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Free agency where money is thicker than blood

Roar Rookie
24th June, 2011
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Roar Rookie
24th June, 2011
18
1270 Reads
Gary Ablett of the Gold Coast Suns addresses the media during a press conference at Crown Casino in Melbourne. Slattery Images

Gary Ablett of the Gold Coast Suns addresses the media during a press conference at Crown Casino in Melbourne. Slattery Images

Growing up, I liked three sports: footy, basketball and cricket. Cricket was a distant third, the one that I watched when the other two weren’t on.

It was always a battle between the AFL and the NBA for my attention, and this didn’t change as I grew from a boy into a man.

Both leagues have similar hallmarks: high, constant scoring; unparalleled athleticism causing men to perform extraordinary acts that are replayed to the adoring public again, and again; and at their absolute peaks, when two of the best teams in each individual sport come together, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pace that has your eyes glued to the screen.

Take a look at either of the last two AFL grand finals, or the recent NBA finals between Miami and Dallas, and you’ll see what I mean.

Aside from the obvious financial difference between the two leagues, there is one major fundamental difference between the NBA’s players, and the AFL’s. That is loyalty. Sure, there was a time in the 70s and 80s where players baulked at million dollar offers to stay with their teams, but now NBA stars follow the green or the gold – money or success – to other franchises, with no regard for their current teams.

The most publicised of these cases was the terribly-executed, ill-advised Decision of LeBron James, leaving his home state of Ohio and tens of thousands of devastated fans behind to play in (an admittedly beautiful) beachside city with two of the top twenty players in the league. Chris Bosh left Toronto under the same circumstances.

Carmelo Anthony asked to be traded to New York, and Denver had no choice but to honour that request, or risk losing Anthony this American summer and receiving sweet F.A. in return. I love watching this unfold season after season – it’s fascinating to watch where players go and the changes in team dynamics year after year.

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It’s especially exciting when that player is an All-Star, maybe one of your favourite players, and that player has the chance to go to a team with another of your favourites, creating high expectations for a “super team” and leading you to reminisce of the great teams you grew up with in the 1990s – the Bulls, Rockets, Knicks, Jazz, Sonics and Pacers teams that made that decade so fun to watch.

But in the AFL, it’s been a different story. Stalwarts such as Robert Harvey, Scott West, Chris Grant, Nathan Buckley and Matthew Richardson stayed at their AFL clubs for well over a decade in search of success, never leaving to get a bigger payday or to be closer to a premiership with a team more capable of winning a flag.

Whilst I’m sure the aforementioned players would give their left testicle to participate in a Premiership, I’m just as sure that they’d keep their ball if that premiership had to be with a different side to the one they played over 200 games with. Ever since the AFL’s beginning, the vast majority of club champions have never pushed to be traded to a better team, or for a bigger pay packet.

There are of course a few exceptions. Nathan Brown and Leigh Colbert left the Dogs and Cats respectively to pursue an (ultimately unsuccessful) premiership dream. Chris Judd left a sinking ship at West Coast; although he’ll never come out and say anything other than he wanted to come back to his home state. Finally, we have the most recent and high profile example.

It has been said that blood is thicker than water, although it has also been noted that money is thicker than blood. That pretty much sums up Gary Ablett Jr’s departure from Geelong last October. As a Geelong supporter, I’m supposed to be bitter. Well, I was, for a short time.

The fact is, when a player has one offer on the table double that of their current team’s offer, you cannot blame that player for taking the higher one. Gary Ablett could have set his children up with the money Geelong offered him – with the Gold Coast contract that he signed, Ablett’s grandchildren will be looked after.

Not only was the move to the Gold Coast good for Ablett, but for the AFL, and probably most incredibly, for the media as well. For the best part of a year the AFL media dissected every move Gary Ablett made, spawning thousands of “will he or won’t he?” conversations around the country throughout the season, with every would-be “Ablett insider” and former player weighing in on the debate.

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Every television show, radio program, website and newspaper remotely related with AFL got thousands of words and seconds of media out of the story. The media had a field day – much like they did with LeBron James in the NBA. Now, with the introduction of GWS and impending Free Agency introduced into the AFL from 2012, expect more of the same coverage associated with any player from any club that is yet to sign a contract locking them away for the next umpteen years.

