AFL Conferences & Fixturing

[Fonetiks]

AFL Conferences & Fixturing Discussion Thread

I've had a bit of a look but I'm yet to locate a recent thread dedicated to discussing the idea of conferences and alternative fixturing in the AFL. Please redirect me if there is such a place.

We've heard of East / West conferences, previous ladder position derived conferences, 3 split conferences, top 8's, top 12's... The list goes on. Some of these ideas have no doubt been reinvigorated by Eddy's recent suggestion of a Gold Ticket entry into the finals for the winner of the pre-season competition...
*facepalm*

More than anything else, I'm interested in hearing members discuss the why/why not, how/how not debates about conferences and fixturing changes, and what we should try to do to improve the game.
I'll start off here with a conference system I think can be pretty viable.


2 x 9 TEAM CONFERENCES

RATIONALE
- Provide all teams with a fair and equitable system for success throughout the season.
- Attempt to minimise the impact that significantly disproportionate travel can have on results.
- By drawing teams into respective conferences at random, any perception of AFL bias into fixturing is almost completely eliminated.
- Create a system that is as close as possible to a true “home and away” season, without actually requiring a full 34 round season. (Given multiple sporting code conflicts, venue availability and broadcasting rights, is almost certainly impossible for the foreseeable future. Not least to mention, be incredibly taxing on players and clubs alike having a competition that extends for 40 weeks).


PROCESS
- Teams are drawn at random* and split into two conferences of 9 teams each. This makes for an initial 18 “conference rounds”. An added bonus is that it could be televised and become an eagerly anticipated event each year, rather than the current simple online release of the fixture.
* To ensure every team travels the same distance over the course of the “conference rounds”, each of the 8 interstate clubs are split up into opposing conferences from their home town rivals. This means initially that every team in the competition will travel the exact same distances across the course of the first 18 rounds.

- Conference rounds play through twice, so teams play each other both home and away.

- The 9th team each week from both conferences also plays its home town rival (or designated blockbuster for Victorian clubs) from the other conference, instead of having a bye. This not only means there are continual “rivalry” rounds EVERY WEEK, but could also ensure there are still games played in each state, during any potential whole-conference bye rounds (whenever / should they might be applied).

- After the 18 home and away conference rounds are completed, each team then plays all remaining teams once to complete the season (26 rounds in total). So each club still plays each other at least once every season.

- In order to uphold the premise of fairness and equity in relation to travel, the AFL can simply keep a ledger of home and away games for teams when only playing each other once. The next time those two teams meet only once in a season again, they will play at the opposing venue. Over the course of several seasons, it will mean that every team has had the same relative interstate advantage / disadvantage.

- All premiership points, points for, against, and percentages, are counted towards an 18 team ladder for the entirety of the season, culminating in a top 8 team finals series.

- Given the additional of AFLPA elected 2 bye rounds, 26 rounds of matches, and 4 rounds for a “top 8” finals series, the entire AFL season extends of 32 rounds / weeks. This would require the elimination of the current NAB challenge series, commencement of Round 1 in the last week or second last week of February, and the Grand Final could still be played on the last Saturday in September, or first week of October. This would in fact STILL be 1-2 weeks SHORTER than the current system given the exclusion of the widely perceived farcical and increasingly redundant pre-season "competition".
​

Random draw outcome example…


screen grab

Fire away!

 

[mike123]

Should add two more teams, have a Victorian conference and a conference for the other states.

 

[Galaxy]

Leave the game as it is

 

[Fonetiks]

Should add two more teams, have a Victorian conference and a conference for the other states.

If you have conferences with only Victorian clubs, and only interstate clubs, the interstate clubs would be travelling upwards of 2000km every 2nd week...

 

[mike123]

If you have conferences with only Victorian clubs, and only interstate clubs, the interstate clubs would be travelling upwards of 2000km every 2nd week...

Isn't it already like that?

 

[Fonetiks]

Isn't it already like that?

lol I missed the bit off the end.

...and the Victorian clubs not travelling at all.

 

[doppleganger]

You can't have teams with equal travel...

Let's say you have WCE, GWS, PA, BL and then five Melbourne based clubs in a conference.

