Simultaneous games the answer to AFL fixturing issue

Willy, interesting idea, and similar to one that I've been pondering for a while with my fellow administrators in a different code. If either is too radical to introduce now in a fully-professional competition, then perhaps trial it first at a lesser level that has similar issues. For the AFL, the relevant issues would appear to include commercial (no fewer than 22 rounds ?), workload (no more than 22 rounds ?) and fairness (play each of 17 other clubs the same number of times ?). A related issue is that sometimes one club plays another club twice, before it has played another club at all (eg 2012 was St Kilda v Suns in Rds 2 and then 11, but Dockers v Nth Melb not until Rd 22). In my proposal, to provide more fairness, each pair of clubs would compete for only 4 points during the season. In a one-off match between two clubs, the usual 4 points for a win. But in a pair of matches, 2 points for each win. I've modelled it for 2012's results, and at first glance it appears more fair. Your point about percentages is well-made. No club playing a weaker club a second time would get an unfair advantage, and no club playing a stronger club a second time (sometimes for commerical purposes) would get an unfair disadvantage similarly. But each one-off match would become far more important as a result, as it would now count for 1/17th (rather than 1/22nd) of the season's available points. Finally, those clubs playing each other twice would do so in two blocks, Rds 1-5 to commence the season, and Rds 18-22 to end the season. Those clubs playing each other only once, would then do so in one middle-season block, Rds 6-17 only. As a result, each club would play every other club once during the season's first 17 rounds, and once during the season's last 17 rounds. The local derbies and blockbusters would begin and end each season. One possible downside is that a mid-season traditional match eg one always on a Queen's Birthday Monday, would by definition be a stand-alone match between those two clubs.

Here's the easiest solution for a fair AFL season ladder. Slightly adopt the model of a combined home & away points system for AFL teams who play each other twice in a season. Combine the 2 game scores to give the allocated 4 points which would equate the "value" for just one match played per season. Hence the big victorian clubs can play off against each other every season twice per season but you must aggregate the scores in the matches to win your 4 points on the ladder. This neccessarily would mean that each team could actually win each of their respective home games but the score magins will determine the overall winner of the 4 points on the ladder. The BIG clubs can therefore still get the sellout "cha-ching" MCG gate receipts without calling foul of an unfairly sided comp, ie- not enjoying the ladder benefit of playing poorly performing or the new clubs twice a season. On the flipside, if sydney swans say thrash gold coast suns twice a season also, they only benefit from one allocated win of 4 points. The ladder percentage can also be manipulated wherein the aggregated scores are divded by 2 after the 2nd game is played. BINGO. fair ladder situation During the accumulation of a season, 2 points can be allocated to the ladder for a half win (the first game) and the season percantage will be adjusted after the 2nd match up after the 2nd game result. Similarly perhaps all clubs can agree that a system where a game 'win is a win' and just 2 points are allocated for a single game so that the points may be shared evenly over the course of a 2 game club vs club result, and a team will receive the whole 4 points for the double victory. percentages however, to keep things fair will still be combined game scores divisable by 2. This would stop blowouts in scores for games played against poorly performing clubs. It will still be a indication of each clubs performance against all other clubs over the course of a season, which is essentially what a comp ladder is used to calculate anyway. As the AFL expands in th future the system can adjust easily. 5 double headers per season will just become 4 & 3 & so on in the coming years...

Well,the numbers don't add up! Melbourne with just over two & a quarter times Perth's population,is trying to support five times as many AFL clubs. There are a finite number of potential fans and/or members for each club,so that,even if the teams all performed equally on the field,they all have a smaller pie to divide in proportion to their numbers. In the real world,they don't perform equally,so several high performing clubs get the lion's share,with the others battling over what's left. My mention of moving to Regional Victoria was based on the idea that the city/country population division in Vic was more even,so that there would be more people to carry the clubs which "went bush". Upon Googling,I found that the ratio of city/country population in Vic was virtually the same as in WA,(although our country population density is a bit lower),so maybe banishing the dying clubs to Regional centres may not be the answer. I don't think we need a third AFL club in WA,the current two are doing well with more of the "pie" to share. I noticed that my point has come up numerous times in these & other forums,mainly made by other people from traditional Aussie Rules states,such as WA,Tas,& SA.

Tom, Repeat that with a straight face. One club has $100m to spend on salaries. Another club has $12m to spend on salaries. They are "given the same opportunity to succeed". Lie to me again, with confidence, like you believe it.

Bryan, "Too many" by what metric ? Going to regional Victoria, like North Melbourne want to play games in Ballarat, if someone else pays for the ground ? Go to Tassie, like Hawthorn playing games in Launceston ? Yes, adding another WA side makes sense, and personally I think Launceston, by delivering crowd after crowd, is making a good argument for a team. But why bother to kill an existing side to do this ? Isnt it better to develop a home away from home ?

In answer to Jano's earlier comment: Your last sentence makes the most pertinent point! The AFL is still just an "expanded VFL". There are too many teams in metropolitan Melbourne. Back in the days when the VFL was, pretty much, Melbourne's local competition,that was OK. Hell,the WANFL(old name for the WAFL) in WA could pull in 50,000 people at Subi* for a Grand Final,& the VFL did proportionally better! The glory days of local competition have gone now,with demographic & social changes,& we are left with a lot of teams which could get by in the old days,but are battling in the AFL environment. OK,South Melbourne & Fitzroy have migrated to other States,but the writing is in the wall for some others. Poor on field performances, poor attendance at games & falling memberships make times pretty tough, It seems to me,that some of the least successful teams in Melbourne need to amalgamate,go to Regional Victoria,or perhaps,Tassie. * Before someone says Subi can't seat 50,000 people--Who the hell is talking about seats! Real football fans stand on the grassed areas,which there were plenty of back in the day! Subi dropped in capacity when some of the later stands went in. We used to get 50K to watch the "big V" kick our bums in Interstate games,too!

