Autopsy Why is there a 23 game season this year and is it necessary?

[Coolangatta]

The problem with a 34 round season is Tasmania. If there were three less teams in Victoria and instead one each in Tasmania, ACT and NT (using Cairns as a secondary market) then sure, but you’d have to reduce quarter lengths and expand list sizes because no player could get through that many games a year.

 

[CCurnow3votes]

We needed the extra game to make the 8

 

[bloodsbigot]

They should either reduce it to 17-18 games a season so each team play each other only once (plus an extra derby game), or increase it to a 34 round season so each team plays each other twice.

It's not like the 22 round season is sacred. We used to have an 18 round season until 1968 and only introduced 22 rounds in 1970. So most of VFL/AFL history wasn't even 22 rounds.

I can hear the purists whingeing now: "Oh but all the hundred goal seasons will mean nothing. It'll screw up the data. Blah blah blah."
Bob Pratt kicked 150 goals in 1933 when there were only 18 rounds. Yet people still say Peter Hudson equalled his record in 1971 even though it was a 22 round season. There wasn't an uproar then and there wouldn't be an uproar now.

If you insist on keeping the data meaningful, then just decrease games to 18 a season like it was prior to 1970. Otherwise let's have a fair competition and have a 34 round season. Right now the 23 round season is a joke.

 

[GCS in 11]

Once Tassie and Team 20 are in the comp, they really should go to a 19 match season. 1 Gather round match and 9 Home/9 away.

 

[hawkman]

Brad scott had an interesting idea

Everyone plays each other once (i think home fixture should then be flipped every year).
Then have a rivalry round (which I think works for gather round)

18 rounds +1 gather rd;
Port v crows, dockers v eagles, swans v giants, lions v suns, blues v dons, tigers v pies, hawks v cats, dees v dogs, saints v roos.

Tassie stuffs this up though.
Lose a month of footy, but you get a fair draw.

I'm sure that everyone is willing to cop the paycuts that go along with this

 

[theasian]

Nothing wrong with having a 23/24 game season. 34/36 games per season are not practical in a physically demanding contact sport like Footy.

You'd have incresed player injuries and with a shallow player pool , not enough quality.

But if you want to make it fair a team should have alternate home & away games against another team either in the same season or spread across two seasons.

The problems happens when a team plays another team away five times in a row like Collingwood & Lions, or One Team rarely doubles up against another team.

But clubs are also prioritising revenue over fixture equity , and it's likely to remain for the forseeable future

 

[Coolangatta]

Once Tassie and Team 20 are in the comp, they really should go to a 19 match season. 1 Gather round match and 9 Home/9 away.

Yes but $$$.

They could always re-expand it again in the future, maxing out at 24 teams playing 23 games a year, as long as they figure out a good finals system for that many teams.

 

[Clark G]

It was only 20 for two years - 1969-1970. Prior to that it had been 18 since 1925 (introduction of North, Hawks and Dogs). There were a few weird things happen around the war (Geelong dropped out of the comp for a couple of years which unbalanced things) and somehow they played 19 games each year 1946-1949 - every year, half the teams played 10 home games and 9 away and vice-versa.

It has been 22 since 1970 (except for 1993, when it was 20 for some reason I've forgotten), 17 for the Covid season, and this year.

State of origin carnival.

 

[Freomaniac]

Not sold on shorter breaks. Think the trade off for getting 34 games is personal byes for players and shorter game duration (so that you can start a game every 2.5 hours without overlap). That and allowing more 5 day breaks for teams. AFL isn't NBA nor MLB, so I can't see shorter than a week (give or take) working. There's a reason EPL, NFL etc play one game a week (speaking of EPL, a midweek night series FA cup style would be a good alternative).

If you played 34 games, I'd make players take at least 4 weeks off with 2-3 of those weeks needing to be consecutive. I'd also reduce the finals to a top 4 comp. Make winning the H+A comp a bigger thing, but keep the premiership cup as the end point. Would mean the season runs from Feb to October. No need for pre-season games.

Play Thursday Night (7.30), Friday Night (7.30 or sometimes 7/9.30), Saturday (always 2.30/5/7.30 and 12pm when no friday double header) and Sunday (always 2.30/5 and either 12pm or 7.30). Outside of Friday double headers, the game times are always the same. Reduce the complexity. Maximise the timezones we have by playing Perth games at good times locally and whenever there's a PH somewhere in the country, make sure we at least play the night before (ie WA Day).

American Sports like NBA and MLB and MLS are totally different beasts.

MLB you play like 162 regular season games from march to october. Theres only 6 finals spots for 2 different conferences.

NBA you have 82 regular season games from mid october until late April. 15 teams are in the eatern conference, 15 teams in the western conference. a top 8 system too.

MLS is confusing. I thought it was only 18 sides and each side faces 17 opponents twice just like some of the european leagues like german league and Portugese league.

If We played 34 games in the AFL, it would be like the 2020 AFL season, where teams play mid week.


I works in european football or soccer as its not as physcally demanding and theres more rotations. Soccer sides have habits of playing Saturday, then tuesday. Or Saturday then Wednesday.

 

[JohnZ]

If We played 34 games in the AFL, it would be like the 2020 AFL season, where teams play mid week

Why? We have enough weeks in the year to play footy at one game per week for 36 weeks. Still leaves 16 weeks for transition for cricket plus 5x5 test matches

 

[Hoops]

My preference is a 12 team comp.

