Dale Thomas of Collingwood marks over Daniel jackson of Richmond during the AFL Round 04 match between the Richmond Tigers and the Collingwood Magpies at the MCG, Melbourne. Slattery Images
It’s been described as the elephant in the room for the AFL; an inequitable home and away season draw, distorted by two factors and exaggerated by the league’s maximising of its bottom line at the expense of a fairer competition.
The two factors that condemn a truly fair AFL competition are:
(i). With 18 teams in the competition from next season, unless the AFL reduces the home and away season to 17 rounds or expands to 34 rounds – neither of which is a reality for various and justified reasons – clubs are not playing their opponents an even amount of times. For example, some teams play newbies Gold Coast Suns twice this season while others face them once.
(ii). As a legacy of the national competition’s Victorian Football League roots, with its 10 Victorian clubs versus soon-to-be eight interstaters, the level of travel each club must undertake per season is naturally going to be uneven.
“If there is one thing in football that never ceases to amaze me it is that every year the AFL draw always seems to work out reasonably fair for all clubs,” wrote legendary player and coach turned commentator, Leigh Matthews – a sentiment that tends to be echoed around the competition, or at least accepted given the lack of real antagonism against the draw.
But the draw would be an easier pill to swallow – “reasonably fair for all clubs” – if the inconsistencies were limited to those two drawbacks. But they tend to be exaggerated and amplified when the draw is laid out.
Firstly, the lack of a system in place to ensure which teams face which opponents twice on a regular basis season after season, means there’s no attempt at correcting the anomaly of who meets who twice.
Secondly, by not ensuring Victorian clubs travels outside of their state an even amount of times, there’s an even greater imbalance.
Throw in the accepted practice of some teams selling home games to the likes of Tasmania, Canberra, Darwin and Cairns, and you have a draw distorted by finances rather than fair play.
Reigning premiers Collingwood, for example, played 22 straight games in Melbourne over the course of 2010 and 2011 (four of which were finals played with earned home ground advantage) – a whole year without playing outside of their home state; 19 times playing at their home ground, the MCG, and on the other three occasions across Melbourne’s CBD at Etihad Stadium.
Contrast this with fellow Victorian club Richmond, who played three consecutive interstate matches early in 2011 – one of which was a sold home game.
It’s not hard to see why the AFL is keen to maximise the amount of times the likes of Collingwood play at the ‘G. After all, the AFL boasts home and away attendances that embarrass all other Australian codes.
The big three in Victoria – Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon – currently hold an average of over 50,000 per home game.
According to the MCG, 2011 AFL attendances are currently 2.143 million at an average of 56,403 per game.
Yet the draw anomaly cannot be ignored as a matter of fairness, particularly at a time when the balance of power within the league lies with the likes of Collingwood, for it further distorts an already uneven playing field.
The AFL will keep the 22-round fixture list through to the end of 2013, at which point the Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Giants would have settled into the competition and the teams meeting them twice won’t have an easier chance at four points.
A conference system remains the easiest and fairest option to implement who plays who twice, but the old dilemma of fairness versus profitability appears yet again.
By splitting the 10 Victorian clubs into two conferences (along with the two NSW, Queensland, West Australian and South Australian teams for good measure), the AFL deprives itself of Victorian clashes, not to mention resulting in only one Showdown in South Australia, one derby in West Australia etc per season.
By putting the Victorian clubs into one conference and the rest in another, it only increases travel for the interstaters and decreases it for the Victorians.
If the conference system is ignored, then some form of equalisation within the doubling up of fixtures needs to occur – some way of evening up the draw.
The AFL cannot ignore the growing divide between clubs – from those who have to sell home games, like Richmond, to those who can afford to send their players to mid-season training camps in Arizona, like Collingwood.
The competition may be salary capped and draft concessions in place to ensure some form of equalisation takes place, but the growing inequities between club operations and spend are only amplified when the draw contains such inconsistencies.
As a matter of fairness and for the league’s integrity, the elephant in the room cannot be ignored any longer.
