Players weights to no longer be disclosed

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Corn Cobbers said:
No the thread is real son, weight is a relevant factor in football and therefore valuable information, people bet on football and play fantasy football, and there's no reason not to publish weights as all AFL players are pretty fit and don't have body issues.

Too late when the game starts to discover that that 210cm ruck you just put in your dream team is built like a stick insect and won't last 3 games this season.
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There's lots of other info they'd use if it was available too. This bloke's skinfolds are his lowest ever, he's set for a big season. This bloke is getting tagged by someone whose 2K time is 30 sec slower than him, so he's going to run him off his feet. This defender is 5cm shorter than the forward he's on, but his vertical leap is 10cm better, so he should do well. Punters entitled to know all that info too? That data should go in the preseason booklet?


Max Gawn got interviewed after this was announced:
"I've been the same weight in the booklet since I got drafted and my weight has changed 10 times. We don't stand on the scales every year for the AFL. There is a standard we want to be and between you, your high performance manager and your dietitian you will come up with a peak performance body you want to be. "But you are the only three people who know that. Not even Goody would know what my weight is or what my skinfolds are.

no AFL player is going to ever be fat or worthy of any actual weight-shaming,

And yet it still happens. Last preseason we had Kane Cornes himself talking about how he was taken aback by seeing a photo of Stringer at preseason training, because Stringer looked overweight. He did the same in 2020, Bombers got flogged by Port, and Stringer's jumper was off during a melee. Cornes again reckoned he was overweight, unprofessional, that 'you don't present yourself like that'. Earlier in the 2020 season, we had McAvaney dribbling this about Stringer "He looks big to me. He doesn’t look as fit as I’ve seen him look. He’s big through the backside, he’s big through the legs. And the tummy as well. And yet, he’s kicked two goals. He’s done everything right, but he looks big doesn’t he."

Anzac Day 2012, Swanny had 42 touches, 13 clearances, 6 tackles, kicked 3 goals, got Pies over the line by a single point. One of the greatest individual performances ever. He kicked this goal during the game:

and was rubbing his stomach afterwards, a response to a Mark Robinson article calling him fat.

Few years ago, with covid getting in the way of games, fox & others were struggling to fill airtime, and as a result we had Brereton giving us his all-time fat bloke team.

Not listing weights won't stop any of that rubbish, of course. But the fact that it won't shows how pointless listing weights is. When Cornes sees a pic of Stringer looking 'unprofessionally overweight', at least in Cornes' opinion, does he look at the listed weight for this year and see if it's higher than last year before he opens his mouth? Of course not.

There are plenty more, Swan & Stringer are just the first two I remembered and googled. Dean Rioli & Lance Whitnall are a couple more.

And it happened at clubs too. Gawn again, from the same interview, talking about preseason 'fat club':
"Going back 15 years, if I come back a little bit top-heavy, I'd be in fat club and I'd be laughed at. I get that we're elite athletes and we should be keeping our body to a high level but that doesn't help. If I come back top heavy I'll feel bad and get through it with my dietitian and high performance but I don't need to be laughed at."
I don't have the book handy to grab an actual quote, but Swanny also talks about that sort of body-shaming from the club in his autobiography.

Here's a 2018 article talking about the issue, on the pressure on teenagers with aspirations of a footy career, with more examples: https://theconversation.com/too-fat-to-get-drafted-the-worrying-body-image-pressures-in-the-afl-100252

To suggest it doesn't matter because none of them are actually fat or worthy of any actual weight-shaming misses the point. Look at the issue in wider society. Most people with body image issues, most people with eating disorders, they're not actually fat either. Nobody is 'worthy' of actual weight-shaming, but even if we accepted that once beyond a certain weight or bmi that it's ok to weight-shame someone for it, then again, most people with eating disorders wouldn't meet that threshold.

That and I don't think that the reasons for not having this information are particularly worth giving in to.