Easy solution, just give the higher-ranked teams a choice of who they play. ie, of the top 4 , number 1 (ie Hawthorn this year) choses which of the teams 2,3 and 4 they play, then the other 2 play off. Of the bottom 4, number 5 on the ladder choses. This, along with home ground advantage, means that a higher ladder position always is better than a lower one. If this was aplied to all rounds in the finals, and the higher ranked teams also got to chose the venue and time and date, there is never an advantage in losing.

We shall see tonight. If Adelaide win, then I think it is reasonable to say that (a) Geelong had the wrong mindset going into the game and (b) Freo were nothing above an average/number 8 side until the very end. If Freo win, then maybe as some suggest they really are coming good at the right time. I'm leaning toward the former, but am generally about 99% wrong with my AFL tipping !!!

Absolutely Hawthorn (and moreover, Adelaide or Freo) would have agreed to 2:10pm. But Ch7 consider 5:15pm to be closer to Prime Time than 2:10pm, so the AFL said yes.

If you follow the NFL, you'd be aware that despite the inter-divisional and inter-conference play, the division and conference structure of the competition means that all teams within a 4-team division are competing against each other first and foremost because they share a common schedule. The strength of each team is irrelevant. There are essentially 8 different competitions during the NFL regular season comprising the 8 different divisions and common schedules. That season, Seattle were the best performing team amongst the 4 teams with the same schedule. Furthermore, teams having the ability to utilise greater resources isn't a question of fairness. It is a fact of everyday life. Fairness in here is in terms of the regulator, or in a sports league environment the competition administrator, to ensure all participants are treated equally and given the same opportunity to succeed. In this regard, the EPL with their full double round robin season, as well as the NFL's divisional and wildcard system provides a fairer schedule and performance comparison system to what the AFL does with its arbitrary fixturing of which teams play twice and comparing them all within the single ladder.

and the only reason the final matches of group games in football tournaments are scheduled simultaneously is to avoid manipulation of results. There is no chance of manipulation in finals. The objective is to win in order to progress. The NFL still schedule Sunday Night Football in the final week of the regular season. However, their playoffs are all stand alone matches with the Conference Championship games (Super Bowl preliminaries) scheduled back-to-back.

It could have been worse. They could have had to play their home Prelim Final 2000km from home, like Brisbane did in 2004.

Finals will never be scheduled simultaneously. The actual consideration of it is ridiculous really. The financial hit from such a backward move would be enormous. For the Wk 2 & 3 finals, a Saturday double-header would be more palatable, but this can only work if both games on the weekend are scheduled at different grounds.

You cannot create a fair competition when you have 18 teams in a 22 round season.I take your point about playing preliminary finals at the same time but someone will find a way to suggest bias even if you did that.IMO the ladder should include the last two times each side played each other obviously at each others home ground, so the season would include 34 games.To ahcieve this scenario games from the previous year would be included if the fixturing only allowed for a side to play another team once during the year.This would also mean that each team played at every other sides home ground once every two years.Also tanking would be pointless as losing games for draft picks could mean those games are included in the next years ladder.

The change to a floating round was irrelevant for television stations. At the time Seven had Friday night and Sunday arvo games and Ten had Saturday and Saturday night games. That remained the same with or without the floating round. Currently Channel Seven has a deal to play four games spread over at least three days. Clearly it wouldn’t work therefore to play all nine games at the same time. Same with the final series, Seven have a deal that will mean all the games get shown live on the main channel. Even if they could show it on their digital channel (which they can’t under the agreement and possibly also under the anti-siphoning laws) there is no way they would want to do that. Imagine a Venn diagram. On one side is the people who are going to watch the first prelim final and on the other the people who are going to watch the second prelim final and in the middle is a whole heap of people who are going to watch both. Making those people chose which game to watch would result in a huge loss of ratings and an inability to cash in on the flow on effects of broadcasting over two days. It just can’t happen.

Uh yes it would be a big issue for the networks..... Showing two different games at the same time (unavoidable in the H&A season but easily avoidable in finals) does nothing more than split the audience which is the last thing that TV networks want. The networks want 1 million people (or whatever figure it is) watching a game on Friday and then watching another game on Saturday, and more importantly watching 2 games worth of ads, as opposed to 500k people watching one game and 500k watching the simultaneous game with each therefore only watching the equivalent of 1 game's worth of ads. They've given the AFL $1.25b to do so as well. Besides, I'm sure that the fans of the 14 teams not competing in the prelims would rather watch 2 full prelim finals over the weekend than have to flick between 2 games at the same time. Ideally they'd play the Saturday prelim in the afternoon but again, TV pays money for night games. The AFL probably would had a hard enough time trying to get the game played at 5:15 instead of 7:50 let alone playing moving it to 2:10 or making them simultaneous.

Jano, If you're going to make that argument, be honest about it - "Fair competition" and the NFL dont belong in the same sentence. I barrack for Seattle, and we once made the playoffs at 7 wins and 9 losses ... and that was including playing each of hopeless Arizona, the useless Rams and a substandard San Francisco twice. Likewise, we have very different views on fairness when some clubs can spend more on players salaries than others. It is because of it's unfairness that the AFL works. Deal with it and move on.