Free agency. It’s a term met with squeals of delight from journalists around the United States, who all year round spend their 9-5 lives writing pieces and recording interviews speculating on what an individual’s actions will be months from now, and we can all expect much of the same reaction from Australian media outlets come the 2012 AFL season.

Make no mistake – free agency will lead to some players who have been stalwarts, loyal champions of their clubs for 8, 9, 10 or more years to pack up, leave town, and either collect a bigger salary, or land in a better situation.

Much like Ablett, these players will be acting in their best interests – which you cannot blame them for – however the AFL has a responsibility to the clubs who lose players – the coaches, the staff, the supporters, and even that players teammates – to provide them with an equaliser, something that will not make the sport we all love into just another money-hungry corporation with a small number of rich clubs at the top and the strugglers at the bottom, like the English Premier League and Major League Baseball have become.

Sure, the AFL has a salary cap, like the NBA. That salary cap protects the smaller clubs from the larger ones pilfering all the good players from around the league, like the New York Yankees have done for decades. However, with new franchises being introduced, and throwing around cash like a recent lottery winner at the Spearmint Rhino, clubs will struggle to keep all of their home grown stars and realistically competing for premierships year after year.

Geelong lost Ablett, and there was talk of them losing Bartel or Selwood as well. Collingwood have been able to secure Swan and Pendlebury, but Thomas remains unsigned. Tom Scully has turned a commitment to Melbourne into a “decision” that he will have to make at the end of the year in regards to Greater Western Sydney.

These clubs that have drafted, coddled, developed, and financially rewarded home grown stars should not then have to fend off rival clubs with more salary cap space. There should be a method to keep Sheedy and McKenna at bay, to keep home-grown stars without having to use invisyable [sic] means.

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I’m not saying that free agency is a terrible idea. There are cases when a player is fed up with their club and wants to move on. That player should have a right to change clubs, just as clubs have the right to change players. If the club can’t come to an agreement with the player in question, isn’t it best for both parties to move on and start anew? The way I see it, there are three reasons that a player wants to change clubs:

1. A difference of opinion with a coach or teammate regarding lack of opportunities or performance, resulting in irreconcilable differences (best recent example is Bachar Houli);

2. A desire to return to their home state for personal reasons (like Darren Jolly, or to a lesser extent Chris Judd), or;

3. The player is a massive prima donna who overrates themselves, or their position on the club’s pecking order (see Akermanis, Jason).

In all three cases, a change of scenery is good for the player, and perhaps even better for the club, as it avoids a cancerous influence that can spawn a poor culture; or simply a de-motivated player. So, what’s the answer? Well again, I look to the other sport I love for inspiration.

In 1983, the NBA introduced the Qualifying Veteran Free Agent Exemption. This meant that a player who had been with their team for three or more years could be re-signed by that team for an amount over and above what was remaining in their salary cap.

The first team to use this exemption was the Boston Celtics when re-negotiating a contract with little known small forward Larry Bird. When a player qualified for this exemption he was then decreed to have “Bird Rights”. It is my opinion that the AFL needs to introduce such an exemption.

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This wouldn’t help players leaving their clubs due to irreconcilable differences – nor was it intended to. No, this exemption would help AFL clubs being raided by rivals with deep pockets.

What about those struggling clubs who have cap space due to having a sub-par list, you ask?

Well, sorry Port and Brisbane, but your current predicaments spawn from bad trade week deals and worse drafting and list management.

Instead of trying to pinch Pav from Freo or Daisy from Collingwood, how about you splurge on a better prospect scout and develop home grown talent like the other successful clubs from the modern era? Bird Rights would eliminate Ablett-like scenarios, and have players only leave a club in situations where they have no intention of staying, regardless of salary cap restrictions.

Why do I care so much?

Well, unlike American pro-sports, where players are traded like shares, and players choose clubs based on the immediate outlook for success, the AFL, my sport – our sport – contains players who bleed the colours they wear on the weekend.

I don’t want to see money become thicker than that blood.

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