It seems the AFL has been listening to fans and battling clubs about how unbalanced the fixture has been in recent years.
So it has come up with a 17-5 proposal.
Everyone plays each other once after 17 rounds.
Then, the fixture rolls around somewhat, whereby the ladder determines the last 5 matches.
To use an example, I’m going to use the current ladder and a possible grouping of teams per tier and a potential round 22.
Top tier: Fremantle, West Coast, Collingwood, Sydney, Adelaide, GWS
Middle tier: Bulldogs, Hawthorn, North, Port, Essendon and Geelong
Bottom tier: Richmond, St. Kilda, Melbourne, Gold Coast, fark Carlton and Brisbane.
Fremantle v West Coast
Collingwood v Sydney
Adelaide v GWS
Western Bulldogs v Hawthorn
North Melbourne v Port Adelaide
Essendon v Geelong
Richmond v St. Kilda
Melbourne v Gold Coast
fark Carlton v Brisbane
This is a shocking idea for the simple fact teams will try and finish lower to get a better draw and then accelerate towards the end. It will happen
Yeah Nah, I wouldnt be messing with form to try and make a run at the end, would rather be entrenched in the 8 by round 17 than playing funny buggers on the expectation that we would come good.
This is a shocking idea for the simple fact teams will try and finish lower to get a better draw and then accelerate towards the end. It will happen
Yeah Nah, I wouldnt be messing with form to try and make a run at the end, would rather be entrenched in the 8 by round 17 than playing funny buggers on the expectation that we would come good.
Only way to be fair is to play 17 games or 34
34 is way too much and 17 is not fair because you then have to consider home/away games.
If you have an easier run from round 17 you wouldn’t go out to lose but you would save some players(cotton ball so to say) and then release them after this period to make the most of especially if you see yourself within the middle tier.
There is no gain in splitting this.
It works to an extent they just need to change the drafting process and make it NBA like with teams 12-18 going into a lottery.
What the fark are the bottom 6 teams going to be playing for. 3 meaningless games for each of the last 5 weeks. That’ll be good for the ratings. People say let them play for picks to prevent tanking. But then you have the situation where the genuinely worst teams will not get the best picks. The opposite of what’s intended.
What happens to 6th place? Do they get a guaranteed top 6 finish no matter what? Would be the only fair way. They could be percentage ahead of 7th only but it wouldn’t be fair letting them fall down the ladder since they have to play the top 5 but 7 gets to play 8-12.
But then 6th placed team has no incentive to win if top 4 is too far out of reach. Just have a mini preseason to get ready for the finals. Going 0-5 wouldn’t matter in those last 5 weeks.
It’s a fkn stupid idea with flaws everywhere.
And people are only coming up with these fkn stupid ideas because the current system is fkn stupid.
18 teams 22 games. Makes no sense, 22 weeks is just a relic to the VFL days and the maximum time the stadiums are available.
If someone suggested changing all the soccer leagues from 38 matches to 42 matches because you could have some extra derbies and rivalry matches at the cost of a legitimate fixture then people would call that a fkn stupid idea.
But we just keep the status quo of 22 weeks because it’s okay to dilute the competition and squeeze out and extra 45 matches to sell more ads and give the executives a bigger bonus at the expense of the players’ health as its become clear that 22 matches is too much the way the game is played these days.
Make it a legitimate sport FFS. It’s not meant to be a device to sell advertising as its main priority.
The proposal to me is pretty clearly that the top 6 are guaranteed finals and play a mini 5 game season against each other for positions, the middle 6 play a mini season for the last two finals spots, and the bottom 6 play for the draft picks.
I think it’s pretty dumb for the top six, unless they also changed the finals structure a bit. It would make the middle 6 exciting, but then it already is exciting for those teams in the race for finals at the end of the year, so it doesn’t really do much. And it’s incredibly dumb for bottom 6 teams, it pretty much guarantees 13th or 14th is the place to go for pick 1.
They don’t want to move to the obvious solution of a 17 round season because money. I’m sure they have a whole bunch of “fan focused” reasons, but it’s clearly money.
A 17 round season obviously has some home and away problems, but there are two teams in each state outside of Victoria so you play one of them interstate, one of them in Victoria. Interstate teams play one derby (alternating home team each year), then have 8 trips (5 to Victoria, one to each of the other states). It’s hardly rocket science.
■■■■■■ financially if we got GWS and Gold Coast twice instead of Collingwood or Carlton. Go from splitting the takings of 4 80,000ish crowds to 2 home games of about 35,000
17 round season would surely increase attendances and viewer numbers too, with each game meaning more in the context of the season.
Not sure anyone involved in the game are capable of thinking two steps ahead. They understand More teams = more viewers, more games = more viewers, more more = more.
17 round season would surely increase attendances and viewer numbers too, with each game meaning more in the context of the season.
Not sure anyone involved in the game are capable of thinking two steps ahead. They understand More teams = more viewers, more games = more viewers, more more = more.
I had an idea earlier, a 34 round season but with an extra 17 teams?
How about this for a draw…
Play everyone once, then the rest of the games are random.
No teams are set to play each other twice. Everything random. If the networks don’t like it, then they’ll have to learn to market the games better rather than use the game to market their own crap (I.e. Presto, etc.).
How about this for a draw...
Play everyone once, then the rest of the games are random.
No teams are set to play each other twice. Everything random. If the networks don’t like it, then they’ll have to learn to market the games better rather than use the game to market their own crap (I.e. Presto, etc.).
I like it. Every Monday after round 17 the coaches can spin a big wheel and find out their opponents for the next week.