New fixture solution based on previous season finishing positions

[Gigantor]

I don't really like any system which strays away from a win being worth 4 points.

Also, as a general proposition, many overplay this idea that there's a problem with the fixture. The final 8 system, where 45% of the teams have a crack at winning the premiership, mitigates against a supposed unbalanced draw.

If a team can't win sufficient games to make the top 8 by season's end, it's pretty clear that that team wasn't good enough to win the premiership, doesn't matter if they had the most difficult draw in the history of the game.

The very best idea I have ever seen about how the extra five games should be split is employing the following split: every team is guaranteed 3 games against a team which finished in its group the previous year, and a game against one other team from the other two groups. You can guarantee that all the non-vic teams have two derbies each season, and the remainder is a matter of chance.

 

[doppleganger]

Why do people actually accept that handicapping teams is a good idea? When did it start?

If the competition has too many teams to compete double round robin, do what sensible competitions do and split the competition into smaller fragments.

All teams are primarily ranked against just the teams in the same fragment, and they all get the same draw.

Finals pit the top couple of teams in each fragment against each other.

Stop with the bullsh1t handicapping and ‘blockbuster’ laden fixtures....just to keep to some inane 22 round season that only made sense when their were 12 teams.

 

[Gigantor]

Why do people actually accept that handicapping teams is a good idea? When did it start?

If the competition has too many teams to compete double round robin, do what sensible competitions do and split the competition into smaller fragments.

All teams are primarily ranked against just the teams in the same fragment, and they all get the same draw.

Finals pit the top couple of teams in each fragment against each other.

Stop with the bullsh1t handicapping and ‘blockbuster’ laden fixtures....just to keep to some inane 22 round season that only made sense when their were 12 teams.

For the majority of the history of the VFL/AFL, the fixture was unbalanced, there are only very short periods when we had every team playing each other twice (and even then, it was never fully balanced because every club had to play 3 or 4 home games at Waverley).

For example, with the four consecutive premierships won by Collingwood from 1927 to 1930, the then 12 teams competed in an 18 round season, but absolutely no one has ever expressed concern about the seasons being unbalanced.

This concern about the fixture has only emerged the past decade, and it may have been predicated on the early seasons of the Suns and Giants when they were copping hidings, and that was a concern at the time, but it's not really a concern now.

 

[doppleganger]

For the majority of the history of the VFL/AFL, the fixture was unbalanced, there are only very short periods when we had every team playing each other twice (and even then, it was never fully balanced because every club had to play 3 or 4 home games at Waverley).

For example, with the four consecutive premierships won by Collingwood from 1927 to 1930, the then 12 teams competed in an 18 round season, but absolutely no one has ever expressed concern about the seasons being unbalanced.

This concern about the fixture has only emerged the past decade, and it may have been predicated on the early seasons of the Suns and Giants when they were copping hidings, and that was a concern at the time, but it's not really a concern now.

I am aware of that.

After they introduced the three new teams in the 1920s the league played plenty of different season lengths - 15,18,19 and 20 games.

I think it was 1970 when they started playing the full double round robin and 22 rounds.

My point is that the return games were random, they just repeated Rd1-8 or whatever for all teams. They weren’t grouping teams and making the the bottom teams got an ‘easy’ fixture and top teams a ‘harder’ fixture to handicap teams.

22 rounds isn’t some locked in concept, so why people treat it as such baffles?

Just make a fair fixture, which is best done via multiple smaller fragments...and stop handicapping teams.

 

[Topkent]

So the soccer world cup and uefa champions league are "fundamentally broken"??

Run along now, you have nothing to add here

Before you post you should think ' before I'm a dickhead to someone I should check my facts'

Both of the competitions qualification is achieved by playing all of the teams in your league format both home and away. The World cup and champions league are merely the finals

 

[telsor]

I am aware of that.

After they introduced the three new teams in the 1920s the league played plenty of different season lengths - 15,18,19 and 20 games.

I think it was 1970 when they started playing the full double round robin and 22 rounds.

My point is that the return games were random, they just repeated Rd1-8 or whatever for all teams. They weren’t grouping teams and making the the bottom teams got an ‘easy’ fixture and top teams a ‘harder’ fixture to handicap teams.

22 rounds isn’t some locked in concept, so why people treat it as such baffles?

Just make a fair fixture, which is best done via multiple smaller fragments...and stop handicapping teams.

22 rounds mightn't be 'locked in', but at the same time it can't be changed much either.

Contracts (AFLPA & Media) are based on it, and ground availability pretty much means it can't get noticeably longer and people wont take the pay cuts required to make it shorter.

Suffice to say, it hasn't been changed since the professional era.