Follow Adrian on twitter @AdrianMusolino
amazonfan
Roar Guru
Why does it matter what the Americans do? People are always comparing us to the Americans or to the European soccer leagues. Personally, I think the AFL is better structured and better organized than the American leagues and most of the European soccer leagues, so if anything they should compare themselves with us. However, that said, the AFL isn't perfect, and we should always seek to improve it; and I think one area that should be improved is the draw. You can't simply judge the draw on who wins the premiership. The AFL season is as much about the journey as it is about the destination, and it is clearly unfair that some clubs take a stretch limousine, while others may be forced to take a lemon. That's extreme, and most yearly draws are not as sharply divided as that, however it is still often unfair. The bottom teams of the top 8, and those that just fail to make it, may be dis/advantaged by a generous or punishing draw, and if a top team play another top team just once, and a bottom team twice, it can also affect the entertainment value of the competition. There are other, seemingly minor, examples of why the draw is unfair as well. Finally, I don't think it looks good. 22 rounds in a 17/18 team competition is just plain ugly. It may never be corrected, however we can seek to try to make it good as possible. That it's not something that would bother the Americans is not something that concerns me in the slightest.
sheek
Guest
And another thing. In the American NFL, there are 32 franchises divided into 8 divisions (4 each) across 2 conferences (16 each). I looked at an example of a season's structure, & in a regular season, a team will only play 13 franchises out of the other 31 for a total of just 16 matches (they play the 3 other teams in their division twice). That's less than half of all the franchises. In the play-offs, if they make it, they might meet 1-3 other franchises. The Americans are cool with their system, but we're got guys jumping up & down about the AFL draw. Methinks, it's much ado about nothing.....
sheek
Guest
Nearly a week's gone by & I wasn't going to respond to this, but what the heck! Are some of you guys kidding me??? Don't you think the AFL do their best to even the draw out. Teams will always over-perform or under-perform on previous year's results. It's simply impossible to cater for every eventuality. However, one thing is always indisputable - the best team will win the comp every year. So all this crap about you MUST play each twice a year, or play each other ONLY once a year, is just that - CRAP. For chrissake, why over-complicate things any further??? Someone hit the nail on the head earlier. Everyone plays each other once for 17 games. Then divide the 18 teams into 3 pools of 6. That gives everyone their 22 games. You play 12 teams once, & the other 5 teams twice, giving you 22 games. Followed by an 8 team finals series. The best team will emerge triumphant. As it always has.....
The Cattery
Roar Guru
17 rounds is just too short a season, there's no way that the AFL is going to give up on 5 x 9 matches per season - you could kiss goodbye to about 25% of your revenue.
Lachlan
Roar Guru
The way to even-out the fixture is to have every team play each other twice (34 rounds) or once (17 rounds). I say 17 rounds. have a longer preseason competition and challenge matches. Have a State of Origin knockout competition either before season or after, or perhaps have a break during AFL season. Have international rules series still. Have more international games, in china, japan, usa, dubai, canada, new zealand, etc.Also have a longer finals series 5 or 6 weeks.
Rocky
Guest
With more victorian sides than interstate sides it will always be unfair. From 2001 until 2010, 6 interstate sides have won the grand final! Traveling or playing at a ground more than anyone else does not give you an advantage of winning grand finals. You can play all your games at home but if you are not a good side you still will not win the grand final. If you are a good side you still win whether you travel or not. 6 interstate sides won the grand final from 2001 - 2006. They traveled more than melbourne sides. Every team at some stage has a window of opportunity to win a grand final. Fair or not it does not stop interstate or victorian sides from winning the grand final. Even if you have a fair system the same sides will still win as they will always be the best team regardless of whether it is fair or not. There are too many other factors that play a part in an AFL season. If it was really unfair the same teams would keep winning. Since 1992 interstate teams have won 10 grand finals. A good team is always a good team even if there draw looks unfair. You can never change that.
AW
Guest
It is intersting to note that the old VFL played only 18 rounds (with 12 teams) from 1925 to 1967, increasing it to 22 rounds primarily to accomodate all teams playing two home games at Waverley. Whilst 22 rounds is the ideal, this is the perennial problem the AFL created for themselves when they started an expanded league. The problem with conferences or divsions is that they too are inequitable. You can't have a conference/division that has say Essendon, Collingwood, Carlton & West Coast all in one group as the other conference would whittle and die. If you split them up then mismatches would occur and revenue generation would not be maximised, not a scenario that would please the AFL. As it is not possible to have 34 rounds of football, all the AFL can do now is scrap the NAB Cup and have an additional four rounds, this will provide clubs with nine teams they play twice (up from the current seven). To reduce the load on the players, the AFL could restrict players to 22 H&A games a season, forcing clubs to rest players over the season. This would allow mature and inexperienced players to rest at key times, would reduce the incidence of playing injured players and the need to rush players back.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
It would never happen. The players are completely opposed to it; and so forget the public, if the players are all against it, the AFL would never bring in such a radical change.
