Eagles Travel Schedule-Please Explain!?

[bali-dog]

after all these years of supporting the eagles, i realise i dont fully understand their travel/away game schedule..or how the whole home+away system works in the comp..
what i particularly dont understand is how teams like collingwood and other inner sanctum melbourne teams dont get to travel away as much as we do..
how is this all put together (rigged?),what is the system in place(modus operandi)-how do they work out the home+away season? is it a lottery, is there a method, do people pay other people for priorities or favours..what goes on and how..?
at the risk of seeming biased, the home+away allocations favour the melb. teams, am i right? then why isnt that addressed..
if ive overlooked the obvious, then forgive my ignorance..really want to understand this.

i guess the first obvious reason is that there is a whole cluster of teams based in melb..sure..but cant that be measured out accordingly,and why hasnt it?

 

[spEKTre]

Its simple, if the Eagles had identical travel arrangements afforded Collingwood it would be fair to say a lot of our star players over the years would have been in their prime longer and coupled with a home ground advantage of 17 home games a year our silverware would be very impressive.

 

[bali-dog]

oh undoubtedly..but why is it so..how does it work -(in melbs.favour of course), but you know what i mean? who decides/regulates/allocates etc..

 

[bodazoka]

Its based on attendance figures which generate money through ticket sales, sponsorship and television deals. I think the AFL have a grand plan in place to reap as much money out of these TV deals as they can and to achieve that they are willing to fix a few games to prop up the numbers. Ive always thought that the fixtures are created in a back room somewhere by a few people in the AFL with a heavy regard to the tv stations, and a slight thought is given to the requests put forth by the clubs.

In terms of travel we have such a big advantage over teams travelling from Melbourne that IMO its almost an even competition for us in terms of travel. When we start getting good enough to seriously challenge teams in games we will win 8 out of 10 home games easily, if we are then able to pinch one of the Freo grand finals and an away win we are playing finals.

When you look at Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon etc.. compared to the rest of the Melbourne clubs and Sydney/Brisbane there is absolutely no fairness about it. I honestly believe that there is another agenda here to subversively cripple a few Melbourne clubs and have them merge with one of the new teams in the competition.

 

[patsmith]

How would we equalise it? We knew the deal when we entered the comp, and we have done pretty damn well considering. Unless you want five more teams in Perth, we will just have to travel every other week.

 

[Lucev23]

Every team plays a week home and a week away. Its just unfortunate that we live so far away from where a majority of the teams are located.

What can we do? Push WA closer to the eastern states?

 

[bali-dog]

i forgot about the TV/broadcasting rights etc..prime Tv viewing..exposure..fri.nite footy etc..ratings..and all the spinoffs..thats the core business, apart from bums on seats/gate sales..
its pretty obvious i guess, that theres no way to lessen the travel or kilometres/time that westcoast teams must commit to short of playing wafl teams every third week? i thought there was some way you could spread it around more evenly, or play more home games as compensation..it aint easy.

youd imagine we would have a lot more experience,proven really,travelling+recuperating than melb.teams..
it seems like half the melb.teams away games are just down the road in the next suburb..less melb.teams ultimately..more merging..another sydney club,goldcoast etc..doesnt help us that much but at least theres more teams travelling more?

 

[Lyyynnnchy]

Every team plays a week home and a week away. Its just unfortunate that we live so far away from where a majority of the teams are located.

What can we do? Push WA closer to the eastern states?

Agreed

Not to hard to figure out is it?

 

[Lyyynnnchy]

i forgot about the TV/broadcasting rights etc..prime Tv viewing..exposure..fri.nite footy etc..ratings..and all the spinoffs..thats the core business, apart from bums on seats/gate sales..
its pretty obvious i guess, that theres no way to lessen the travel or kilometres/time that westcoast teams must commit to short of playing wafl teams every third week? i thought there was some way you could spread it around more evenly, or play more home games as compensation..it aint easy.

youd imagine we would have a lot more experience,proven really,travelling+recuperating than melb.teams..
it seems like half the melb.teams away games are just down the road in the next suburb..less melb.teams ultimately..more merging..another sydney club,goldcoast etc..doesnt help us that much but at least theres more teams travelling more?

If we had more games at home it would mean more games away for the Melb teams and less at home thus resulting in there members getting to see a smaller amount of games...not going to happen obviously

 

[Lucev23]

Everyones just gonna have to deal with it because its never gonna change and nor should it. I'm sick of hearing clueless old farts ringing up callback radio complaining about it.

We should just be happy that our home game advantage far outweighs almost all of the other clubs.

