18 minute quarters

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Remember when the AFL introduced the new rules for 2018 and the AFL/media were jerking off at the prospect of 40 goal shootouts.................

now we have team scoreless qtrs, endless team goalless qtrs, combined goalless qtrs, 8 goals to 6 is now a classic, s**t teams park the bus and people want this to continue FMD.

Adding 2 minutes to each qtr is not going to improve the above bullshit, all it will do is turn those games into 10 goal to 8 classics instead.

Get it back to 20 minutes FFS.
 

Shaneprice97

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1. No score reviews for touched balls outside the goal square. These reviews are almost always a waste of time. If the field or goal umps see it, they see it. If not, do a better job smothering. The cameras aren't designed to zoom in on snaps from 30m out.
The cameras aren’t designed for any kind of distance and turn to s**t once the footage slows down.
 

RichLeMonde

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The wiki link you sent about "shock therapy_economics" is nonsense. There is no such concept in economics.

The page ties together a range of concepts and events into a single concept but of the economists that have been identified as proponents

1) Milton Friedman, is a monetarist / libertarian economist whose ideas did indeed form a significant part of the ideological foundation of the political paradigm called neoliberalism. Someone has amended the page to note that some critique from the cato institute (a libertarian think tank) says that Friedman was take out of context in the attribution of "shock therapy"

2) Jeffrey Sachs is a new-Keynesian macro-economist who....



The page then goes on to list of overall incoherent set of examples of essentially radical economic reform of very disparate types in a range of contexts (eg post war reconstruction, post communism, hyperinflation)

and then provides a "theory section" which is basically un-referenced pseudo-economics





I suspect it is true that the AFL will seek to make changes it has wanted to previously because the COVID crises gives it the opportunity to do so in what it thinks is the best interest of the game. You can make arguments that the AFL is prone to undervaluing certain non-monetisable elements of the game in its decision making but to call it a "purely economic motive" is a particularly dull comment and to conflate it with Friemanite neoliberalism is beyond dull
Agree that the term "shock therapy economics" is jargonistic and imprecise, and is applied in that wiki to too wide a range of examples to offer much analytically. Nonetheless, the term has a place in academic literature, mainly in Political Economy (the discipline that, unlike mainstream Economics, sees politics and economics as essentially inseparable). Of course you won't get discussion of "shock therapy" in mainstream economics. Mainstream economics systematically elides the political dimensions of economics and treats its matter as somehow abstract, scientific and free of ideology, which is, of course, a supremely ideological move. For examples of use of the concept in academic literature, see, for example, From Shock to Therapy: The Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation (Oxford University Press 2000), "The Political Economy of Shock Therapy" (Journal of Economic Surveys 2002).

For a more historical treatment of the development of the "shock doctrine", read Klein's book, then get back to me. Her use is more specific, and details Freidman's role more thoroughly. Her development and use of the concept is consistent, and she doesn't apply it so widely to heterogenous situations, such as - as you note - post communism. Obviously it is redundant to speak of ramming home wholesale economic changes in the context of a country's transition from communism to capitalism, for example.

Gil's actions during covid have actually fit in perfectly with the 'shock doctrine' that Klein describes. A night grand final, shorter quarters, games on tv every night of the week - these are changes that the community of footy fans would not have accepted in 'normal' times. It is no coincidence that Gil has rammed them through all in one hit, during a period of (real or imagined) crisis.

You say Gil is acting in the 'best interests' of the game, and that I shouldn't conflate his style of governance with neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the ideology that the best way to manage not only an economy, but effectively all aspects of a society, is by (free) market principles. The AFL is not, in fact, a business. It's a not-for-profit. Its mission is not to generate profits for share-holders. It is entirely neoliberal to presume that whatever generates the most money for the AFL is equivalent to what is in the best interests of AFL football. All of Gil's decisions in this period have been aimed to that end, and yet most footy fans (anecdotally) seem to think they are all bad for the game. It seems like you share Gil's underlying assumption, though.
 

Swerving Irv

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McLachlan and Hocking would make a perfect comedic pairing. A real life version of Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy. How to destroy a great game in five minutes.

Wish they'd get hit by a bus.
 

JPetro83

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I will be happy with 18 min quarters or it to stay at 16:30 if we go to a 26 game season. 2 byes. Time for change. if we go to more games then i think the introduction of a wildcard weekend a week before the finals where 7 v 10 & 8 v 9 would also be great. that keeps the season alive for teams 11th-13th ish in the last part of the season.
Start season in early March. have a mid season "footy frenzy" and still have the GF on the last Sat of Sept or first Sat in Oct.
 
