Top ten ideas for AFL HQ

Disagree.... No more teams for the states mentioned... bring Tassy and NT in and make the whole thing truly national. Then make it two divisions, like English soccer.... top 12 teams play each other exactly twice (fairer than now) Bottom 8 (now with above additional teams) play each other 3 times each, which is good for spreading the games around the country. 2 Bottom of the 12, play top 2 of the lower league and thus can move up to a "premier" type league Get rid of the stupid pre season comp, where young hopefuls get injured in potentially career ending pointless games. And instead mid season have a week off.. a week of true "state of origin" like they used to and then a week before it all starts again. This way, your not putting untried unfit players of a field.

None of these suggestions (and let's hope that's what they stay as, 'suggestions) leaps out and screams "Implement NOW, and by 'now' I mean yesterday!!!!!". 1. 'boutique' / sub-30,000 venues: maybe one at the most, but where? Bulldogs already looking at Ballarat, North at Bendigo for one or two smaller-drawing games a season. Can't see any need for any others. NB: Princes Park too hard to get to by public transport, and not enough parking for cars. 2. new teams (presumably means new 'clubs' - there is a big difference, y'know): nowhere for the time being, not even in WA and SA. Or 'especially' in WA and SA. 3. two conferences: not needed until AFL has at least 20 or 20+ clubs (and even then, ???); and if & when, NOT the current US-style SB between conference winners (and we should NOT call them "champions" - that's not how we use that word) , but a McIntyre Final Four between those who make the conference title games (again, NOT 'championship' games). Think of the three possibilities! 4. move any club to Tasmania: no. They already get enough second-hand stuff, like old Greek ferries (but which are very much OK). 5, 6, 7, 9 & 10: ? Don't really care, competition-management stuff. See below for alternatives) 8. national women’s competition: as soon as feasible. 11. extend Coleman Medal to Finals games. 12. implement some sort of painful 12,000V stun-gun-style deterrent against anyone suggesting mucking around with the Charles Brownlow Trophy. 13. get rid of 95% of 'alternate strips' (and ban anyone who calls them that from AFL games, venues and events for life). 14. reduce corpo-commercial guernsey, shorts and socks 'brandings' in number (to, say, two) and in size (to, say, postage stamp dimensions), with one being an apparel branding - Aretha Franklin sang a great song about why. Any get rid of those silly-looking AFL logos on guernsey numbers - so twee! (But can turn non-playing apparel into walking billboards, like the silly stuff vroom-vroom-boys have to wear, as much as the AFL likes.) 15. put corpo-commercial venue 'brandings' in ( )s in small fonts after our traditional names for stadiums in all official publications such as the Footy Record, fixtures, ads, promos, and the AFL Season Guide. (And waterboard any dickhead designer who gives us stupid stuff like dark grey writing on a black background.) 16. remind journos and other (painfully, if necessary) that we have a 'Home and Away' / H&A season followed by 'Finals' (with an occasional use allowed for variety of expression). As that ad says, I feel better now!.

North have had record membership every year for the last five years, have finished bottom four twice in 25 years, have solid long-term sponsors and corporate support, a brilliant facility at Arden St, profits every year, almost no debt and award winning community involvement work with locals. And you think they should just randomly take a punt on moving homes? To a state whose inhabitants by and large already follow other AFL teams? Do you know how many long-term AFL fans the game lost when Fitzroy left? Do you know how broke the Lions were? They couldn't afford to pay their players and they were completely pathetic on-field. And your argument is "time's up"? And it will bring back heart to the game? How about the hearts of the lifelong North fans whose club would be ripped away from them?

I can't recall an individual being named Jesus in an English speaking country.

Be nice if G Ablett Jnr could finish his AFL career back where it began, and reach the 200-game benchmark. (I think Geelong has the most players with 190+ club games, and maybe the most on 199. There's room in sport for such dreams, surely?

They are religious men (Snr a born again) and doubt they'd use the Lord's name in vain!

Perhaps Gaz will be referred to as SOG but his father will object to that.

aaah, that makes sense. I was wondering why they chose that period given how cold it is the coldest part of the year over here.. ...the option is September when the focus on the game is most intense (for the IC not the SOO obviously)

The carnival of footbal idea is not a bad one, but they generally schedule the IC for August, presumably to fit in with holiday periods in Europe and Northern America.

Crowd numbers (from ‘AFL Tables’ - what a great resource that is!) support the general point of Red Kev’s “nobody watches them”, as shown by the following stats: ~ only five 40,000 ‘Home’ season averages, four being at the end of their 1955-1964 Demon Decade of Dominance; no such ‘Away’ or ‘H&A’ averages; ~ only six 80,000 MCG ‘Home’ crowds, and none since 1971; no such ‘Away’ crowds; ~ only five 70,000 MCG ‘Home’ crowds since 1997, and no such ‘Away’ crowds. Contrast this with the crowds drawn by the Melbourne’s MCG co-tenants since 1997: Collingwood ‘Home’ 16 x 80,000, Essendon ‘Home’ 16 x 80,000 (includes three earlier 1990s crowds), and Richmond ‘H&A’ 16 x 80,000. These poor crowd contrasts look bad for the MFC - but, make that BUT being Australian Football’s foundation club^ should surely count for something. Especially after calendar 2016’s century drought-breaking performances by the EPL / FA’s Leicester City and MLB’s Chicago Cubs. (Had a great afternoon at Wrigley Field in 1998 at one of the (then) rare Chicago crosstown MLB derby match-ups.) ^ and the world’s oldest continuous top-tier Foot-Ball club.