Week one WCE and GWS play at home, wk 2 they both play away in Melbourne...it is 3500km for WCE but just 900km for GWS, and them after the game they fly back again...so a 7000km rd trip for WCE vs bout 1800km for GWS.

Best way is to group all the travelling teams against each other in a group...ie WA and SA sides, this minimises travel.

 

[mike123]

lol I missed the bit off the end.

...and the Victorian clubs not travelling at all.

Every team plays each other once so Victorians will eventually have to travel.

 

[doppleganger]

lol I missed the bit off the end.

...and the Victorian clubs not travelling at all.

Exactly so have the clubs who do travel most, be judged and ranked against other travelling sides.

 

[Fonetiks]

You can't have teams with equal travel...

Let's say you have WCE, GWS, PA, BL and then five Melbourne based clubs in a conference.

Week one WCE and GWS play at home, wk 2 they both play away in Melbourne...it is 3500km for WCE but just 900km for GWS, and them after the game they fly back again...so a 7000km rd trip for WCE vs bout 1800km for GWS.

Best way is to group all the travelling teams against each other in a group...ie WA and SA sides, this minimises travel.

My reference to equal travel is for teams from the same state regardless of which conference they're in. So that say, FRE doesn't end up travelling to Brisbane and Sydney any more times in a season than the WCE does.

How would a Non-Vic / Vic conference system play out? Rounds, rotations, etc?
I'm interested in the pros and cons, not just dismissing one idea or the other altogether.

 

[fool]

Was this thrown off the collingwood board once "traveling" was suggested?

 

[telsor]

- Given the additional of AFLPA elected 2 bye rounds, 26 rounds of matches, and 4 rounds for a “top 8” finals series, the entire AFL season extends of 32 rounds / weeks. This would require the elimination of the current NAB challenge series, commencement of Round 1 in the last week or second last week of February, and the Grand Final could still be played on the last Saturday in September, or first week of October. This would in fact STILL be 1-2 weeks SHORTER than the current system given the exclusion of the widely perceived farcical and increasingly redundant pre-season "competition".​

Just for reference, this is why it'll never happen.

2 issues.
1) the players wont go for a longer season, and there are major problems with where those games would be played (cricket grounds...)
2) If they got rid of the NOB challenge, they'd have to had ~3 practice games before the season starts, effectively reviving the NOB challenge and forcing it to be played in late Jan/early Feb...


So 'nice idea', but it's impossible it'll ever happen, so totally pointless.

 

[LeverPuller]

Logical option given 22 rounds:

End of the year ladder is split in 3:

1-6
7-12
13-18

The next season, every team has a minimum of 4 double up games against the teams in their bracket. 5 if possible. The 4 minimum allows for the Derby/Showdown to be played twice every year.

Makes it an easy division of the fixture, makes it transparent and doesn't deliver the problems of locked conferences.

 

[Gibbke]

If you're going to do it (and IDGAF to be honest, my team can beat anyone anywhere atm, and when it can't, I still won't care), it should be four conferences as suggested in the Four Conference Model thread of a few years back. Details there...

No matter how much non-Vics want to deny it, the AFL is Vic-centred. The trick is to account for geography and not have that disadvantage any particular side, so the conferences should incorporate teams who can be given near identical draws. Who gives a f### if one team travels more than another through the regular season, if neither of those teams are pitted against one another on the ladder? That's why, if we bother with restructuring the draw, the conferences should be based around WA/SA, the northern states, and two completely fluid Victorian divisions...

The game depends heavily on rivalry, so any suggestion of abandoning derbies, etc is stupid. A previous season's results also means nothing, no relevance. The Yanks do the first one perfectly, and still do the second one for the sake of a formula - without any misguided rationale that things are suddenly "fairer"...

 

[The Darkman]

To me this is the thin of the wedge to increase the number of teams in the competition.

26 week competition for players is too long & ground availability will be an issue. Plus will it maintain interest for supporters of clubs who start 0-5.

Decrease the number of teams to 16 increases the standard of comp. Introduce a national reserve competition & increase the number of available Melbourne grounds.

 

[Fonetiks]

Superficially a 26 round season is longer than the current 23 (albeit only 3 games), however if we eliminate the 4 weeks of NOB challenge games and the extra week inbetween that and the start of the season proper, it's actually at least 1 week shorter from start to finish.

