A revised attempt at an AFL conference system

I'm sorry, but it's a bad idea. American sports use conferences because there are plenty of teams evenly dispersed throughout the country to warrant it. In the AFL, West Coast and Fremantle are the only two teams on the West Coast of Australia, it simply is illogical to use a conference system in the AFL. Conferences in American sport are used to minimise traveling from one side of the country to the other, it's necessary in order to create a sense of fairness in a travel sense, otherwise, the Golden State Warriors could find themselves playing far too many games on the East Coast. Simply putting West Coast and Fremantle in a conference that requires them to play the same number of games in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland as they always have played simply makes no sense whatsoever. The fact that 14 of 18 clubs are located in the Eastern half of Australia negates the necessity of conferences. Conferences only work if there are enough teams, geographically speaking, in different parts of the country, otherwise, all you're doing is basically dividing the league into three groups for no reason at all. You might as well say, okay, these six teams will all face the same teams twice, and so will these six, and so will these six. Every team already plays five teams twice, all you're doing here is grouping teams together for absolutely no reason. In fact, what you're doing is potentially saying, if a team wins their conference, say, with 15 wins, they get to finish higher on a final ladder than a team who finishes second in another conference with 17 wins. That is absolutely undeserved. The reason it is okay in American sports is because the playoffs are still divided into two conferences. So, it's okay for a team to finish second in the Eastern Conference of the NBA with less wins that a team who finishes first in the Western Conference because the playoffs for each conferences occur independently from each other. But your proposal is for all ten finalists to go into the same finals group. It is completely farcical and shows a lack of understanding about conferences and the role they play. You are trying too hard to force a change to something that doesn't need to be changed.

If the conference system you're proposing does see the light of day at AFL HQ, then what will happen to the showcase games such as Carlton v Collingwood (The Old Firm), Easter Monday (Hawthorn v Geelong) ANZAC Day (Essendon v Collingwood), Queen's Birthday match (Melbourne v Collingwood), the Western Derby (West Coast v Fremantle), the Showdown (Adelaide v Port Adelaide) the QClash (Brisbane v Gold Coast), and the Battle of the Bridge (Sydney Swans v GWS)?

Sorry, misunderstood.

Have to agree with that.The AFL likes things just fine the way they are The fixture is one of their best tools for manipulating results for bigger profits and helping teams they for whatever reason want to be successful. The other tool is rule changes and directing umpires interpretation of current rules. If you got rid of these tools they would basicly just have to sit back and watch who wins with no way of manufacturing favourable results. Plus we would have alot less to talk about during the offseason.

I tend to agree with you. I don't think playing teams an uneven amount of times is particularly unfair. When it comes down to it you have to better than all teams if you want to be premiers. If you blame a rough draw for missing the 8, you don't deserve to be there.

With 18 teams, each club plays the other at least once, that's 17 games, and there's five left over to make the 22 game fixture. The 2-2-1 (or 3-1-1) idea is the AFL splitting the final placings at the end of one season into groups of three (1 to 6; 7-12 and 13 to 18), and the remaining five games are spread across the three groupings, so a team finishing in the top six will play 2 or 3 teams from the top six twice, etc, and at the other end of the ladder, the same thing is happening.

I view it as a reward/opportunity for finishing top 4... but I see your point. The "second chance" component for the top 4 is also about potentially testing each of those teams against each other to determine who are the ultimate premiers.

I see, but these things even out over time, one year you're playing the defending premiers twice, the next you're playing the wooden spooners twice. Generally the top teams in the comp finish in those top 4 spots without needing much of a leg-up. However you can feel pretty filthy if you've got a rough draw and you've only just finished 5th or 9th etc.

Pardon my ignorance - what's the 2-2-1 format? Oh my point about domestic comps was referring to Australian domestic comps vs non-Australian comps Cheers Rob

Where did I say the Bulldogs game was useless? The useless games are the non-final finals. The so-called 'double chance' games are just plain stupid and nothing more than a money grab.

That's the way it should be. Always tickets if you are smart enough to get in early.

Except if Hawthorn did host Geelong at York Park you probably wouldn't get a ticket

Your system is fair but I don't think that's what the AFL have as their top priority. If they did they could use your system or something similar (as the NFL does) Truth is they are much more interested in the flexibility of plonking games as they see fit. Under your system the 2 GF teams would often not play each other twice the following season, nor would Hawthorn play Sydney twice after Buddy left. This "flexibility" makes money and so will remain as long as us fans accept it.

Good try Wayne. I agree with a number of others here that this is the best attempt yet. I also agree that the problem is not a huge one. I'm not clear on how the home and away draw would look - how many games, with whom, and where? To me, the US has enough teams and the geographical distribution of teams to make their conferences fit wnd work. I don't think we do as yet.

'We already have two non-final finals, we don’t need more useless games.' Does this mean the Bulldogs would not have got to the GF from 7th, if we follow your logic, Cat?

Call them "tribes" "Hey are you going to tomorrow's tribal play off?" "They're our tribal rivals" Tribal

Why would you say you are off to a conference? It would be like saying "I'm off to a League."

"Unfortunately they come at greater cost than whatever the “problem” it is they may solve" This is probably the clearest and most succinct way to describe ideas such as this. Sure, there is a problem that exists, but it remains better than all proposed alternatives (so far).

You can simply fixture like you have mapped out without having actual conferences. Travel is never going to be fair. No matter what system you have some teams will have to travel more than others and consequently have more home ground advantage when they play at home too (that part is often ignored but it does explain why almost all the teams wi5th 'home fortresses' are interstate sides ... which is no small advantage). Every team should have to play every ground. Regardless of size or distance. The sooner the AFL stops making it so only certain teams have to play in certain places, the sooner we'll have a fairer system. If every team had to play the Hawks n Launceston on a rotating schedule, teams like Freo wouldn't get shafted having to play there seemingly every year. I'd love for a Cats v. Hawks game to be fixtured in Tassie, i would give me an excuse to visit but the AFL cares more about useless attendance figures than fairness.

Just the opposite. We identify a conference as people getting together to talk. If I say I'm off to a conference, no-one will think I'm going to the footy! It's an americanisation pure and simple.