Ok, so we have had a few seasons of free agency and have seen enough really to gauge an opinion on whether or not it is a success.
Just basing this on the goal of creating an even competition which cycles and allows teams equal opportunity to rise to the top and preferably not spend too long on the bottom as well as creating an interesting competition with multiple contenders for the grand final.
Pros
Middle of the road clubs could possibly gain the services of a good mature player to lift them up the ranks. This hasn't been entirely the case as of yet. Betts has been good for Adelaide and Goodard has been good for Essendon but there aren't too many examples of this so far. Hard to see any club which has gone from a 5th-10th place side and risen to be around the top 4 due to free agency.
Allows players to gain a huge retirement bonus. Good for the players, not so good for the clubs.
Allows players to play where ever they want in their final years.
Allows players to chase premierships.
Cons
The strong get stronger and stay stronger for longer. We have seen an already strong Sydney side and Hawthorn side who have both recently won premierships or played in grand finals go out and get whoever they want/need to be stronger with ease. Hawthorn needed a big defender so they went out and bought Lake. Franklin is one of the best players in the league and wanted to get out of Melbourne so Sydney just bought him. The down time or rebuild time that many of these top sides go through between flags is shrinking or disappearing. When they have a hole or two they simply go out and get a good free agent to fill it. I think we can expect to see the same few teams up the top of the ladder for quite some time.
The weak get weaker. Struggling teams like St Kilda, Melbourne and the Bulldogs are a smorgasbord from top tier clubs. Free agents in struggling sides are simply going for greener pastures. Lake , Goddard and eventually Frawley. Usually struggling rebuilding teams are crying out for mature players to lead the younger ones but they leaving. There is no doubt that had these clubs retained the players they have lost or will lose they would be more competitive and would have a better development environment.
Equalisation. Free agency goes in the opposite direction to what AFL have always gone. We have had a system in place where the lesser sides get the better draft picks and while it doesn't always work due to bad drafting from these teams, history suggests that is does as most teams (possibly all) have finished top 4 and made preliminary finals over the last 20 or so years. Free agency robs from the poor to give to the rich.
Players/managers can hold the club over a barrel and end up on huge salaries. Sometimes having players on massive salaries, particularly for rebuilding clubs can cause problems with the salary cap and make it harder to keep other players and worse, it makes it harder to attract new talent in as the squeeze on their cap space will be too much. For these lesser clubs you either lose a good player or you keep one who is being grossly over paid and taking up much of the salary cap. Then there are the desperate clubs who snare themselves a free agent and again they are facing cap problems in the future by having an over paid player on the list in some cases.
It doesn't help lesser sides at all. Some players have gone to middle of the road teams and been ok but there isn't any evidence that it helps sides on the bottom or that it really gives middle of the ladder teams much of an improvement as generally these teams have more than one or two holes to fill.
Conclusion
It's got to go. It's great for the players and their managers but it's terrible for the competition and is disruptive to the natural cycle of the teams in the AFL. No one wants to see the same two or three teams battling it out for the next 5+ years or want to see one or two teams who are so far ahead of the rest that the whole season is about waiting for them to play off or win the grand final. No one wants to see the same teams in the grand final or winning it all the time. The league needs to be working hard at equalisation and giving lower teams better opportunity to build and improve but it also needs to make sure they aren't making things too easy for the top sides.
On one hand we are giving the worst team in the competition the number one draft pick and on the other hand, the best two, three or four teams are getting access to buy some of the best senior players in the competition. For a competition who are supposed to have equalisation as a priority, this is very strange.
Teams like Hawthorn, Geelong and Sydney have been doing a good enough job of sustaining an elite quality list without free agency. Generally they play off in a grand final, then perhaps have 1-4 years where they rebuild and have another go at it. That's great and good on them for being top talent scouts but now you have eliminated/shortened this rebuild period with free agency for some of these teams and they are just going to be up there the whole time. It's creating an uninteresting three tier competition. Elite teams, middle teams and bottom teams, it just seems the gap is widening and it's getting harder to become a premiership contender.
Maybe it hasn't been in place long enough to see if it is really going to work but this certainly looks the way things are going.
