How to solve the fixture problem

[wedgetail]

The reason why the AFL don't want a fair fixture is because it impairs their ability to schedule the matches in the most marketable way.

Essentially, the AFL try to maximise the number of "local vs local" matches every season. it is why we always see the two WA teams play each other twice, the two SA teams play each other twice, etc etc.

Is there a way to have a fair structure whilst also maintaining blockbusters.

I've posted this idea before, but never in a thread of it's own, and I've expanded on it a little.

Here's a possibility for the structure of the competition. I find it's always been a balancing act trying to create a fair fixture while maintaining the financial requirement of playing blockbuster matches, but this solves that.


FIXTURE

Three divisions of six teams:

NORTHERN
GWS
Sydney
Brisbane
Gold Coast
Vic team 1
Vic team 2

WESTERN
Adelaide
Port Adelaide
West Coast
Fremantle
Vic team 3
Vic team 4

SOUTHERN
Vic team 5
Vic team 6
Vic team 7
Vic team 8
Vic team 9
Vic team 10


You play the the teams in your own division twice and all other teams once for 22 games. Every team in a division has exactly the same fixture as every other side in their division. Exactly.

The draw rotates over 5 years.

Each year, the Victorian teams rotate, "two at a time." For instance, suppose Vic teams 1 and 2 are Essendon and Collingwood. They are in the Northern Division, right? The next year, they take spots "9 and 10" in the Southern division and all other Vic clubs move up. So Vic teams 3 and 4 (lets say Carlton and Richmond) move up into the Northern as "Vic teams 1 and 2." Teams 5 and 6 (say, Hawthorn and St.Kilda) move up into spots "3 and 4" in the Western division etc. And they rotate like that continuously. The reason I rotate them two at a time is to keep certain big clubs together.

Every Victorian club, therefore spends three years in the Southern and one year each in the western and Northern over the 5 years.

The Victorian teams in the Western and Northern divisions would travel 6 times a year, and the Victorian teams in the Southern division would travel 4 times a year. It would take 5 years to rotate the Victorian teams through all 10 spots. In that time, every Victorian side would play 24 away interstate games, an average of 4.8 travel games per year over the 5 year period.


So, it would take 5 years for the fixture to rotate totally through. In that time, every Victorian side would play 24 away interstate games, an average of 4.8 travel games per year over the 5 year period.

Importantly, the "advantage" and disadvantage games are IDENTICAL for every side EVERY year (not counting home games sold interstate.) for all 18 teams. "Advantage" games are whereyou host a travelling team and "disadvantage" is where you have to travel.

The Vic teams in the Northern and Western divisions would always have 6 "advantage" games (where they play a travelling non-Vic team) and they would have 6 travelling games and 10 neutral.

The Vic teams in in the Southern division would always have 4 "advantage" games (where they play a travelling non-Vic team) and they would have 4 travelling games and 14 neutral.

No Victorian side would ever, ever, ever have any advantage over a non-Vic side on any travel issue (unless they deliberately decide to play home games outside Victoria)

The net "travel advantage" is always exactly ZERO for all 18 teams every year, no exceptions.

Over the course of the 5 years, every side plays 110 games, the breakdown being:

Every Victorian side would play 24 home games versus a travelling opponent
Every Victoria side would play 24 away travelling games
Every Victorian side would play 62 neutral (31 home 31 away) against other Victorian teams
Net travel advantage: 24 minus 24 = zero

Every non-Vic side would play 50 home games versus a travelling opponent
Every non-Vic side would play 50 away travelling games
Every non-Vic side would play 10 neutral (5 home 5 away) against the other team from their state.
Net travel advantage: 50 minus 50 = zero

What I like about it, is that it combines the financial need to play blockbuster matches with the fairness of treating every side with the same travel advantages.

This year in 2013, there are 198 matches, and 67 of them are "local vs local" matches.

Under my suggestion, there would be 70 local vs local matches every year.

So, you get more local vs local matches AND a fairer fixture. Win-win

Dan your system, your post and quite likely your entire footy mindset is very Vic-centric. Apparently it all becomes fair if the Vic sides rotate through 3 fixed divisions?

So you are saying that WC will never play the Gold Coast twice in a season, like ever?

But we will always play adelaide twice, but that is ok so long as your Vic clubs get shuffled around?

There is one solution that actually does work of course....

 

[Jewbacca]

Big fear is that one group will contain a collectively better set of teams than the other group. This then means the good group gets the big matches (and crowds) and the lesser group low key games and because of this maybe a good team from the strong group misses out on finals while a not so good team from the weak group gets in.

As far as a good team missing out, they would have to finish 4th in their division to not even be eligible for a wildcard spot. If 3 teams out of the other 5 in your division are better than you, i don't think you have huge claims to the flag. Remember under this system you still have 12 games against sides outside your division. you could lose all your division games and still win 12 games for the year.

 

[Pottering]

As far as a good team missing out, they would have to finish 4th in their division to not even be eligible for a wildcard spot. If 3 teams out of the other 5 in your division are better than you, i don't think you have huge claims to the flag. Remember under this system you still have 12 games against sides outside your division. you could lose all your division games and still win 12 games for the year.