Little Aussie Battler
Guest
'very edge of physical capacity', '...physically impossibility'. Duh!? Well, what about the months and months of training they do? Maybe they should do less and play more. That is a hell of a lot more strenuous that sitting on the bench or being 'rotated.' Kevin Sheedy, who ought to know. Actually said it was possible to play everyone twice. You need bigger squad sizes. The problem with going 34 home and away is, 1) the demand from Joe Public. Never forget, the players are training. They are doing it anyhow, so they may as well be playing for real. If it was me running the league, I would get rid of the pre season cup and add 4 rounds from now on. Then guage it to see if there are problems with fatigue. If I was a player, my problem would be being bored out of my mind just doing training.
Swampy
Guest
When two teams fold we'll be back to a more manageable 16 team league... -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
Lee McDonald
Roar Guru
I wrote about my thoughts on why the draw is inherently unfair a couple of weeks back: http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/07/22/better-options-for-fairer-afl-fixtures/ And then followed it up with a piece on how I think a Conference system could work. It's not perfect, but it's a start: http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/07/26/how-an-afl-conference-system-could-work/ As you say Adrian, the general consensus in Football circles seems to be that is a bit of a non-issue.
langou
Roar Guru
I acknowledge that a draw in which everyone plays each other twice is beyond reach. I also realise that a 17 round season would rob fans, sponsors, players and the AFL of five to seven rounds of revenue and enjoyment. However the AFL has to be better than it is. I don’t care if its a conference system or a system in which you play everyone 4 times over 3 years , it may not be fair but it will be much fairer than it currently is.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Plus the non-Melbourne conference is disadvantaged by playing the bigger clubs less often. Anyway, any plan to increase games per annum beyond 22 per H&A season is doomed from the start - won't happen - no point talking about it.
Football United
Guest
ugh not conferences, conferences are ugly and just make the problem worse. the point is too make the draw equitable, which means playing every team the same amount of times and making the big clubs play more games interstate. most AFL fans seem to think 20-22 is the golden number of regular season games so I'd like to keep it around that. Fix 1: Everyone plays each other once. You would need 3-5 more teams for this to work in order to fill in lost games. Every team should only play home games at one stadium (ie: Geelong should be playing it's home games in Geelong and not forced to play in melbourne, Melbourne teams should pick only one stadium). This is to stop the big Melbourne teams playing all their away games at the MCG when the home team decides to switch from docklands stadium. There should be a sort of cycle where if a team plays a club at home one year, then they are guaranteed to play the same team away next year, eliminating any travel bias in the draw). Fix 2: Two divisions of 10-12 teams each. You can can play each other twice, equality is achieved! ok so for a traditionalist it might be a bit different but promotion and relegation are part of the suburban leagues so its not such a foreign concept. how you could work it is you have between 18-22 rounds with a top 6 for the top division and 2nd div would have a promotion play-off of some kind so both divisions get their own finals series. Again some things from the top such as registering a home stadium can be applied to this model.
Brian
Guest
What about two clear conferences Melbourne & Non-Melbourne, 9 teams each. Geelong think they should play finals at Skilled Park anyway so let them.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
We're already halfway to two divisions, really, with the play your half of the ladder twice, play the other half once system.
Jason
Guest
It can never be fair unless the 34 round double round robin fixture is in place.But this would be the next best thing.It is not a distinct disadvantage playing 2 games in WA, those clubs will learn how to conquer Subi as Malcolm Blight said 'every ground is the same, green grass, white lines and goal posts at either end'. I personally hate the draft, rewarding mediocrity does not sit well with me, bottoming out to win premierships disgusts me.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
That's 25 games for the home and away season - too many - won't happen - 22 games is the upper limit. The bottom should get the first draft choice. That alone is not worth tanking for, Chris Judd was taken at pick3. The issue has been the priority picks - they should exist where they are absolutely needed, i.e. a team geting less than 7 wins over two seasons. It's extremely unlikely that a team would lose deliberately for two seasons just to get one extra pick.
Jason
Guest
Different Jason this time. EAST and WEST conference Draw a line down the centre of Melbourne. West Coast, Freo, Crows, Power, Geelong, Bulldogs, North Melbourne, Essendon, Carlton - Western Conference Brisbane, Gold Coast, GWS, Syd Swans, Melbourne, Collingwood, Richmond, Hawthorn, St Kilda - Eastern Conference Each team plays own conference twice and other conference once. Top 4 from each conference make the finals. Scrap the NAB Cup and have 25 rounds plus finals. Perfect Introduce a draft lottery to kill off tanking and you will have a fair and profitable competition
Searly
Guest
Geez, this article (or variations on the exact same theme) has been written about a dozen times on The Roar lately1 When there are enough teams in the comp that they can all just play each other once then the AFL will do that. Until then can't we all just get over it and agree that the best two teams usually play in the GF regardless?! Snore......