There's one more big reason yet to be mentioned. That's the impact it can have on others, the message it can send to others. Especially teenagers. It encourages an unhealthy focus on weight, rather than more sensible markers of health & fitness. It can encourage unrealistic goals. Thinking they need to get their weight down (or up) to match that of their favourite player if they want to have a chance of playing footy at a higher level. Seeing themselves as fat (or weak) because their weight doesn't match up. Leading to unhealthy behaviours to try and get their body to match the ideal they think they need to reach. Even if that ideal is unrealistic, even if that ideal is based on a published weight that isn't even correct, even if their body type & shape & build is quite different to the person they're viewing as an ideal target.

Publishing player weights offers very little in the way of useful info for commentators & fans. Especially when they're not very accurate anyway. Publishing weight does have more unhelpful potential consequences than you think.
 

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My Tilly said:
It's purely absurd to not disclose weight.
They are athletes. They are getting paid huge annual salaries. Athletes height/weight are just as important as their draft/combine test results.
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Did you not even bother to read the fu**ing post directly above yours FFS?

In particular, this part...

"Max Gawn got interviewed after this was announced:
"I've been the same weight in the booklet since I got drafted and my weight has changed 10 times. We don't stand on the scales every year for the AFL. There is a standard we want to be and between you, your high performance manager and your dietitian you will come up with a peak performance body you want to be. "But you are the only three people who know that. Not even Goody would know what my weight is or what my skinfolds are."
 
NYRB said:
There's lots of other info they'd use if it was available too. This bloke's skinfolds are his lowest ever, he's set for a big season. This bloke is getting tagged by someone whose 2K time is 30 sec slower than him, so he's going to run him off his feet. This defender is 5cm shorter than the forward he's on, but his vertical leap is 10cm better, so he should do well. Punters entitled to know all that info too? That data should go in the preseason booklet?


Max Gawn got interviewed after this was announced:
"I've been the same weight in the booklet since I got drafted and my weight has changed 10 times. We don't stand on the scales every year for the AFL. There is a standard we want to be and between you, your high performance manager and your dietitian you will come up with a peak performance body you want to be. "But you are the only three people who know that. Not even Goody would know what my weight is or what my skinfolds are.

no AFL player is going to ever be fat or worthy of any actual weight-shaming,

And yet it still happens. Last preseason we had Kane Cornes himself talking about how he was taken aback by seeing a photo of Stringer at preseason training, because Stringer looked overweight. He did the same in 2020, Bombers got flogged by Port, and Stringer's jumper was off during a melee. Cornes again reckoned he was overweight, unprofessional, that 'you don't present yourself like that'. Earlier in the 2020 season, we had McAvaney dribbling this about Stringer "He looks big to me. He doesn’t look as fit as I’ve seen him look. He’s big through the backside, he’s big through the legs. And the tummy as well. And yet, he’s kicked two goals. He’s done everything right, but he looks big doesn’t he."

Anzac Day 2012, Swanny had 42 touches, 13 clearances, 6 tackles, kicked 3 goals, got Pies over the line by a single point. One of the greatest individual performances ever. He kicked this goal during the game:

and was rubbing his stomach afterwards, a response to a Mark Robinson article calling him fat.

Few years ago, with covid getting in the way of games, fox & others were struggling to fill airtime, and as a result we had Brereton giving us his all-time fat bloke team.

Not listing weights won't stop any of that rubbish, of course. But the fact that it won't shows how pointless listing weights is. When Cornes sees a pic of Stringer looking 'unprofessionally overweight', at least in Cornes' opinion, does he look at the listed weight for this year and see if it's higher than last year before he opens his mouth? Of course not.

There are plenty more, Swan & Stringer are just the first two I remembered and googled. Dean Rioli & Lance Whitnall are a couple more.

And it happened at clubs too. Gawn again, from the same interview, talking about preseason 'fat club':
"Going back 15 years, if I come back a little bit top-heavy, I'd be in fat club and I'd be laughed at. I get that we're elite athletes and we should be keeping our body to a high level but that doesn't help. If I come back top heavy I'll feel bad and get through it with my dietitian and high performance but I don't need to be laughed at."
I don't have the book handy to grab an actual quote, but Swanny also talks about that sort of body-shaming from the club in his autobiography.