The assumption is that we can do away with the current fixtured preseason warm up matches and get straight into playing for premiership points.

Do the AFL, clubs, and players demand preseason practice matches?
If everyone is only playing bump and giggle footy, is there really that much of an advantage to keeping them?

 

[Young_Guns]

First of all, a 26 round regular season + 2 byes is too much ad I can't see the AFLPA agreeing to it.

I also don't understand why people keep saying to get rid of the pre-season as it isn't a competition anymore so why is it necessary. Anyone who has played any sport at any level will have found out that you can't just jump into a competitive game with the step up in intensity and running and expect to hit the ground running, especially at the professional level. It also gives the players and coaches a chance to try/practice gameplans against real opposition rather than themselves.

 

[Ice-Wolf]

3 x 6 team conferences work much better than 2 x 9 team

You can still play a 22 game season with 3 Conferences. 10 inter-conference games and 12 intra-conference games. You can also split each conference into 2 groups of 3 for fixturing.
For example:
Year I - 1A play 1B H & A, 2A Home, 2B Away, 3A Home, 3B Away & 1B plays 1A H & A, 2B Home, 2A Away, 3B Home, 3A Away ect
Year II - 1A play 1B H & A, 2B Home, 2A Away, 3B Home, 3A Away & 1B plays 1A H & A, 2A Home, 2B Away, 3A Home, 3B Away ect

You play you conference H& A each year and alternate the groups from the other conference you play home & away.

 

[doppleganger]

My reference to equal travel is for teams from the same state regardless of which conference they're in. So that say, FRE doesn't end up travelling to Brisbane and Sydney any more times in a season than the WCE does.

How would a Non-Vic / Vic conference system play out? Rounds, rotations, etc?
I'm interested in the pros and cons, not just dismissing one idea or the other altogether.

The travel for a WA team going from WA to Melbourne or Sydney or BL is marginal if they get direct flights, what an extra 30 min in the plane!?

Best way to structure it would be 4 groups....

1 WA/SA
1 NSW/QLD
2 VIC

You play your group twice, and the other groups once....problem being that at the moment the groups wouldn't be equal. Either add one team to the WA/SA and NSW/QLD or get rid of two VIC teams.

Then each group winner goes into finals with home ground advantages.

Use your imagination to then work out how you want finals to run, could be just a top 4....or expand to however many you want.....division playoff to see who makes it through etc.

That way you are directly competing against teams with the same travel obstacles, you minimize the overall travel for ALL teams, you retain the geographic rivalries (perhaps enhance actually), and then the fixture is equitable.

 

[adammania9]

Why do ret*rds always get the idea that the league would be better with conferences? I would never watch AFL again if this happened.

 

[LB#16]

American leagues have conferences because most of them are a merger of two rival leagues, so the conferences represent the two former leagues. I don't see a reason to construct our league this way when the spread of teams across the country isn't that great.

 

[Fonetiks]

Why do ret*rds always get the idea that the league would be better with conferences? I would never watch AFL again if this happened.

Yeah thanks for the contribution champion. You sound like a real ideas man so I'm curious to hear more...

Let us know when you've finished chucking a tantrum and ready to join the adults at the big table who are happy to talk about things without stomping feet and slamming doors.

Cheers

 

[adammania9]

Yeah thanks for the contribution champion. You sound like a real ideas man so I'm curious to hear more...

Let us know when you've finished chucking a tantrum and ready to join the adults at the big table who are happy to talk about things without stomping feet and slamming doors.

Cheers

No worries.

 

[Lensen]

Logical option given 22 rounds:

End of the year ladder is split in 3:

1-6
7-12
13-18

The next season, every team has a minimum of 4 double up games against the teams in their bracket. 5 if possible. The 4 minimum allows for the Derby/Showdown to be played twice every year.

Makes it an easy division of the fixture, makes it transparent and doesn't deliver the problems of locked conferences.

And handicaps teams 1-6 in what is supposed to be a competition

Pass

 

[Seeds]

Why do ret*rds always get the idea that the league would be better with conferences? I would never watch AFL again if this happened.

Because it would be better and fairer. Thats why they keep raising it. There is a reason why many professional sports adopt them around the world.