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I guess hardcore footy fans want to stay at 20 mins.

For casual fans and to attract new fans they want a bit shorter. I think the tv networks want shorter as well.

But yes if I had my way I would keep at 20

it's really only the tv networks that deal in the amounts of time they take off the game. the 10 or whatever minutes saved at the end of a game isn't going to be the difference between someone deciding whether or not to watch it in the future.

it's rinse and repeat. we start hearing pundits making noises about the game being way too long. the afl agrees that the game is just way too long... and shaves off a mammoth 2 minutes. before this pandemic, this was the kind of time-span editing that would take place, seeing where they could find another 30 seconds every so often because the game was too long.
we could consider the reverse - 'well it's only a couple of minutes gone'. but the fans know it's not about time but the dilution of the product with ads and cross promoting whatever dross channel 7 has on.

the custodians of the game are tasked with creating a package that finishes up neatly before the news. i don't envy their job in trying to keep fans happy, while extracting maximum $ in pandemic times. but nobody is really fooled anymore about the game being too long.
 

Belnakor

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Would anyone else really hate it only because the stats wouldn’t be consistent? Very annoying.

the AFL doesn't give a * about the stats, they never have. Thats why they let Champion Data do whatever they feel like.

stuff like contested marks/possession isn't even consistent season to season.
 

JMarra

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My uncle is a sports scientist, he reckons to get optimal performance out of the athletes we should shorten quarters to 14:29mins with a halftime of 43mins. This would protect players from soft tissue injuries and allow the AFL to extend fixture to 56 games. Although due to the extensive travel fatigue WA teams could only play 41 games but a supercoach based algorithm can be used to simulate missed game results and distribute points accordingly. Pretty simple fix really not sure why we haven't done this already.
 

dean33

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I guess hardcore footy fans want to stay at 20 mins.

For casual fans and to attract new fans they want a bit shorter. I think the tv networks want shorter as well.

But yes if I had my way I would keep at 20
And this is the whole issue with the way the AFL make decisions on the direction of the game. They know as long as fans have their clubs to support and they keep it still sort of looking like Aussie rules the rusted on fan will keep going and keep watching, they don’t make decisions to appeal to the rusted on majority. They make decisions on trying to attract new fans and forge into the northern states. They look at what American sports do and try and make things shorter with more bells and whistles as they know the younger generation have attention spans of gnats so that is who they try to appeal to. It’s a disgrace.
 
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My uncle is a sports scientist, he reckons to get optimal performance out of the athletes we should shorten quarters to 14:29mins with a halftime of 43mins. This would protect players from soft tissue injuries and allow the AFL to extend fixture to 56 games. Although due to the extensive travel fatigue WA teams could only play 41 games but a supercoach based algorithm can be used to simulate missed game results and distribute points accordingly. Pretty simple fix really not sure why we haven't done this already.

Half time not long enough.
 

NoobPie

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Agree that the term "shock therapy economics" is jargonistic and imprecise, and is applied in that wiki to too wide a range of examples to offer much analytically. Nonetheless, the term has a place in academic literature, mainly in Political Economy (the discipline that, unlike mainstream Economics, sees politics and economics as essentially inseparable). Of course you won't get discussion of "shock therapy" in mainstream economics. Mainstream economics systematically elides the political dimensions of economics and treats its matter as somehow abstract, scientific and free of ideology, which is, of course, a supremely ideological move. For examples of use of the concept in academic literature, see, for example, From Shock to Therapy: The Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation (Oxford University Press 2000), "The Political Economy of Shock Therapy" (Journal of Economic Surveys 2002).

The content in that wiki page you linked was almost entirely what people would refer to as "mainstream economics" (where for instance people or theories are presented and the macroeconomic instruments referred to)

Your arbitrary distinction between "political economy" and "mainstream economics" is also nonsense.

Mainstream economics, in its narrowest sense as it relates primarily to microeconomics, reflects an orthodoxy that is rooted in neoclassical economics. To call it an ideology is almost an oxymoron. The fact that it abstracts from political and institutional factors is methodological - it is not denying they exist. When applied neutrally to politics and policy this limitation should be reflected

Political economy in the modern sense is an interdisciplinary field. The concept of Neo-liberalism is fundamentally a term that only makes sense in what would generally be referred to as "political economy". In terms of underlying economic schools it is driven at least as much by heterodox schools like Austrian economics and public choice theory than it is by a reductionist miss-application of neo-classic economics (for which an entire framework relating to market failure explicitly recognises the critical role of government).