 

[Play by Numbers]

The issue is not the amount of games we play away but the amount that certain teams (Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon) get to play away games against other Melbourne clubs or twice against each other.

The reasons are purely monetary and benefit the AFL (due to the increase in "blockbuster"games), certain smaller Melbourne clubs and these larger clubs by eliminating interstate travel.

There is no chance that this setup will change any time soon because there are far to many beneficiaries.

What is frustrating is that the AFL administration don't seem inclined to allow smaller Melbourne clubs to sell home games to any interstate club except for Sydney (at a non neutral venue).

Could benefit North Melbourne and Melbourne (if they were ever interested in selling a home game to Freo) and us as long as North did not win. To bad every other club would cry foul especially those that most benefit under the farce that is the current fixture.

 

[drexel]

As it is, i think it's up to the club to work around it. 8 hours of flying every two weeks obviously leaves us at a disadvantage over the course of the year, if not years (re player longetivity).

In the US, the teams have private jets and maybe it's possible us and Freo could buy one and rig it up so players have maximum comfort when they travel.

Maybe in the future, we will just send a B-team overs for 2-3 games a year just to give our players a rest.

Either way, with AFL being so much about physical conditioning (too much for my liking)... it's pretty important we do something about it considering we will always be the most unfairly affected. Ability wise, we should probably have at least 5 flags and travel is the major reason we don't.

 

[santouras]

The AFL calls it a fixture and not a draw for a reason, it's fixed. Each team has 11 "home" games and 11 away games. I put home in brackets because some teams have deals whereby they play some games in foreign territory, ie tasmania/canberra/darwin etc etc. Then the AFL makes concessions to the favoured clubs like collingwood so they never have to travel to WA unless it's a finals match and they have no way out of it, whilst making geelong travel to WA twice in 3 weeks. It is pretty obvious which clubs have the scheduling department in their pockets really.

But to complain about the eagles having to travel for 10 weeks of the season is just a basic reality for clubs not from melbourne. It's the preferential treatment that some Melbourne clubs get over other Melbourne clubs that constantly annoys people.

 

[bali-dog]

okay, i know it all seems obvious..i guess the bigger picture or question was really, why isnt the AFL more evenhanded/fairer in applying its sport to the nation..and thats been answered very well by some of you (without cynicism)..informing me of things i wasnt aware of..it basically comes down to business interests,and like any form of capitalism, it naturally follows any window of oppurtunity or advantage..

also the AFL is a work in progress, a growing sporting code,always evolving, so these reforms take time..

and as a few mentioned, while its just a location/distance/travel disadvantage that we must factor in to our club culture, it also works to our advantage with home games..and getting each new team rising to the level of winning most home games,and the rest will come..

heres to the House of Pain...again!

 

[bali-dog]

.."Then the AFL makes concessions to the favoured clubs like collingwood so they never have to travel to WA unless it's a finals match and they have no way out of it, whilst making geelong travel to WA twice in 3 weeks. It is pretty obvious which clubs have the scheduling department in their pockets really.

It's the preferential treatment that some Melbourne clubs get over other Melbourne clubs that constantly annoys people..."[/QUOTE]

yep, these are the key points that interest me santouras..
eg- why are certain melb.clubs allowed to have the scheduling dept. in their pockets..and why do large clubs with clout such as WCE allow/tolerate this..is there a tradeoff?..most of its been answered earlier i guess.

 

[patsmith]

yep, these are the key points that interest me santouras..
eg- why are certain melb.clubs allowed to have the scheduling dept. in their pockets..and why do large clubs with clout such as WCE allow/tolerate this..is there a tradeoff?..most of its been answered earlier i guess.

It doesn't affect us. We travel every week, and for all our home games (except derbies) our opponent has traveled across the country. It's the smaller Melbourne teams who are being disadvantaged, the club will just keep their mouths shut and worry about issue that are actually relevant to the WCE.

 

[bali-dog]

sure, i understand the "we fly there+they fly here" schedule..but thats ours, its not everybodies..eg "they fly here,they play in melb,they play another melb team down the road,they fly to sydney,they play back in melb, they play an away game down the road in melb, they play a home game in melb..etc..not quite the same is it, not a level playing field..
they get nurtured or kidgloved for the entire season,only having to really do it tough around finals, but hell, theyre really ready for it by then..

anyway it is what it is, and it makes us wily campaigners..meanwhile wce are in a deal with nth.melb to convert a homegame to subi for $650,000,and reduce our away games - this is exactly what i'm on about-doing something about it? and thats what can be done (maybe)..
meanwhile freo (of course) have jumped on the bandwagon and want the same deal..