Collingwood may well finish 5th this year and most people reckon they are as good a chance as any to win the flag. It's all about WHO those other teams are. And that grouping is a concocted one.

 

[jdeezy]

What you label as "completely unfair" is nothing of the sort, it's devising a fixture that delivers integrity to the competition

I think there are aspects of the fixture that are unfair, and need to be fixed. At the moment, there is way too much of a focus on the AFL's bottom line, and with, the integrity of the competition could potentially be lost. This, I agree with.

But you can't entirely discount things like revenue just for a pipedream of a 'fair' fixture which will never be fair. You're always going to have people complaining the fixture is unfair, even if its based entirely on mathematical formulas and/or chance, so why move to this system if its going to bring more flaws with it?

There are certainly some adjustments I feel need to be made. For one, every single team at least once a year, if not twice (once home, once away), should be given a Friday Night spot where they have maximum TV exposure. A team like the Western Bulldogs is going to struggle to endear itself to the public, and importantly to any potential new fans, if the public never gets a chance to see them play, but gets to see Collingwood run around every other week.

I also agree that there needs to be a more even spread of where teams play each other. Are you a Hawthorn fan living in Queensland? Well tough t***ies, you don't get to see your team live this year. And you didn't last year. In fact, other than a game against the Suns in the last round of 2011, Hawthorn haven't headed up to QLD in 5 years. That type of fixturing does need to be fixed. If not a one year home, one year away situation, then you should at least have every team playing at least one home, and at least one away fixture against each team every three years, and every team should travel to a state at least once each year. This is common sense.

These are the things I would worry about fixturing, not having a multiple year plan to rotate through every single repeat opponent possible.

 

[Jewbacca]

Collingwood may well finish 5th this year and most people reckon they are as good a chance as any to win the flag. It's all about WHO those other teams are. And that grouping is a concocted one.

yeah fair call, i think with divisions player movements would change however making for a more even competition with more teams challenging. Also it's not like some teams haven't made/missed finals due to the fixture in the current model (Adelaide last year). at the moment you play everyone once and then another 5 sides, in the division model at least you're competing against sides that have played the same 5 sides twice. I don't think the AFL will implement divisions anyway so it's all hypothetical. It'd be interesting to see what would happen though, for instance at the moment st kilda are looking at a long rebuild, in a division system depending on the other sides they may be able to turn around quicker and make a run at their division.

 

[seysearles]

"The commission also looked at a conference-style fixture, a wildcard playoff at the end of the home-and-away round - under which teams from seventh to 10th would play off for two top-eight spots - and a system wherein each team played the other 17 clubs once before the AFL reset the final five games. None of those ideas is expected to be introduced."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/preseason-final-set-to-go-20130719-2qa07.html#ixzz2bmhQ3KLt

 

[BIRDBRAIN]

My idea is best.

We get rid of the preseason matches and have a 28 game season. First we play 17 games and everyone plays everyone once. Now at this point we take pause and the bottom 6 teams are expelled from the league, fined by the AFL, their coaches are shot and the players are sent to the VFL for the rest of the season. The remaining 12 teams then all play each other once more.

Can't have a fixture without predetermined dates and venues? Of course you can, wtf do you think finals are?

 

[Giants FC]

Here's my system, the "flexible conference" system:
Teams are allocated points according to previous year’s position. Defending premier gets 1 point, runner-up gets 2 points etc. Wooden spoon = 18 points.
Teams are then placed into three groups of six teams, ideally each conference should have a total of 57 points; but a tolerance level of 54-60 would be acceptable.

In a 22-game season, each team would play each team once and the teams in their own group a second time.
In a 24-game season (rumoured for the future), each team would play the teams in their own group a second time and one team from each other group a second time.

This would enable a roughly even spread of strong teams to reduce the chances of some teams having an easier draw than others while still enabling derbies, showdowns, blockbusters etc to happen twice a season.

 

[Pottering]

But you can't entirely discount things like revenue just for a pipedream of a 'fair' fixture which will never be fair. You're always going to have people complaining the fixture is unfair, even if its based entirely on mathematical formulas and/or chance, so why move to this system if its going to bring more flaws with it?

Thing is those who complain now have a legitimate gripe, the draw is artificially concocted, even the AFL acknowledge that. If it was a simple mathematical process as I outlined you'd still get grizzlers every year, but the difference is that's all they'd be, there would be no real basis for complaint because there is no outside influence in the draw. Under my system you play every team 8 times over a six year period and have an equal number of games against each team both at home and away. My example used an alphabetical basis simply for convenience of explanation. It would not be difficult to organise so that a team didn't play endlessly interstate one year and stayed home the next.

 

[Pottering]

yeah fair call, i think with divisions player movements would change however making for a more even competition with more teams challenging. Also it's not like some teams haven't made/missed finals due to the fixture in the current model (Adelaide last year). at the moment you play everyone once and then another 5 sides, in the division model at least you're competing against sides that have played the same 5 sides twice. I don't think the AFL will implement divisions anyway so it's all hypothetical. It'd be interesting to see what would happen though, for instance at the moment st kilda are looking at a long rebuild, in a division system depending on the other sides they may be able to turn around quicker and make a run at their division.

