The Premiership cycle

[jonbe54]

All of us who have followed football for a fair time are well and truly aware of the cycle which all clubs try to manage from flag through rebuilding to challenging again.

Over the last few decades this has been considerably more challenging for most as the numbers of opposition increase and the AFL meddling with draft rules and salary caps to even the competition becomes ever more intrusive.

With success all clubs find themselves financially flush but once they slide out of contention the money dries up and a vicious circe builds which makes the task of climbing back up all the harder.

I'm very glad to see we are seemingly trying to build a financial base outside of our onfield success capabilities so that when the inevitable dip comes it won't be so deep or long.

 

[Collingwoodrow]

Free agency is going to take the league into the land of the unknown. I don't want to sound like a prophet of doom, but imagine being Melbourne FC next season?

Poor drafting, expansion, financial problems, loss of priority picks....and quite possibly about to lose all their talent aged 26 and over to other clubs.

How do they rebuild?

You see this happen in American sports all the time. Teams go decades without being competitive because your club is not seen as an attractive place to play. Thus u have to overpay marginal talent to keep it and can't sign the upper echelon of talent on the market

 

[vjknight]

All of us who have followed football for a fair time are well and truly aware of the cycle which all clubs try to manage from flag through rebuilding to challenging again.

Over the last few decades this has been considerably more challenging for most as the numbers of opposition increase and the AFL meddling with draft rules and salary caps to even the competition becomes ever more intrusive.

With success all clubs find themselves financially flush but once they slide out of contention the money dries up and a vicious circe builds which makes the task of climbing back up all the harder.

I'm very glad to see we are seemingly trying to build a financial base outside of our onfield success capabilities so that when the inevitable dip comes it won't be so deep or long.

LOL you bought glasses of beer poured from a bottle at the back of the stand, didnt ya jonbe - thats how long youve been going...

interesting you call the draft & salary cap rules intrusive. i saw those changes as a breath of fresh air, removing the hold a few clubs had over the entire competition thru favourable decisions by the vfl hierarchy (we know who i refer too ).

the fact that some clubs seen as perennial cellar dwellers only 20-30 years ago, seen as likely to fold, have experienced lengthy periods in the top4 of the league. i refer to stkilda, footscray, melbourne, sydney who have all enjoyed a period of relative success, as a result of these rules designed to help those that help themselves, rather than the gift mentality of the 60's & 70's.

as for our dear magpies, it took a long time, and took several near death experiences financially, but clearly we are finally on a path to consistent performance, simply thru ensuring theres money available to spend, money that will keep the COLLINGWOOD FOOTBALL CLUB at the forefront of everything desirable for players to play for us, and supporters to contribute....forever....TO GOOD OLD COLLINGWOOD FOREVER

 

[jonbe54]

LOL you bought glasses of beer poured from a bottle at the back of the stand, didnt ya jonbe - thats how long youve been going...

interesting you call the draft & salary cap rules intrusive. i saw those changes as a breath of fresh air, removing the hold a few clubs had over the entire competition thru favourable decisions by the vfl hierarchy (we know who i refer too ).

the fact that some clubs seen as perennial cellar dwellers only 20-30 years ago, seen as likely to fold, have experienced lengthy periods in the top4 of the league. i refer to stkilda, footscray, melbourne, sydney who have all enjoyed a period of relative success, as a result of these rules designed to help those that help themselves, rather than the gift mentality of the 60's & 70's.

as for our dear magpies, it took a long time, and took several near death experiences financially, but clearly we are finally on a path to consistent performance, simply thru ensuring theres money available to spend, money that will keep the COLLINGWOOD FOOTBALL CLUB at the forefront of everything desirable for players to play for us, and supporters to contribute....forever....TO GOOD OLD COLLINGWOOD FOREVER

Sold a few bottles as well vj

I go far enough back to remember - and have visited - more than a few 'sly grog shops' - and to have resented the TAB's introduction

Intrusive is probably the wrong word, certainly manipulative though in that it artificially penalizes good management to support bad management, I'm not saying it wasn't needed but just noting that it penalizes good teams to support lesser teams.

 

[Dundalis]

Free agency is going to take the league into the land of the unknown. I don't want to sound like a prophet of doom, but imagine being Melbourne FC next season?

Poor drafting, expansion, financial problems, loss of priority picks....and quite possibly about to lose all their talent aged 26 and over to other clubs.

How do they rebuild?

You see this happen in American sports all the time. Teams go decades without being competitive because your club is not seen as an attractive place to play. Thus u have to overpay marginal talent to keep it and can't sign the upper echelon of talent on the market

The only American sport in which this is in any way shape or form a valid comparison is the NFL, as it's the only sport with a hard salary cap (The NHL do also, but it's a very recent change).

