Solution for a fairer AFL draw

Your article certainly raises the obvious elephant in the AFL room that the draw is unfair. Aspects of your idea would work and keeps things as fair as possible. However two things I want to highlight maybe others haven't. Firstly the AFL and their love of $$$ will not buy it. As you say...the blockbusters are gone however I do like the fact your idea creates a final 3 round draw where each game is crucial for spots come finals. However my dislike is giving section C teams extra draft picks for winning. Wouldn't that punish genuinely poor teams like GWS who can try as hard as they like and not string a win. Wouldn't they need the drafts to make what you say a fairer system? I can certainly see the other of the coin to this and that teams would not try if in the section C group and that word that is around will come haunting back....TANKING!

I agree that the bottom teams should play off somehow for draft pick advantage, rather that reward the worst team(s). As for the draw, why not have each team play each other once (17 rounds) then randomly chose who plays each other for the additional few rounds, that way there is an element of luck which will advantage and disadvantage some teams each year, but at least its totally random, so therefore fair.

Garbage or not, there is IMO no compelling reason to reduce the numbers of players. I think reducing numbers is a ridiculous idea. The VFA may have had 16 players, but that is a separate competition, and IMO 18 is the perfect number. The interchange bench  can (and has been) altered, but the on-field numbers? I'm completely opposed to it, as would be the majority of football fans.

Dropping the bottom two players off each team also wont do that much for "quality" - you're still throwing the extra games onto the hamstrings of the top players.

Don't agree, Perth has a pop of around 1.8 million, and a 3rd side would be as strong as any team in either Canberra or Nth QLD. The 2 sides we have are among the topearners and strongest teams membership/sponsorship wise etc. A 3rd team out of Mandurah or north in Joondalup would more than pay it's own way. That is not to say that areas such as Canberra, Tassie Nth QLD do not deserve a team, but a 3rd Perth team would be as big or bigger than those, and compared to Canberra and Tassie have better prospects for growth. BTW Canberra has 2 football teams in national comps, the Brumbies and the Raiders....RU and RL.

The fundamental flaw in that system is that it's no longer possible to guarantee each club 11 home games; which devalues membership, corporate and signage packages. Assuming that in the first 17 rounds, half the teams would have nine home games and the other half eight. But then they are seeded into groups. Group A, for example, could have five teams that have had nine home games and one that has had eight. On the other hand, Group C might be the other way round. With five games to be played in that group phase, some clubs could end up with 12 home games; while others only have 10. But it won't be known until the group phase which teams will get more or less than 11 home games. However, memberships etc are paid for at the beginning of the season. So clubs will only be able to sell memberships, corporate packages and ground signage deals on the basis of 10 home games - but could end up giving away two extra games for free or have two home games that memberships, sponsorships etc don't cover.

And that's Andrew down at AFL HQ, not Andrew A, from the previous post. Also, you can chop and change the teams in the divisions around a little, but with 10 teams in Melbourne, you're looking at a 4, 3 & 3, split, with the interstate teams to fill them out, with the teams being separated if from the same state - ie. Adelaide and Port into different dvisions, etc.

