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With the excitement of a free-flowing, goal scoring World Cup in full swing it has highlighted once again that these winter weeks of the AFL season are becoming worse with each passing year.
Lopsided contests have become a blight on the game as teams have been crippled by injuries and are failing to be competitive, while the two expansion clubs continue to deliver very little bang for their buck.
Poor crowds, sagging television ratings and congested, messy games are seeing people turn away with other options readily available at their fingertips.
I myself, an avid Magpie man who goes every week was looking at any excuse to avoid the doldrums of another bleak 3:20pm Sunday fixture against the Blues, a game I knew would not offer much in the way of excitement.
Thank goodness for Charlie Curnow.
The AFL has traditionally always been very conservative and slow to move when change has been required (see: night grand final).
On the flipside, the NRL has shown flexibility moving the time-honoured Wednesday State of Origin to a Sunday night to boost the profile Australia-wide, changing the sporting landscape and winning new supporters.
So, what can be done to bring excitement back to the game?
While there are many ideas around fixing the aesthetics some simple tweaks outside the game itself could certainly help generate more interest.
1) No more three-week bye rounds
Every year, right when the league needs a shot in the arm, we are hit with a three-week, six-games-a-weekend block which leaves fans frustrated and ensures a sharper focus on games which should probably be hidden from mainstream television viewing.
I understand the players have argued for the break in their AFLPA contract (isn’t the reason for a squad to allow for others to step in when players are sore?), but why not make it one single weekend?
Plus with the weekend off, the AFL could build a bigger focus on my next point.
2) Mid-season trades
Cricket Australia seethes every year when newspaper back pages in October and November are dedicated to AFL trades and drafts rather than upcoming Test matches.
Fans love it, as it allows them to dream of what might be and administrators love the continued attention on their code.
Having a mid-season trade period over the single bye weekend would be an amazing way to help give fans some renewed hope should a spate of injuries threaten to ruin their season.
It allows players who may otherwise not be getting a game to change clubs and allow teams to help bolster tiring playing lists.
The hype and hysteria would provide wall-to-wall coverage of the AFL and surely is a no-brainer in some form in 2019.
You only have to look at how the NBA trade period completely dominates baseball to see how much it engages with fans.
3) Shorten the season
We are at Round 15 and it feels like we should be entering the finals in the next month.
The top eight is close to being settled, with the bottom eight sides now clearly out of contention and probably dreading the final eight weeks of the year.
They have very little to gain except to blood some young players and hopefully get a head start on 2019 by sending others in for surgery.
The quality of the games involving those teams goes into freefall and again, it is the viewing public that suffers.
The fixture every year is hotly debated as by its very nature can’t be fair on all teams.
One way to help make it fairer is to simply have every side play each other once.
17 rounds would seem an ideal solution, as we would currently only be three weeks off finals and those out of contention would not have two months of malaise.
While I understand the AFL have obligations to media outlets about a set number of games this can be somewhat met by…
4) Extending the finals
As discussed above, we still have 10-11 teams with a genuine chance of playing finals footy and games involving those teams will be hotly contested.
Why not extend the finals series to include a wildcard weekend, where seven to ten play each other while the top six are rewarded with a weekend to refresh?
This would extend the finals to run a full five weeks and ensure more teams stay engaged and can battle for a finals spot.
While some would argue it rewards mediocrity, fans crave success and adding the hope of having your team involved in a wildcard fixture to get into the final eight would see a huge interest surge among spectators, particularly those whose clubs have been starved of success.
By making these simple changes outside the arena, we could see a more exciting season which keeps fans engaged and add some spice to an otherwise mundane winter.
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