Nice effort and some interesting thing to think about. Here are my thoughts (apologies for dismissive tone at points...not good with the sugar coating) 1. Pretty much no chance. The docklands under AFL ownership snuffs out in chance of that. The only scenario I could imagine will be a boutique in the south east that perhaps st Kilda or Melbourne use a few times a year. There are lower levels of football that provide for those who want to watch suburban football 2. I think if there is a couple of new teams in the near future one will be in Tasmania. There’ll be no new teams for at least 5 years though (probably more). I could see a third Perth team as a possibility. Only chance for Adelaide is Norwood but I doubt it. 3. No way. Americana we can do with-out. We’ve played under a single league table for almost 150 years and there are a stack of problems with deciding the conferences as people have noted 4. Possibly, I doubt they will though. I think St Kilda would be a better fit 5. How are the zones determined? What is the point of transfer fees? This just sounds like a rugby league system cart blanche shoe horned in to the AFL 6. So get rid of free agency 7. I actual agree with further limiting the interchange but I don’t think going back to substitutions is the way to go. Reduce game time to 20 minutes with no time on? Ridiculous 8. Expansion to all teams will take a decade or two. I think there’ll be double headers but teams will also play stand-alone games in smaller venues. Collingwood will ultimately develop Olympic park to increase capacity and provide seating and endeavour to play games there before or after MCG matches. 9. I don’t think an indigenous versus the rest will work. They used to play exhibition games against clubs pre-season, maybe this is the way to go again 10. Well there’ll be no conferences so forget that. I note with zoning and suggested conference structure this will be a krypto Vics versus the rest anyway. I think there should be a state of origin tournament every three years in October / November and then line up the international cup with it and call it a “carnival of football”

Gary Hocking changed his name to Whiskers for round 1. Has Gary Ablett Jnr changed his name to Jesus yet?

Times up for North? What about the Demons? Irrelevant on the field and nobody watches them play.

Interesting read - some ideas I like, others not so much. But I would like to comment on just two of your list: 1. Eureka Stadium in Ballarat is being developed to allow AFL matches to be played there. As I understand it, the Western Bulldogs (I too miss Footscray) will play against the smaller-drawing non-Vic teams such as GC, GWS and Freo beginning later this year. This is the ground where North Ballarat played their VFL games, and where the Ballarat FL has played its Grand Final in recent years. 3. The Conference idea. While we have 18 teams there is a compromised draw. It matters not that 'it evens out' over a period of seasons, because each season is a separate entity. Two exclusive conferences as you have described would bring back the us and them thing that Victorians suffered from for so long. So, to be creative, what about three conferences of 6 teams each. You play the other teams in your group twice (10 games), and once each against teams in the other conferences (12 games) = 22 game season. Top two teams in each conference qualify for a seeded finals program that crosses over the conferences (Best team overall has #1 ranking for finals and so on). Seventh and eighth are wildcard places: the two best-performed teams that didn't finish top two in their conference. Would that work?

Our family was deeply involved with footy - media and a particular club - it was religion, still is. Dad attends 3 matches each round, if we ever need to order a whack on him, he'll be really easy to find. Grandma used to roast jacket potatoes with butter and salt wrapped in foil and we'd put one in each duffle pocket to keep our hands warm on the cold mornings. When the day had warmed up a bit, we'd eat them! Taking Grandad to the footy when he was older was like moving house each weekend, he had a cushion, a rug, transistor radio, earplugs, spare batteries, a 9 course degustation menu in grease proof paper and biscuit tins, 2 thermos flasks, pens to mark up the record book (that was my job and I hated it), last weeks record book, spare scarf, the newspaper, binoculars .......... all transported in 2 vinyl Jetset Tours bags. It's easy to be nostalgic of course, but looking back, although it annoyed the hell out of me at the time, chomping at the bit to find my mates and yahoo around, it was a very nice childhood with 3 generations and extended family together at the footy each weekend bickering over the binoculars. My own father has turned into his father, taking a fair bit of luggage to the footy with him - guess I'm next ........

Penster, about your "Grandad insisting we get to freezing cold Winter grounds at 9am to watch the U19’s" (wish I'd had a Grandad like that!), I have similar memories of coaching junior school teams at the same time of day in the same kind of conditions. Great days in a less 'entitled', less wimpish age. Same with watching footy at the traditional suburban grounds. But, after a while it had two effects: ensuring that I wore wellies outside very thick socks, and eventually (in my late 40s) finding job which did not have that as a condition of the employment. Reality catching up with nostalgia!

Agree Spotty186. Inclusion means people don't miss out on opportunities because it's an exclusive closed door white boys club. Double headers would represent great bang for buck on game day. I remember Grandad insisting we get to freezing cold Winter grounds at 9am to watch the U19's followed by the reserves followed by the seniors. The only thing he enjoyed more was watching his grandchildren play sport and kicked the Sherrin with the boys and girls in the backyard. Glad the old boy passed on before Fitzroy was shipped interstate, but he'd have enjoyed the womens comp as much as he enjoyed watching womens tennis and representative cricket. I hate pies is hoping the thing fails and rarely misses an opportunity to deride the womens comp as "social agenda" (citing that women are inferior to men in sport) rather than "sporting agenda". Speaking on behalf of "most footy fans" is also amusing and flies in the face of stats.

Yes good point, I missed that. It's the showgrounds. Has retained timber character and was rated best game day experience in 2016 I believe. And for good reason. The big one next door to it, branded as "ANZ" - is completely soulless.

On ya Leo! I'm some sort of lap dog.