Why the AFL is on the edge of a decline

I’m just going to put this out there. If feminism’s new poster boy Graham Cornes’ recent smattering has taught me anything, it’s that free speech is a crucial component of a properly functioning society. Unless it’s him doing it.

With that incredibly deep insight in mind, I’m not going to wade into that debacle again because fortunately I think most people are becoming aware that every time an ex-AFL footballer opens their mouth, it’s a good time to slip on your earmuffs and run screaming into the sea.

However, without even taking into consideration the serious matter of the lack of gender acceptance in Australian rules football, I think the AFL as a competition is in a lot of bloody trouble at the moment.

That might sound a bit crazy. But as the great philosopher Seal once said “we’re never going to survive unless we get a little crazy”. Because emotions.

Ok, I understand claiming the AFL will be fighting for their survival unless they make some serious changes to their organisation is clearly overstating things, however it presented an outstanding opportunity to use a Seal reference and I do feel quite strongly that the AFL are on track for a serious decline if things continue the way they are.

‘But surely the AFL is in a healthy position as a business,’ I hear Mike Fitzpatrick saying. And he’d be correct, the AFL are a profitable organisation with a unique brand and a large, passionate following.

But I don’t think they can continue to grow, which is what they’ve been trying so desperately to achieve, because the league’s structure is completely rooted and has become the cause of almost every problem the game is facing.

Here’s some of my personal highlights.

Eighteen teams, 23 rounds. The fact that people actually exist who can justify that as a cogent way to do a sporting draw will never cease to astound me.

There are 9 teams in Melbourne and only two grounds. That means over half of the season is played at neutral grounds in front of half-empty stadiums. That’s not an exaggeration either – the combined capacity for the MCG and Docklands is approximately 154,000, the average combined attendance for those grounds in 2015 is a little over 77,000.

Remember the days when people used to go down to their suburban grounds and support their local team? You know, the foundation the entire game was built upon? If you’re under 30 you probably don’t, however it turns out people actually liked doing that. It gave you the opportunity to legitimately feel like a part of a club, not just a supporter of a business masquerading as a sporting team.

How about the low-scoring, ugly, defensive affairs that have become so prevalent? Nobody panic. The AFL will know what to do. Change the rules. Or interpret the rules differently. Or zones. Probably zones.

Um. No.

How about removing the two new teams, or 80-odd additional players, that have been inserted into the competition in the past few years. Maybe that would sharpen things up some what.

There’s basically 80 people now playing football in the league that previously would not have been good enough to be there. Eighty full-time athletes that are incredibly fit and sensibly coached to nullify contests. Jesus. No wonder it’s not great to watch – it’s like Tennis Australia accepting an extra 200 entries into the Australian Open in January then trying to convince everyone that watching two guys ranked 600 in the world playing each other is entertaining.

The game is fine. Don’t worry about the game. There is nothing wrong with Australian rules football. The problem is the AFL.

They are the consummate example of a competition that has been metamorphosed for the benefit of a business and not for the sport. They make profit-driven business decisions and then market those to the football public as ‘what is best for the game’.

That is, as they say in the classics, bloody ridiculous.

Do they really think that Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT should not be represented in our ‘national’ league because it’s in the best interest of the sport? Aussie rules is the number one football code in all three states/territories. They’re not in it simply because the AFL doesn’t think they can make enough cash out of it.

To their credit they have been fairly upfront about that, however considering they thought that the Gold Coast and Western Sydney were a more financially sound proposition I’m not sure they have too much credibility left in the old tank there.

The league’s expansion into the Gold Coast and Western Sydney is basically tantamount to my sex life throughout my adolescence. Great in theory, but an abject failure in practice.

Anyone who thinks that a team playing out of Tasmania or Darwin wouldn’t have as many members or average crowd attendances as the Gold Coast or Greater Western Sydney do is delusional. Bellerive Oval has been operating at 90 per cent capacity for their games this year, Marrara Oval in Darwin at 84 per cent and Manuka Oval in Canberra at 74 per cent. And they don’t even get decent games to watch.

In fact, Bellerive Oval in Hobart and Aurora Stadium in Launceston both average nearly 2000 more people at their games than the Gold Coast Suns are at Carrara. Although in fairness that could be because they don’t have to watch the Suns play each week.

The reality is, since the Suns entered the competition in 2009, AFL games in Queensland have averaged a combined total of around 30,000 people at both the Gabba and Carrara. Which, coincidentally, is pretty much what the Brisbane Lions were averaging at the Gabba the year before Gold Coast were formed.

It hasn’t brought new fans into the game, it has just distributed them and created two struggling teams instead of a single, healthy one.

And don’t get me started on GWS. They pull in as many spectators for their home games in Canberra against the less popular teams as they do for matches against the larger clubs in Western Sydney. There’s a pretty obvious solution here but the AFL don’t want to hear about it, as our old mate Gillon McLachlan made abundantly clear the other day. Perhaps they haven’t forgiven Canberra for producing James Hird yet. Too soon I guess.

Basically, the AFL have alienated a huge chunk of the country that want to be involved because they think it’s better for business, even though it’s clearly to the detriment of the sport.

Personally I think that’s a bit shit.

You only had to look at rugby league’s ill-fated expansion attempts in Perth, Adelaide and ironically the Gold Coast to realise you can’t just plonk a team down in an area that doesn’t properly embrace the game and expect to buy popularity and success through cash injections and a host of draft picks. Perhaps the AFL should have put some rugby league players into the teams? I hear they’re pretty popular up that way.

You don’t need to be Einstein to realise if you want to introduce an elite team into a city or region you need to spend time developing the sport there first so you have a community in place that understands and enjoys the game. This is where the AFL have, in my humble opinion, stuffed up.

Capping the AFL at 14 teams and creating a second national league of 10 to 12 teams would have been a more sensible approach for the development of the game in untried regions. A promotion-relegation system could have ensured that any Melbourne clubs that found themselves relegated in the lower league would have the opportunity to work their way back into the AFL. However that horse has long bolted – and now it’s got its head stuck in a tree.

Eighteen teams is too many for a top tier national league in Australia in any sport. We just don’t have the population base for it and clearly it makes creating a draw with any degree of logic about it extremely difficult in a game that requires so much recovery time.

It also means there are too many games that mean absolutely nothing. Despite having a salary cap aimed at making the competition as level as possible, the entire second half of the AFL season is usually a pointless endeavour for as many as a third of the teams.

In fact, it is structured in a way that as soon as you are unlikely to qualify for the finals it is more beneficial to lose matches and finish as low as possible. Rewarding mediocrity is not a clever way to structure a competition.

I love footy, as the sad, faded Fitzroy Lion tattoo on my ankle will attest to. As a fan of the game I’m more than a little concerned about the direction it’s heading and feel we’ve missed a great opportunity to create a special competition. Which I reckon is a bit bloody sad.