Finally, plucking out the use of a term in a couple of academic articles does not make that a "formal" term in any economic or political economy system

For a more historical treatment of the development of the "shock doctrine", read Klein's book, then get back to me. Her use is more specific, and details Freidman's role more thoroughly. Her development and use of the concept is consistent, and she doesn't apply it so widely to heterogenous situations, such as - as you note - post communism. Obviously it is redundant to speak of ramming home wholesale economic changes in the context of a country's transition from communism to capitalism, for example.

Why would I go and read Klein's book if what you are producing is a snapshot of what's in it? Tell you what if you can direct me to a digest version I'll have a read.

Gil's actions during covid have actually fit in perfectly with the 'shock doctrine' that Klein describes. A night grand final, shorter quarters, games on tv every night of the week - these are changes that the community of footy fans would not have accepted in 'normal' times. It is no coincidence that Gil has rammed them through all in one hit, during a period of (real or imagined) crisis.

So you are conflating what has been done this year to help get through the season with permanent reforms?

At this stage none of those things are permanent. There is a good chance the grand final will be permantly moved to twilight / night which I personally hope happens

Beyond that the few "reforms" that have been committed to include is a massive cut to the soft cap on football departments. On that note I am really interested in how you would describe that as "neoliberal"?


You say Gil is acting in the 'best interests' of the game, and that I shouldn't conflate his style of governance with neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the ideology that the best way to manage not only an economy, but effectively all aspects of a society, is by (free) market principles. The AFL is not, in fact, a business. It's a not-for-profit. Its mission is not to generate profits for share-holders. It is entirely neoliberal to presume that whatever generates the most money for the AFL is equivalent to what is in the best interests of AFL football. All of Gil's decisions in this period have been aimed to that end, and yet most footy fans (anecdotally) seem to think they are all bad for the game. It seems like you share Gil's underlying assumption, though.

This paragraph just confirms how out of your depth you are.

-first sentence mischaracterises my position. I am saying that Gil and the AFL commission are acting in the best interests of the game as they see it
-second to fifth sentences are reasonable definitions of "Neo-liberalism" and what the AFL and is.
-the sixth sentence is where you run into problems as you move beyond basic definitions and start to try construct an argument. Apart from again mischaracterising my position, and the actions of the AFL (or Gil if you want to insist on dumbing down AFL commission decision making process) and making a stupid conflation of a political ideology and how a NFP operates, you are trapped in false dichotomous thinking. The AFL would look radically different if indeed all its decisions over time put an absolute premium of more money over any other consideration.

There is a relevant analogy here with "reform" generally rather than a cartoonish characterisations of AFL decisions as "neoliberalism".

The view of the "majority of fans" ( "anecdotally" or through a more credible measure) at a point in time most would agree should an input to decision making by the AFL. Sport as much as any institution bar maybe religion is inherently conservative. People are heavily identified with it and tend to be very resistant to change. The best interests for the future of the game are clearly often not aligned with what a raw majority of fans want.

Most reform of public policy and institutions faces the same challenge.
 
I'm actually fine with the standard 30 second break to get an ad in to pay for things. It takes about that long anyway so may as well standardise it.

The one minute break between goals that they've been using this year is horrendous and would be the first thing to go.

Who says an ad needs to be 30 seconds?

A 20 second ad would bring in almost the same revenue, and would shorten the match by a few minutes. (allowing time for more ads afterwards)
 

Jackie_Moon

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Six month off seasons are too long, shorter game time and more of them would be the go, play low attendance games mid week. Perfect time for a shake up, might help keep the now gen interested.
 

Sector 7G

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no sh*t, the AFL broadcasters want it and I reckon so do the players as a majority. I predicted from the start the AFL would use strong TV ratings as the reason and we'd never go back to 20 min quarters.
The rating aren't that good considering there is nothing to do in Melbourne. Would have watched half as much footy if I could go to the driving range/movie theatre/restaurants etc.
 