Here's a 2018 article talking about the issue, on the pressure on teenagers with aspirations of a footy career, with more examples: https://theconversation.com/too-fat-to-get-drafted-the-worrying-body-image-pressures-in-the-afl-100252

To suggest it doesn't matter because none of them are actually fat or worthy of any actual weight-shaming misses the point. Look at the issue in wider society. Most people with body image issues, most people with eating disorders, they're not actually fat either. Nobody is 'worthy' of actual weight-shaming, but even if we accepted that once beyond a certain weight or bmi that it's ok to weight-shame someone for it, then again, most people with eating disorders wouldn't meet that threshold.

That and I don't think that the reasons for not having this information are particularly worth giving in to.

There's one more big reason yet to be mentioned. That's the impact it can have on others, the message it can send to others. Especially teenagers. It encourages an unhealthy focus on weight, rather than more sensible markers of health & fitness. It can encourage unrealistic goals. Thinking they need to get their weight down (or up) to match that of their favourite player if they want to have a chance of playing footy at a higher level. Seeing themselves as fat (or weak) because their weight doesn't match up. Leading to unhealthy behaviours to try and get their body to match the ideal they think they need to reach. Even if that ideal is unrealistic, even if that ideal is based on a published weight that isn't even correct, even if their body type & shape & build is quite different to the person they're viewing as an ideal target.

Publishing player weights offers very little in the way of useful info for commentators & fans. Especially when they're not very accurate anyway. Publishing weight does have more unhelpful potential consequences than you think.
Click to expand...


Thanks - some actual facts.

It would have been helpful if someone at the AFL had stood up and said some of this. As it is they just look sneaky and politically correct rather than just eliminating a useless data point. And as you say a lot of young people are really focused on weight and body issues - it would have been great platform for AFL to contribute to that discussion.

Now we are going to have years of whining about woke AFL.
 
Lavender Bushranger said:
Did you not even bother to read the fu**ing post directly above yours FFS?

In particular, this part...

"Max Gawn got interviewed after this was announced:
"I've been the same weight in the booklet since I got drafted and my weight has changed 10 times. We don't stand on the scales every year for the AFL. There is a standard we want to be and between you, your high performance manager and your dietitian you will come up with a peak performance body you want to be. "But you are the only three people who know that. Not even Goody would know what my weight is or what my skinfolds are."
Click to expand...

I couldn't care less if their weight fluctuates every year.
List their damn preseason weight and let it be done for 12 months.
 
My Tilly said:
I couldn't care less if their weight fluctuates every year.
List their damn preseason weight and let it be done for 12 months.
Click to expand...
The point was that they have never done this anyway.

"I've been the same weight in the booklet since I got drafted and my weight has changed 10 times. We don't stand on the scales every year for the AFL. "

So this whole "oooohhhh why are they not telling me a player's weight anymore cause it's just so important to me and the game" whining is utter nonsense.
 
Lavender Bushranger said:
The point was that they have never done this anyway.

"I've been the same weight in the booklet since I got drafted and my weight has changed 10 times. We don't stand on the scales every year for the AFL. "

So this whole "oooohhhh why are they not telling me a player's weight anymore cause it's just so important to me and the game" whining is utter nonsense.
Click to expand...

Well take that up with the Melbourne footy club. Who the hell cares about Max Gawn's body weight?

I know my club updates their young players weight once every now again. Just because Max says his has not been updated, does not mean he speaks for everyone.

You probably take Mark Robinson's preseason top 50 players as fact as well.
 
My Tilly said:
Well take that up with the Melbourne footy club. Who the hell cares about Max Gawn's body weight?

I know my club updates their young players weight once every now again. Just because Max says his has not been updated, does not mean he speaks for everyone.