I hope you're right about the AFL not introducing divisions. Unfortunately they seem to have a slavish devotion to America's NFL and think if they do it then we should look at it. But they have 32 teams, 8 divisions of 4 and a 16 round fixture. It cannot even remotely assist us. I'm sure we all want to maximise the chances of seeing the best players playing against the best, not reduce by way of divisions.

My guess is that If they did create 2 or 3 divisions they'd be tempted to slot a few strugglers in together and a few high flyers in together and we'd end up with a true 1st division who'd dominate the crowds, ratings and sponsorship and end going the way of the EPL, threatening to secede and go it alone rather than prop up the strugglers/.

 

[santa claws]

There is only one fair system with 18 teams and roughly 22 rounds.

Each team plays every other team 4 times over about a 3 year period (two 22 round seasons and one 23 round season).

First year you play the other 17 teams once and 5 of them twice, as happens now (though who you play twice is not randomly chosen). The next year you again play each team once plus a new group of 5 teams twice. Year three you play all once plus the 6 remaining teams (those you haven't yet played twice in a year) two times.

The simplest way to construct this would be to simply order teams in alphabetical order (though any order would suffice). Doing this in Year 1 Adelaide play all teams then have 2nd up clashes with Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle and Geelong. The following year they play all once then again play GWS, Gold Coast, Hawthorn, Melbourne and North. Third year they play all teams once then a second game against Port, Richmond, the Saints, Sydney, West Coast and the Dogs.

Three years have elapsed, Adelaide has played each team four times.

This system eliminates 2 Showdowns/Derbies/other assorted blockbusters, year in, year out. You'll get such games 1 in every three years. As an Eagles supporter I can live with that.

To stick with the fairness aspect when you enter the 2nd rotation of 3 years of fixtures reverse the home teams. This means that over 6 years each team plays each other team 8 times and each get 4 home games and 4 away games against each opponent.

The draw will be entirely random and have no relation to where teams finish the year before. Some years you'll get lucky, other years it will be tough. But the key is that because it is based on maths it is fair, there's no outside influence.

Of course the AFL would grumble at this because they can't schedule the games they want. But the overriding aim should be fairness, not entrenching the drawing power of the big clubs. I believe that such a fixture would assist the lesser supported and financial clubs to help themselves. As a West Coast supporter I know that the St Kilda's of the world seem to travel interstate way more than the Collingwood's of the world. Under the system I propose every team travels an appropriate amount over a 6 year period.

gotta say imo this is the way to go.

 

[juss]

The obvious flaw in this is ideally you want to be sitting just outside the top 6, rather than in it. Potentially you create a "tanking" situation in rounds 15-17 for example, where clubs start considering where they want to be positioned for the run home.

 

[Dan26]

Dan your system, your post and quite likely your entire footy mindset is very Vic-centric. Apparently it all becomes fair if the Vic sides rotate through 3 fixed divisions?

So you are saying that WC will never play the Gold Coast twice in a season, like ever?

But we will always play adelaide twice, but that is ok so long as your Vic clubs get shuffled around?

There is one solution that actually does work of course....

It's not Vic-Centric at all. The Victorian sides HAVE to rotate through the divisions, because if they don't, you would have six Victorian teams always in the southern division playing 4 travel games every year, while the teams in the Northern and Western divisions would travel six times every year

The reason for the rotations is so that the Victorian sides spend equal amounts of time as every other Victorian side in the respective three divisions, so that sometimes they travel 4 times, and sometimes they travel 6 times.

 

[Team DJ]

18 rounds.
Everyone v Everyone once. Plus your rival twice.
3 split rounds at R 1, R 7 and R 14.
21 week season.

Top 10 finals played over 5 weeks.
Makes 26 weeks. Plus 4 weeks of preseason stuff makes 30 total weeks of Footy.

More then enough

 

[MarkCatsFan]

Conferences is an awful idea. People need to stop suggesting it.


Yes it works in the US where teams can be sorted geographically and there are more of them. But it just isn't adaptable to the AFL.

The competition is best when every team gets to play each other at least once, it allows new rivalries to develop over time and makes it a lot more interesting as teams develop. Putting them into groups of 6 would kill that and make the season incredibly tedious with teams playing each other over and over until finals.

 

[FootyJunkie]

Dan your system, your post and quite likely your entire footy mindset is very Vic-centric. Apparently it all becomes fair if the Vic sides rotate through 3 fixed divisions?

So you are saying that WC will never play the Gold Coast twice in a season, like ever?

But we will always play adelaide twice, but that is ok so long as your Vic clubs get shuffled around?

There is one solution that actually does work of course....

SEQ to/from WA is the longest trip in football.
If it's going to happen 4 times per season, balance it out so 2 of the fixtures take place in SEQ, the other 2 in WA.