- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The gripe that the AFL fixture is essentially a money-making exercise designed to increase revenue rather than a balanced home and away season is a tried and true discussion. Surprisingly though, there is a move away from a 23-round season in favour of tiered systems that mean the bottom six are finished by July.
Instead, I would like to explore going down a 17-1 model and reduce the complexities of fixture.
First of the bat, removing four rounds of football from the season isn’t going to be popular. There is no getting around that. I would be slotting an extra bye in for the players association, so with less games on there is a slot open.
With four weeks missing from the calendar, this would mean either the start time or end of the season would be moved in. The summer series competition can easily start a week or two later to build up the momentum into the season.
Also with the empty slots, the AFL can use one of the slots for another exhibition women’s game, the State of Origin game which can be given some clear air. The players can have extra time to recover from niggling injuries and hopefully increase the spectacle.
Plus with using an 18-game system, every team would be nine home and nine away games. The double up game would be used for the Showdown/Derby/Battle of the Bridge/QClash and rivalry matches from the Victorian clubs. Then the next season, the whole thing flips and if you played at home against Fremantle the first year, the second year you play them away. Simple.
Essentially this model relies on marketing from scarcity, where there is less football on so the fans will more likely to engage when it is on. It’s taking a leaf from the NFL where there are less games in a season, but the stadiums are always packed and the television audience is still strong. As opposed to saturating the market where fans can easily skip games because there is always another one next week.
Would the AFL ever risk losing money from cutting the games back, probably not. But if Gill is looking for suggestions on how to tweak the fixture, might as well throw the idea out there.
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.