Did an article on this subject at the beginning of the year, pretty much suggesting what this article lays out. You need 3 "divisions" or "conferences", depending on whether you want to think English or American football. The major aspect that seems to be missing from the above posts, is the TRAVEL factor. Having said that though, I don't think you can really pander to clubs on the travel issue, but it does have an impact on drawing up your 3 groups, as does "blockbusters" and "derbies", "showdowns" and "Q clashes", etc. But, yet again, if we're in search of a "fair" draw, should any of these factors have a bearing? As soon as you start "worrying" about who plays who, or where, your draw is compromised and as such, will always be open to question about its "fairness". What I would really hate to see, is a competition like the EPL, where every year only 2 or 3 clubs have any realistic chance of winning the bloody competition. It purely becomes a case of who gets out the biggest cheque book and uses it to it's best advantage - Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, with the once in a blue moon championship to someone else, like last year. Footy would be pretty bloody boring if you were a Bulldogs, Kangaroos, or Dockers fan and you knew that in your lifetime, your club may never win a flag! I don't think the AFL want us all to support Collingwood, or Essendon, Carlton, Sydney, the Crows, Eagles and maybe Hawthorn Geelong and forget the rest - or do they? Are they looking to kill off the Bulldogs, Kangaroos, perhaps St. Kilda and Richmond with a view to making them move to Canberra, Tasmania, etc., or fold all together? The American system does seem to through up a constantly more even chance for all teams to make the "Superbowl" (Grand Final). Their "conference" system does take into account, location. However, it is a secondary consideration, to "limit" travel to a "reasonable" level. The thing we have to remember here is, that when a club applies for a license to compete in the "AFL", they do so knowing their will be a need to "travel" interstate and that may mean every second week! The Melbourne teams also need to understand that when they got their divi out of the new license fee from the "AFL", they did so on the basis that a new club was admitted to the competition and as such, they had to be very aware that if that team was from another state, they would have to travel to play them every so often. The other thing that is very apparent in the American style of "conference" is the separation of teams from the same town, into different conferences. This means they still can play each other, but usually only once a year, unless their paths cross in the finals. The loss of the twice a season meeting is more than compensated for by the fever pitch match-up, that now only comes once a year and also the new rivalries created in the new "division" - ask anyone from the Chicago area about the "Black & Blue" division, where the Bears, Packers, Vikings and Lions thunder at each other across the season (Black & Blue for all the bruising). My 3 divisions proposed at the beginning of the year were - 1. West Coast, Port Adelaide, Geelong, Sydney, Essendon and Western Bulldogs; 2. Fremantle, Adelaide, Richmond, North Melbourne, Gold Coast, St. Kilda; 3. Carlton, Collingwood, GWS, Brisbane, Melbourne & Hawthorn. Splits the travel up nicely - as good as you could probably do it. Still provides a number of big games and builds on some recent and also emerging, rivalries - ie. West Coast & Sydney, St. Kilda & Freo, Collingwood & Hawthorn, etc. As the article stated, play everyone once and then the 5 teams in your own "division" a second time- 22 games, perfect! Following year, reverse the venue - ie. if Collingwood play Freo in Melbourne one year, then they travel to Perth the next year. Simple - problem solved and everyone is happy - or are they, Andrew?

At the moment, there are 198 home & away games + 9 finals over 27 weeks. The broadcast rights would've been worked out with this in mind. Perhaps a long term solution could be to simply increase the number of teams to 20. Tassie, FNQ, and ACT would be contenders for a new side. A couple of Melbourne based sides could merge, e.g. Bulldogs, North, Melbourne would be obvious candidates. The 20 teams would play each other once with home and away alternating each year. There could be a final 10, split into two final 5 series with the playoff winners of each final 5 series playing in the Grand Final. It would result in 190 home & away games plus 13 finals, fairly close to the current no. of games.

By splitting teams into these sections you could possibly have bigger blockbuster games to finish a season (assuming that teams are in similar positions in a year's time, which is unlikely) but you'll also have more games that are entirely irrelevant, if all the bottom teams are playing each other. Also the possibility that a team from the bottom six moves into finals contention in the next season and they blitz the final month of the season and finish higher than they probably would have otherwise.

Garbage. The VFA from which the VFL was formed in 1897 had 16 players on the park right up until the 1980s well before the days of stoppage football. That worked well but the VFL had the more popular teams so eventually it took over with its rules.

No-ones going to be keen on state of origin. Everyone talks the talk but inevitably when it happens no-one wants to risk their players. Clubs vs clubs is what we want to see anyway. Works for NRL as theres only two states. Conferences can work if theyre evenly split and revised each year. Remember no system is going to be perfect, we just need the one thats the least imperfect and has the best perception of fairness.