You probably take Mark Robinson's preseason top 50 players as fact as well.
Click to expand...

I think everyone of relatively sane mind knows that player's weights are not only irrelevant to anything football related - they're also rarely if ever updated.

So not only are they irrelevant to anything to do with football as a stat in isolation - even if they were relevant, they are not accurate in the Football Record or any other data repository that fans have access to anyway. They never have been.

Sorry if you're dim enough to think that Tom Hawkins still weighs 105kgs, or that the Bont weighs 2kgs more than Christian Petracca, or that Max King has only gained 4 kgs in the past 3 years - but you've been wasting your time all these years trawling through the Player's Weight stat. They were always meaingless.
 
Lavender Bushranger said:
Sorry if you're dim enough to think that Tom Hawkins still weighs 105kgs, or that the Bont weighs 2kgs more than Christian Petracca, or that
Click to expand...

You are a complete nutter!
Hawkins would weight almost 105kg. I'm willing to bet on that. He spent the second half of his career keeping weight down so he could manage the workload as he plays well into his 30's. In fact, I would not be surprised he is lighter today than what he was as a 20yr old.

And Bontempelli stands 193cm tall. That is a key position frame. Much taller than Petracca so yes, why would he not weigh more than Petracca?
 

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Corn Cobbers said:
You seem to have absolutely no idea what people do with this stat

It's used pretty much for one reason only... to form an opinion of the body type of the player, usually a rookie, before laying eyes on him

That's it

Nothing else

"Well why can't you wait to see him?" clever dudes like you ask

Well there are many reasons why you just might want to know that right now, and the easiest way to do that is to check their declared weight rather than fly around the country watching teams train

Really couldn't care if it's accurate or not, ball park weight is fine

And if you think weight doesn't matter well I'm tipping you've never played a hard game of football

On SM-A225F using BigFooty.com mobile app
Click to expand...
I'd still have my front teeth if I didn't play hard games of footy.
 
My Tilly said:
Ironic, here you are trying to find exact players weights and yet you are happy to be done with it all together :p
Click to expand...
It's not really ironic, he's using existing sources to point out why it's mostly irrelevant.

But I'm sure you knew that?

Posting player weights ain't the AFLs job, anymore than it's their job to supply feet pics.

Weirdos and gambling addicts dying for some shred of data for their conspiracy walls will have to resort to installing secret scales on the clubs' thresholds.

The AFL doesn't measure them and the players don't tell the AFL either, at least not regularly or accurately.

It wasn't data, it was an approximate number bereft of context and time sensitivity.

There's irony on the faux outrage around this. But mostly it's bulldust.
 
My Tilly said:
Ironic, here you are trying to find exact players weights and yet you are happy to be done with it all together :p
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to find exact player weights.

I'm demonstrating how they are not accurate, even when they are provided.


Further. I'm not trying to get rid of them. But I have almost literally zero concern that they are being done away with.

It's the closest thing to useless as you'll ever find.
 
Cyclops said:
It's not really ironic, he's using existing sources to point out why it's mostly irrelevant.

But I'm sure you knew that?

Posting player weights ain't the AFLs job, anymore than it's their job to supply feet pics.

Weirdos and gambling addicts dying for some shred of data for their conspiracy walls will have to resort to installing secret scales on the clubs' thresholds.

The AFL doesn't measure them and the players don't tell the AFL either, at least not regularly or accurately.

It wasn't data, it was an approximate number bereft of context and time sensitivity.

There's irony on the faux outrage around this. But mostly it's bulldust.
Click to expand...

Sorry but every male sport around the world has an athletes height and weight listed. Not exactly sure why you and many others are suddenly ok with listed weight to no longer be made public.
 
My Tilly said:
Sorry but every male sport around the world has an athletes height and weight listed. Not exactly sure why you and many others are suddenly ok with listed weight to no longer be made public.
Click to expand...
False premise is false.

They are made public and they're still nonsense.

I have to ask, you're not one of these ones who wants players feet pics too are you?
 
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