What are people's thoughts?
Just basing this on the goal of creating an even competition which cycles and allows teams equal opportunity to rise to the top and preferably not spend too long on the bottom as well as creating an interesting competition with multiple contenders for the grand final.
Pros
Middle of the road clubs could possibly gain the services of a good mature player to lift them up the ranks. This hasn't been entirely the case as of yet. Betts has been good for Adelaide and Goodard has been good for Essendon but there aren't too many examples of this so far. Hard to see any club which has gone from a 5th-10th place side and risen to be around the top 4 due to free agency.
Allows players to gain a huge retirement bonus. Good for the players, not so good for the clubs.
Allows players to play where ever they want in their final years.
Allows players to chase premierships.
Cons
The strong get stronger and stay stronger for longer. We have seen an already strong Sydney side and Hawthorn side who have both recently won premierships or played in grand finals go out and get whoever they want/need to be stronger with ease. Hawthorn needed a big defender so they went out and bought Lake. Franklin is one of the best players in the league and wanted to get out of Melbourne so Sydney just bought him. The down time or rebuild time that many of these top sides go through between flags is shrinking or disappearing. When they have a hole or two they simply go out and get a good free agent to fill it. I think we can expect to see the same few teams up the top of the ladder for quite some time.
The weak get weaker. Struggling teams like St Kilda, Melbourne and the Bulldogs are a smorgasbord from top tier clubs. Free agents in struggling sides are simply going for greener pastures. Lake , Goddard and eventually Frawley. Usually struggling rebuilding teams are crying out for mature players to lead the younger ones but they leaving. There is no doubt that had these clubs retained the players they have lost or will lose they would be more competitive and would have a better development environment.
Equalisation. Free agency goes in the opposite direction to what AFL have always gone. We have had a system in place where the lesser sides get the better draft picks and while it doesn't always work due to bad drafting from these teams, history suggests that is does as most teams (possibly all) have finished top 4 and made preliminary finals over the last 20 or so years. Free agency robs from the poor to give to the rich.
Players/managers can hold the club over a barrel and end up on huge salaries. Sometimes having players on massive salaries, particularly for rebuilding clubs can cause problems with the salary cap and make it harder to keep other players and worse, it makes it harder to attract new talent in as the squeeze on their cap space will be too much. For these lesser clubs you either lose a good player or you keep one who is being grossly over paid and taking up much of the salary cap. Then there are the desperate clubs who snare themselves a free agent and again they are facing cap problems in the future by having an over paid player on the list in some cases.
It doesn't help lesser sides at all. Some players have gone to middle of the road teams and been ok but there isn't any evidence that it helps sides on the bottom or that it really gives middle of the ladder teams much of an improvement as generally these teams have more than one or two holes to fill.
Conclusion
It's got to go. It's great for the players and their managers but it's terrible for the competition and is disruptive to the natural cycle of the teams in the AFL. No one wants to see the same two or three teams battling it out for the next 5+ years or want to see one or two teams who are so far ahead of the rest that the whole season is about waiting for them to play off or win the grand final. No one wants to see the same teams in the grand final or winning it all the time. The league needs to be working hard at equalisation and giving lower teams better opportunity to build and improve but it also needs to make sure they aren't making things too easy for the top sides.
On one hand we are giving the worst team in the competition the number one draft pick and on the other hand, the best two, three or four teams are getting access to buy some of the best senior players in the competition. For a competition who are supposed to have equalisation as a priority, this is very strange.
Teams like Hawthorn, Geelong and Sydney have been doing a good enough job of sustaining an elite quality list without free agency. Generally they play off in a grand final, then perhaps have 1-4 years where they rebuild and have another go at it. That's great and good on them for being top talent scouts but now you have eliminated/shortened this rebuild period with free agency for some of these teams and they are just going to be up there the whole time. It's creating an uninteresting three tier competition. Elite teams, middle teams and bottom teams, it just seems the gap is widening and it's getting harder to become a premiership contender.
Maybe it hasn't been in place long enough to see if it is really going to work but this certainly looks the way things are going.
What are people's thoughts?
