Kids tend to chop and change when it comes to sport. One year they are playing football and cricket, then the next they are trying basketball and football.
It’s not until around 14 to 16 they set their heart on one sport in particular, show commitment and step up their training in the hope of becoming elite.
Many teenagers could be professional sportsmen in several sports. Scott Pendlebury declined a basketball scholarship to pursue his dream in the AFL, but what made the AFL so enticing?
With each team having a salary cap of $10 million, the average player is earning $265,179 a year, with only five players earning $1 million-plus.
Compared to other sports around the world, such as NBA, cricket, football and tennis, the salary is appalling; certainly not enough to bring elite talent to the sport.
With 13 Australian cricket players earning over $1.5 million a year, it is hard for kids to choose AFL over cricket when it becomes time to get serious about their sport.
Many media commentators are scared about the state of the game, with the congested style of play and poor ball skills.
Raising the salary cap will see elite young talent who are thinking of playing football or basketball over AFL to think again, and see the game’s skill level go up in the long term.
But raising the salary cap is only the beginning in terms of ways to fix the game. We also should restrict new draftees (18-year-olds only) to no more than six games of AFL in their first year to help their development.
Keeping the AFL draft age at 18 but then getting them to play the majority of the year in VFL, SAFL, WAAFL and SANFL would give them a year of experience against big bodies before they enter the big time.
The top of the table teams such as Sydney, Hawthorn, Fremantle and Geelong have done this very well over the past few years, forcing their young talent to perform in their respective seconds teams before breaking through into the AFL. The bottom-of-the-table teams give games to the younger players which can hinder their confidence, as they can’t keep up with the pace of the AFL.
Many commentators are asking for rule changes to stop the game’s slide, but the way to stop it is from the start – ensuring kids are experienced and trained to compete.
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