in the modern game and where are the numbers that are going to matter most in the years ahead? Those numbers can be found generally in bold print surrounded by a whole lot of small print. Yes, in contacts.
There is an overabundance of information and knowledgeable people associated with the AFL who understand how the game works on-field and can put trackers, measure and key performance indicators in place to help define on-field success. However on-field success does not necessarily mean winning on the field to start anymore. On-field success comes from winning off the field.
Over the past decade four teams have found a way to stay relative at the top of the AFL ladder, Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney and Collingwood. They have all done it differently to stay at the top, but one element that is clear throughout all four of these clubs is that they have won off the field.
Sydney have long been considered the masters of recycling players. They have an ability to identify misused talent and see where that talent will have a place in their side. Hawthorn have had the approach of adding veteran talent each year to continue with the rejuvenation of their list.
Geelong have built a club based around family, loyalty and sacrifice and have used that to shape two football generations of Cats. Collingwood have used their brand appeal to attract the players that they need and maintain those crucial to team success.
All four have done it differently. All four have done it well. All four have done it because they make the numbers work.
Make no mistake, right now, and likely for the foreseeable future, the numbers that matter more than the score, more than the stats and more than the bums in seats, is how many years and how much. The contract.
For any budding AFL employee out there the time has come to think differently and to think outside the box. The AFL Commission still has not worked out the significance that contracts play in on-field success, and for that reason there are loopholes galore in the AFL collective bargaining agreement to its players that are being begged to be exploited.
Every AFL fan and every AFL club was asking how it was possible when Sydney signed Lance Franklin to a multimillion, multi-year deal. The question smart fans and smart clubs should have been asking is, ‘what other loophole can we exploit?’.
So what would it take to be a contract expert who could consult an AFL club on how to make an AFL list viable in the modern game? The short answer is lots. The longer answer is legal understanding, contract understanding, collective bargaining agreement understanding, communication skills, negotiation skills, AFL knowledge, people management skills and number skills.
It seems like a long list and a lot of requirements that your average AFL fan may not have. The good news is, the most important skill is numbers.
The AFL commission is taking the game into uncharted waters in terms of player movement with free agency, that provides the chance to create contracts similar to what Sydney offered to Lance Franklin.
Years and dollars. Years and dollars. It seems simple, but it is made to look complex. Yet it is simple. Find 40 of the best young footballers and make them fit under a salary cap, whatever that salary cap is. If a team needs a jolt in one direction then know where to go to make that happen.
So you want an AFL job?
Know every contract on your list. Know every contract on every AFL list. Know the collective bargaining agreement. Know the loopholes. Know the numbers. That is key. Australian Rules used to be about your number against their number.
The AFL is now about one number. Just one. One premier. One you. Be the one.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.