RichLeMonde

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The content in that wiki page you linked was almost entirely what people would refer to as "mainstream economics" (where for instance people or theories are presented and the macroeconomic instruments referred to)
I agree the wiki page included examples from mainstream economics. I shouldn't have lazily linked that page. It's a bad page.
Your arbitrary distinction between "political economy" and "mainstream economics" is also nonsense.
There's a Department of Political Economy at University of Sydney, in the School of Social and Political Sciences. There's also a School of Economics (which doesn't have individual Departments within it: it only deals with economics). I'm not sure what you mean by 'arbitrary distinction' when the 2 are taught as entirely different disciplines. A mainstream economicst could never publish in a political economy journal, and vice versa. I suggest looking up the Dunning-Kruger effect. Your certainty regarding this topic is directly proportional to your ignorance.
Mainstream economics, in its narrowest sense as it relates primarily to microeconomics, reflects an orthodoxy that is rooted in neoclassical economics. To call it an ideology is almost an oxymoron. The fact that it abstracts from political and institutional factors is methodological - it is not denying they exist. When applied neutrally to politics and policy this limitation should be reflected

Political economy in the modern sense is an interdisciplinary field. The concept of Neo-liberalism is fundamentally a term that only makes sense in what would generally be referred to as "political economy". In terms of underlying economic schools it is driven at least as much by heterodox schools like Austrian economics and public choice theory than it is by a reductionist miss-application of neo-classic economics (for which an entire framework relating to market failure explicitly recognises the critical role of government).
What point are you trying to make? Above you said any distinction between mainstream economics and political economy was 'arbitrary'. Now you're acknowledging political economy is an interdisciplinary field. You also make the point that the Austrian School (considered heterodox) contributes to neoliberal ideology, as though I had said that neoclassical economics and neoliberalism are perfectly synonymous. I never said that. I simply said that you wouldn't get discussion of "shock therapy" in mainstream economics, and that the rationale behind Gil's recent decision-making aligns with neoliberal ideology, and is also well-explained by the 'shock doctrine'.
Finally, plucking out the use of a term in a couple of academic articles does not make that a "formal" term in any economic or political economy system
Not a couple of journal articles. One is an entire book addressed to the topic and published by Oxford University Press. Dunning-Kruger effect. Again. "Formal" doesn't mean that something has to be a fundamental basis of a discipline and taught to all students, or even that it a concept is widely applied. It means that a concept has been formalised. In political economy, such formalisation is conceptual and theoretical; it does not involve producing a model, as in neoclassical economics. When an entire book has been written on a concept and published by the world's most reputable academic publisher, it is safe to say that it has been formalised.
Why would I go and read Klein's book if what you are producing is a snapshot of what's in it? Tell you what if you can direct me to a digest version I'll have a read.
Dunning-Kruger. You are the one who insists on spouting off that everything about the "shock doctrine" is nonsene, without knowing the slightest thing about it. By refusing to read a book on the exact topic that you dismiss with such certitude, you are simply revealing yourself as wilfully ignorant.
So you are conflating what has been done this year to help get through the season with permanent reforms?

At this stage none of those things are permanent.
Gil said last night we won't go back to 20 minute quarters next season. THAT. IS. WHAT. THIS. THREAD. IS. ABOUT. Please stop making declamatory statements when you don't make the slightest effort to inform yourself on the topic at hand.
Beyond that the few "reforms" that have been committed to include is a massive cut to the soft cap on football departments. On that note I am really interested in how you would describe that as "neoliberal"?
This is where we could actually get into a deeper academic discussion on neoliberalism. I defined it above as the ideology of preferring a free market as the means of organising society. A bit more nuance is actually required. All the literature on neoliberalism in the last 10 years has revealed that this picture is actually a bit of a myth (which I repeated for simplicity). Neoliberalism actually involves a significant amount of state intervention to maintain certain market conditions. We can't really go in to this on Bigfooty, but it's a very interesting and active area of contemporary scholarly debate. So to your question: cutting the soft cap on football departments is obviously not a matter of simply leaving it to the market. But that doesn't mean his approach, overall, is not neoliberal. It would take quite a bit of work, though, to cash out exactly how we are going to use that term.
The AFL would look radically different if indeed all its decisions over time put an absolute premium of more money over any other consideration.
Can you give any examples of where the AFL has not put an absolute premium of more money over other considerations (bearing in mind they have a longterm strategic focus, so financial objectives are longterm rather than shorterm)? Even the pouring of money into AFLW is part of a longterm financial strategy to ensure that half the population are fully tapped as a market. Propping up clubs like North and St Kilda is also, ultimately, based on the premise that maintaining these clubs brings in more money than it costs.
The best interests for the future of the game are clearly often not aligned with what a raw majority of fans want.
So footy fans don't understand what is in the best interests of the future of the game and need people like you or Gil to show them the economic-managerial light? Thanks for clearing that up.
 
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