So long as we're shaking up the AFL draft, why not make it an auction?

Next week’s AFL Draft will be the latest incarnation of an event that has evolved rapidly and indelicately in recent years.

Only four years ago the draft was a straightforward, annual event at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, but in the time since it has hopped around to Adelaide, two different Sydney venues and this year will be held at Marvel Stadium.

Meanwhile, the format has been shaken up significantly by the introduction of bidding points and is set for another revolution this year in the form of live trading.

The bidding points system was brought in with the goal of making clubs pay a fair price for academy and father-son players, but hasn’t really accomplished much – clubs have consistently found ways to trade backwards for multiple picks in the draft and typically use this to acquire players just as cheaply as they did under the previous system.

Meanwhile, its introduction has increased the odds of tech fails and delays in an event already accused of being too drawn out – what was already a minnow event on the AFL calendar is now a migraine maker also.

The introduction of live trading this year – while the concept has potential – seems likely only to exacerbate the dragging on of the draft.

It has been confirmed that this year’s event will run over two days with the first round on next Thursday night and the remainder to follow on Friday, but aside from that relatively little is known about the draft format at this point.

Is this because the AFL is keeping things under wraps, or is it because they themselves – with less than a week to go – still haven’t really got it all figured out yet? We can hope for the former, but I suspect it’s the latter.

The move to Marvel Stadium was originally touted as an opportunity to unveil new draftees live on the oval in front of a thousands-strong crowd, but more recent news suggests the draft will be held behind closed doors in a conference room with no option whatsoever for a fan audience to attend.

The fact that the draft tickets page on the AFL website is currently nothing other than a blank white space suggests this will be the case.

It seems likely this year that the time gap between draft picks will have to be increased to give clubs the chance to potentially negotiate a deal (NFL franchises, for example, spend ten minutes ‘on the clock’ per draft pick), but – for this inaugural introduction at least – clubs are likely to be reticent to actually make these deals.

I’d love to be surprised, but at the moment I fear we’re set to watch a draft that drags on for five minutes or more between picks, with the only live trading to ultimately occur likely being some minor pick swaps late in the piece – if anything.

Sure, things will improve after a few years as the AFL finds through trial and error the best way to streamline the process while clubs become more comfortable with the idea of making live pick trades during the draft, but the convoluted nature of the event will ensure the draft remains a largely inaccessible niche event.

As someone who loves the draft – I once stayed up the entire night beforehand because I was too excited for watching it to sleep – I feel like this is a waste of what could be one of the most widely anticipated nights on the AFL calendar.

Realistically, unless the AFL under-18 comp gains interest comparative to that of college football and basketball in the US – and it won’t and shouldn’t – the AFL draft is never going to be proportional in size to that of the NFL or NBA, but it could be made not only more palatable to fans but also benefit both draftees and the clubs by switching to an auction format.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

How would this work? Essentially instead of giving each club a set of draft picks at the end of the season, the AFL would award them a number of draft points.

Then on draft night, the eighteen clubs could take it in turn to nominate a player for auction (being required to place an initial bid on the player by doing so), before each club has the chance to bid for the services of the nominated player.

The AFL could simply award clubs the number of points that their current draft hands should be worth according to the existing draft value index, which would see the club finishing 18th have 4647 points to spend, while the premiers would bring only 1726 points to the table.

A mechanic could easily be left in to still allow clubs priority access to father-son and academy players by giving them the same discount as is currently awarded if they are successful in bidding for them.

This format change would instantly transform the draft from what can be an unwatchable snail crawl at times to a lively and fast-paced affair with all the excitement that naturally comes from an auction.

Call up a professional auctioneer to handle the business or even just get Gillon McLachlan to do it (he can read out Brownlow votes pretty quickly when he has to), then sit back and watch the human drama unfold as the likes of Stephen Silvagni and Adrian Dodoro make each other sweat.

One of the biggest issues with the current draft format is that so much of the early portion of the evening can be predicted with a reasonable degree of success well in advance, and what happens beyond that is really just small potatoes.

An auction draft, however, would throw everything into chaos as clubs would undoubtedly keep their cards incredibly close to their chests, and players could feasibly head to just about any destination rather than one of the few holding picks in the right vicinity of the draft for them.

Most importantly, an auction is simple – you don’t need any fancy tech to make it happen, which means you don’t have the risk of said tech breaking down and causing delays.

That’s a recipe for an event infinitely more watchable than the current format tends to be.

(Photo by Matt Roberts/Getty Images)

However, the switch to an auction draft is not a move to be made just for increased watchability – it would also be of significant benefit to both clubs and draftees.

Clubs would benefit from the simplification of the draft as it would make wheeling and dealing during the trade period much more straightforward, and also go a long way towards making sure everyone pays a fair price for the players they recruit.

At the moment the AFL trade period is often taken up with needlessly complex deals that see clubs swap around half a dozen picks in one transaction trying to find the right balance in a deal.

In an auction draft, the clubs need only find an agreeable amount of points to transfer, and bang – deal done.

Meanwhile there’d be no need for clubs to “reach” for a player they could draft later with an earlier pick – instead, they just pay the price the market dictates when the player comes up for auction.

Oh, and it’d also get rid of that horrific two-first-round-picks-in-four-years future trading rule that is so head-scratching that most of the AFL doesn’t understand it.

For players, it’d mean they are bound to arrive at the club which values them the most (and can afford them), increasing the chances that they will get early opportunities in their AFL career and settle into their home without the need to seek a trade early in their careers.

The regular changes made to the draft model over the past few years and the fact that more (such as a mid-season rookie draft in 2019) are being explored makes it clear that the AFL is willing to tinker with the draft.

Instead of grafting more and more complex systems and rules onto an already elaborate machine, let’s strip it down to the bare essentials of an auction – benefitting clubs, players, fans and HQ in the process.

Why not?