Cant change the number of players on the field, thats changing the core of the game

The AFL sets up the fixtures primarily to maximise revenues particularly in its home market. The other fixtures probably depend on how its computer is feeling that day, and those fixtures appear to come out haphazard. Change of topic about Perth but worth a mention. The WAFL side West Perth Falcons held a best of British match at their home ground in Joondalup (Far northern suburb) last Saturday. They played in a jumper that had the Union Jack plastered all over it in a normal WAFL game which they won by 3 points. The promotions paid off because they attracted a crowd of over 6000, which is above the usual attendance of about 3000. The far northern suburbs have about 50% british and other migrants in them and the local primary schools also have lots of British kids, and this match was heavily promoted in the local free papers. The WA footy Commission sponsored the jumpers and costs, and it is likely the idea will be continued with other clubs with an International theme. Still lots of work to be done yet in Perth`s growing immigrant population footy wise. And by the way I actually live in Perth and there will NOT be another team for at least 10/15 years at best. Speaking of immigrant populations think of the task GWS has in its basically non AFL area of Sydney - Huge to say the least.

Cool idea, but more I think about it its pretty much just extending the Finals series by 5 weeks. Looking at this season in particular, its so close that teams currently 7th or 8th could easily finish 5th or 6th with a good 5 week stint, but with your model they have already missed out on the chance to play a home final regardless of the fact they might actually end up with more points than the teams above them. So i guess if the fans are cool with a 2 month Finals Series it works.

Performance based fixture wont work, it will just result in even more tanking, why finish 6 or 5th and have no real shot at the Premiership when you can tank and get 7th and really set yourself up for a decent run next year. Same for 7th and 8th too, no incentive to finish up the ladder. 2 options I think, both my solutions have each team playing each other once with fixtures locked in over two seasons aka Eagles play Collingwood at the MCG in year 1 and then they play each other in Perth in year 2. Then supplementing the missing weeks with other competitions, at least until the competition has expanded to the point where you can play each other once and still get close to 22 rounds (maybe 20-21 teams). 1) Have a preseason (or postseason) of about 4 weeks of State of Origin. No Allstars bs. WA, QL,D SA, NSW all have their own teams. A round robin format with top 2 finishers in a Grand Final. 2) Have a knockout cup FA Cup style competition run concurrently to the AFL season, so some weeks are cup weeks like instead of round 6, thats the 1st round of cup competitions. All state league teams and AFL teams compete with the AFL clubs seeded into the 2nd or 3rd round and stick a decent amount of cash prize on the competition for the winners plus including the games on Memberships so the fans will already have paid to see them and will decide they might as well go, so the clubs and players take it seriously. An excellent way to scout talent too giving a chance to state base players to shine and impress potential suitors. The reason I dont like the conference idea is because you wont have the best teams in the finals. If you based it on conference standings then some teams might not be as strong as their conference counterparts but still make it the final when they dont, and any wildcard spot will be compromised based on whoever had the weaker conference that year.

Yeh but the EPL's unfair nature and the fixturing is completely unrelated. It stems from the fact that there's no salary cap and rich clubs can spend big to get the best players. Each team plays each other twice in the EPL, one home one away. At least on the Fixture side, doesn't get much fairer than that

I really dont think Perth can support a 3rd side, at least not until it grows more. We are only a city of 1.5 million, take away the children, maybe half the women, then those who cant afford to go and the number of potential fans drop right off. Then maybe only 15-20% of those would actually be interested to going to the games plus then factor in already established loyalties to the Eagles and Dockers. I really dont think it would work at this time. Future expansion needs to be Tasmania and North Queensland. I know WA is more footy focused than North Queensland, but North Queensland dont already have a team of their own, they cant exactly drive down to Brisbane where as in Perth there is already 2 teams. Should look at Canberra too, I suspect it would get decent support considering there is only 1 other sporting team in that city.

Why is there such an obsession to have a even draw? The biggest sporting comp in the world, the EPL, has 3-4 teams that have any chance of winning it at any given year, and in the 20 or so years it has been running it has only seen about 5 different winners. Contrast this with the AFL, who have had 11 different winners since 1990. The AFL is already way in front of the EPL in terms of fairness, and realistically not every club is going to as much a chance of winning as the more resourced clubs.

Definitely worth looking at.... This year NMFC played GC, GWS and Melbourne 5 times in total and will probably get in on the back of that (yes I know, I know .... they're firing on all 8 cylinders now but thos matches kept them in touch when things weren't so rosy) However I'm not sure the clubs are really prepared to sacrifice the profits from blockbusters, derbies and showdowns.,.,.