The AFL will introduce the biggest change to its equalisation policy since the recent addition of two expansion clubs, remodelling the draft in an effort to make father-son and academy picks fairer.
The league handed Greater Western Sydney and Gold Coast no shortage of list allowances and other leg-ups, but along with Sydney and Brisbane they’re the big losers of changes to this year’s draft.
Under a new points system, which seeks to establish the market value of every selection, GWS will find it incredibly hard to recruit academy players Jacob Hopper and Matt Kennedy this year given both are rated as likely first-round picks.
The current process for father-son and academy selections allows rivals to bid for a draftee.
The club with priority access to the teenager is then able to match the bid, using their next available selection in the draft.
The merits of the status quo have been debated for many years, with Collingwood president Eddie McGuire particularly indignant after Sydney signed academy product Isaac Heeney with pick No.18 last year.
The league had been developing a new system long before Melbourne bid for Heeney with pick No.2.
On Thursday, details of the `Draft Value Index’ became clearer.
Well, as clear as they’re ever going to be.
Using salary data from the past 14 seasons, the league has assigned a value to every draft pick.
The prized first selection is worth 3000 points, No.2 is 2517 points and it continues to decrease until hitting zero points for everything above No.73.
Clubs must now match bids according to points, with the carrot being they are given a 20 per cent discount.
The Heeney example would require the Swans give up 2013 points – they’d lose picks No.18, No.37 and No.38, while No.57 would become No.64.
The draft order would then be reshuffled, while clubs could go into a points debt on the proviso they cough up picks the following year.
The AFL is also hoping to introduce live bidding on draft night, as opposed to the current system when the deadline is prior to trade period.
“The club is pleased that the father-son and academy bidding system has been finalised well in advance of the draft,” Swans football manager Tom Harley said.
“There is a great deal of detail in the new system and it is something that will take us some time to work through.”
The model has been ticked off by Jeff Borland, an economics professor at the University of Melbourne.
“It compares favourably with similar work that I have seen for international competitions such as the NFL and NBA,” Borland said.
The league looked at games played and other ways to measure potential value, but with the help of list managers and football managers agreed on relative salaries.
The 20 per cent discount was also a bone of contention – predictably some clubs wanted more and others wanted less.
alicesprings
Guest
I wonder if in the 'name of equality': - the grand final will now be played at the home ground of the grand finalists??? - Collingwood will travel outside of victoria more than twice in a year?? Yeah probably not...
Doctor Rotcod
Guest
Try complaining about father-son picks if you're the Eagles.The Victorians won't listen Brisbane got Fitzroy, Swans got South Melbourne . A fairer system should have begun in 1990 when the AFL began.If you started playing after then, and played your 100 games, to allow for the extra wear and tear on the WA and Qld sides with travel, then your son is eligible to play automatically with your team. You give up draft place equivalents, but that player is yours to choose. If you didn't play 100 games after the start of 1990, then your offspring is on the market at market or draft place rates. There could some adjustment for latecomers like Adelaide or Port, but I think the 1990 rule should be there as the basis for a fair slice of the pie If your club wants a boy, the starting price should be a first round pick.
alicesprings
Guest
Sad that the AFL buckled to Eddie and co's pressure. What a crazy complicated confusing system! Well if there is anything good to come out of it hopefully it stops the Collingwoods & Hawthorns complaining like petulant children. Funny how Eddie and co complain so much about draft picks when the likes of Melbourne and Richmond kick picking duds with their first round picks. IMO draft order is seriously over rated..its what happens after players are picked that determines if they become champion players not their draft order.
Dean
Guest
It's the AFL backing away from its expansion to pay a bit of lip service to the Melbourne clubs who, frankly, don't really need any help. It will just result in more gamesmanship by recruiters with gun father sons being hidden in the school/local footy system rather than the over-hyped TAC cup. How much does the AFL fork out for the academies or are they all club run? There isn't much use in the northern clubs running academies by themselves if it just benefits every club.
TW
Guest
K TO K Totally agree about the Northern Academies being vital to the games health up there. The fact that our game is number 4 in the pecking order does not seem to bother the AFL States supporters. Every Heeney we find up there helps the cause. His mother admitted to the media that prior to her sons recruitment her family did not like Aussie Rules at all. Our game is not first choice in most house holds for a sports career. So what if for a few years the Northern Clubs pick up more Heeneys while the game slowly expands. However that wont happen now. Eddie understands alright the but he does not give a stuff and he got burnt up there in the media.
kick to kick
Guest
This is the triumph of Victorian parochialism . A plan to make the game as national as possible is being hobbled - bafflingly short sighted when the AFL faces other codes that not only have national but international audiences and talent pools. The FFA must be chortling with pleasure. The northern academies are producing both talent and interest from areas that do not have an Aussie rules tradition. Isaac Heeney comes from around Newcastle . It's generally acknowledged that without being identified by the Swans Academy he would have played another sport. There are other similar candidates from academies in the pipeline. But if the years of work that go into funding and nurturing talent through these academies means the club involved gives up its top 3 draft picks to pick up a success story , the incentive to invest will wither. I can see why the Swans should have to pay a full market value for a father son pick like Tom Mitchell. That's an accident of history and as a family affair by definition doesn't do anything to expand the code . On the other hand talent identification and investment from non AFL catchments takes time and money and has to be prioritised. In the near future a top ten northern development prospect will go to a club that has put in no work whatever because the academy sponsor club cannot afford to lose all its draft picks for one player. And that will kill the academy system. The AFL will be guilty of self harm. Because Australian Rules Football is so all consuming in Melbourne, the blinkered Eddie McGuires don't understand that the AFL is in a constant survival battle for talent, television audiences and profile. As a sport with no meaningful international appeal, it must fight year in and year out to boost its national position. The AFL has managed an asymmetrical market very well in recent years which is why it can still command big broadcast deals which are the sustenance of every club. But any contraction of the AFL's market could easily start a vicious spiral of decline with less money to pay players, more and better coverage of rival codes, declining audiences, further cuts to revenue and development. This could happen with a speed that the Melbourne clubs would find bewildering . Football, like all entertainment industries faces market fragmentation as people have more and more choice. Killing the academies doesn't guarantee such decline. But it certainly is a sign that the sport doesn't understand its own mortality. The NBA and NFL systems are irrelevant to the AFL. Those sports have a total following in every state of the worlds biggest sports market . Millions of kids dream of playing in the major leagues. It doesn't matter a damn to a viable future that American football is mostly a curiosity outside the US. However it does matter enormously if Australian Rules Football remains just a curiosity to the kids of Newcastle and the Gold Coast.
Macca
Guest
While this system may be fairer why did it have to come in this year just when the Blues looked like they finally might get at least 1 bargain having Silvagni, Rice & Bradley all eligible for father son???!!!
Franko
Guest
Wish they'd leave father-son alone. You're Dad played 150 games, bang your eligible and can go with the clubs last pick. If a club (like Geelong) gets a swag of players, so be it.
Wayne
Roar Guru
Its complex, but I think its good. It stops Everywhere Eddie complaining that the Non-Collingwood clubs are getting this advantage and he can focus his attention on another advantage that Collingwood isn't getting