The AFL has not had free agency before, and yet still have teams like Richmond that have been terrible for 20 odd years. So it's kind of silly to predict doom and gloom for the lesser clubs as a result of free agency, when it's already this way under the current rules. In the NFL, it is far more common to see terrible teams bounce back to have really good seasons the next, because they inevitably have the cap space to go out and sign some good players to go with high draft picks. You may not have smaller market teams be dominant for significant periods of time, but that is probably always going to be the case, whether you have free agency or not. The teams with greater income are almost always likely to turn their financial edge into competitive advantage somehow regardless of how tight the restrictions.

I could actually see the effect being the opposite, with teams like Melbourne and Richmond able to supplement high draft picks with some expensive free agents due to having the cap space. A free agent may be willing to compromise some monetary value to sign with better teams, but ultimately their options are going to be limited due to successful teams by default having little if any salary cap space available to sign their own players much less anyone else. We will be a prime example as we will likely have a struggle just to keep all our own players, much less sign anyone else as much as I'm sure there will be free agents wanting to play for us.

 

[vjknight]

Intrusive is probably the wrong word, certainly manipulative though in that it artificially penalizes good management to support bad management, I'm not saying it wasn't needed but just noting that it penalizes good teams to support lesser teams.

again do remember the previous system favoured certain teams, and pretty much destroyed others.

 

[jonbe54]

again do remember the previous system favoured certain teams, and pretty much destroyed others.

Certainly agree there vj, the previous system is responsible for North's plight and the Bullies I suppose in that it created a 2 tier competition.

The new system has certainly levelled the playing field, except those years when expansion clubs are running riot in the draft and making it very hard for bottom clubs to find the amount of quality players they need to lift themselves up the ladder.

 

[76woodenspooners]

Great topic, and one I feel pashionately about.

There have been many changes over the years. Some have been good (eg. making it more women / kid / family friendly) and some have been not so good (eg. changing the goal umpire uniform from the white coats)

I thought that it was a terrible idea by the AFL to balance out the competition and try to give all clubs an equal chance of on-field success over time.

Life is simply not like that. And I don't think that's necessarily what people want.

I think back to the time when I was a kid and the kids around me were picking and following their footy teams. At the time Carlton were a dominant team - when they won, the kids supporting them were merely satisfied - nothing more. But when they lost, gee they were grumpy. There weren't any happier kids in the playground than a Fitzroy or a St Kilda supporter when they won - because that didn't happen so often.

And here was the really strange thing: I could spend an hour with a person, and after that I could fairly accurately pick which footy team they supported, such was the embedded cultural ties between people and their team.

You see the thing is, when kids are picking thir teams they don't usually understand what winning or losing means. Perhaps they might start to get it when they see when the team in black and white have a bigger number than the other team, then Mum/Dad are happy, otherwise Mum/Dad are grumpy. So they want the team in the Black and White to do well, because that what creates their innate desire for a happy household. I ain't no child psychologist, but I guess a good way to program your kid to be a Collingwood supporter is to give them their favourite dessert when Collingwood win, and make them go without desserts when they lose. That's a bit dark though.

I thought the old system worked generally well. There was a very diverse culture of people - those who followed strong teams and those who followed weak teams. There was no shame in supporting the underdog. Sure, winning a premiership was the ultimate prize, but there were other grand prizes. Such as upsetting a stronger team, or finishing higher up the ladder, or having a Brownlow medal player etc.

Things were good, but far from perfect. The thing that was damaging to the game and the competition - and it still exists today to a lessor extent - was teams hocking their future. In the past that might mean teams taking on debt to pay overprice for a player. They would expect that they would get a return on investment. If it didn't pay off, then they'd be in trouble down the track. It's like taking out a personal loan to gamble on the horses. Yeah, if it pays off then you're laughing, but if it doesn't then you're stuffed. It exists today in the back ending of player contracts. I think if the AFL had concentrated more on preventing teams from borrowing against their future, and less on wanting to give everybody their turn to win, then we'd end up with a much, much better **competition**. *The price of success this year should not be failure down the track.

Take this exaggeration: imagine if a team tried to buy a Premiership over the next few years by offering all the best free agent players 7 year contracts? That should not be allowed.

Which brings me to the topic of this thread, the dreaded "Premiership window". I hate the term. As far as I'm concerned, if your team has 22 players to put onto the park then they're in a Premiership window. When a team follows the premiership cycle then what they are doing is creating excuses for failure and poor performance. And when they do that they end up like Melbourne is now.