Brad scott had an interesting idea

Everyone plays each other once (i think home fixture should then be flipped every year).
Then have a rivalry round (which I think works for gather round)

18 rounds +1 gather rd;
Port v crows, dockers v eagles, swans v giants, lions v suns, blues v dons, tigers v pies, hawks v cats, dees v dogs, saints v roos.

Tassie stuffs this up though.
Lose a month of footy, but you get a fair draw.

I would have a final 16 over 8 weeks

 

[Freomaniac]

Why? We have enough weeks in the year to play footy at one game per week for 36 weeks. Still leaves 16 weeks for transition for cricket plus 5x5 test matches

Well if each side plays 34 games each or 17 opponents twice. Would you want the regular season to go for 34 weeks and a Normal 4 weeks of finals? That means the trade week and AFL draft is like 4-6 weeks later after the grand final. Not to mention 8-10 weeks of pre season

 

[Coolangatta]

If there were more teams you could split into divisions.

Or even 12 teams top division playing twice, 6 teams in division two playing each other four times = 20 game season.

With Tasmania it would be 7 teams playing each other four times a year with a shorter two week finals series.

8 teams = play three times plus gather round = 22 games. Etc. There are ways to make it work with fewer teams.

Obviously it won’t happen because of $$$ and the AFL wanting the big blockbusters every year. But I still think people would watch their team just as much as they do now even if they were only playing in the second division.

 

[JohnZ]

Well if each side plays 34 games each or 17 opponents twice. Would you want the regular season to go for 34 weeks and a Normal 4 weeks of finals? That means the trade week and AFL draft is like 4-6 weeks later after the grand final. Not to mention 8-10 weeks of pre season

34 plus top 4 finals (2 weeks) is 36 weeks. Trading starts Wednesday after GF and goes until Friday Week (2 weeks). Draft that same Sunday night.

For teams that havent played finals thats 4 weeks off. Year 1-4 players (including Draftees) come back from break. 5+ year players come back 2 weeks after that. Finals players come back 2 weeks later than non finals.

Everyone gets a guaranteed 4 weeks during the season and 4 or 6 weeks in the offseason. The preseason itself is overrated by the AFL. 10-12 weeks is more than enough.

Playing more games over less game duration will see the players maintain their fitness better anyway over the offseason.

 

[JohnZ]

Obviously it won’t happen because of $$$ and the AFL wanting the big blockbusters every year. But I still think people would watch their team just as much as they do now even if they were only playing in the second division

Agree. 24 teams would allow for a 2 division system where each team plays 11 teams both home and away. If they keep adding teams it’s something that needs consideration

 

[DonBurke]

Just a random thought here but how about a 34 game season but players can only participate in 22 of those games at a maximum. Just means coaches need to be a bit more tactical at team selection every week and utilise the depth in the squad. Come finals time everyone is available. The more I think about it the more interesting it is


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[citizen-erased]

Just a random thought here but how about a 34 game season but players can only participate in 22 of those games at a maximum. Just means coaches need to be a bit more tactical at team selection every week and utilise the depth in the squad. Come finals time everyone is available. The more I think about it the more interesting it is


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

Brad scott does not like this

 

[Coolangatta]

Just a random thought here but how about a 34 game season but players can only participate in 22 of those games at a maximum. Just means coaches need to be a bit more tactical at team selection every week and utilise the depth in the squad. Come finals time everyone is available. The more I think about it the more interesting it is


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

I'd be all for this if the 18 teams included Tasmania, Canberra, and the Northern Territory, with three less teams in Victoria, but that's not going to happen.

 

[gungho]

This gets pointed out by many but there should be 20 teams by 2030. At that point everyone should play each other once. (19 rounds)

 

[deck]

I wouldn't say relatively fluid when it's been 22 games for 52 years.
I think we all know it was changed to get more revenue for Fox and 7.

Actually 1993 only had a 20 game season.

 

[Coolangatta]

This gets pointed out by many but there should be 20 teams by 2030. At that point everyone should play each other once. (19 rounds)

Never gonna happen. 19 games = 4 less games for clubs = less revenue for clubs, players, broadcasters, and less footy for fans and members. The AFL will never allow it. I think we’ll get to 20 teams but it’ll still be 23-24 games per season.

 

[Dazzler9]

Never gonna happen. 19 games = 4 less games for clubs = less revenue for clubs, players, broadcasters, and less footy for fans and members. The AFL will never allow it. I think we’ll get to 20 teams but it’ll still be 23-24 games per season.

19 rounds in a 20 team comp is 190 games for the year. A 22 round comp of 18 teams is 198 games.

So only 8 less.

Throw in a Gather Round and you've got 200 games per season, so more than the standard 22 games we had until this year.

 

[Coolangatta]

19 rounds in a 20 team comp is 190 games for the year. A 22 round comp of 18 teams is 198 games.

So only 8 less.

Throw in a Gather Round and you've got 200 games per season, so more than the standard 22 games we had until this year.

Except now with Gather Round, we have 207 games per year. So 7 more than the 200 you're proposing; they're not going to reduce the number of games from the broadcast deal.

Even more if you keep it to 23-24 games a year, why wouldn't the AFL schedule more games if they can? What's stopping them from doing that? No one's kicking down the door of AFL HQ to reduce the number of games now, and the broadcasters certainly wouldn't seem to mind.

Also, who's to say expansion will stop at 20 teams? One day there might be 22 teams, so they'd need a minimum of 21 games, so what's the point of going to 19 games if they're just going to increase the number of games again in the future?

 

[Dazzler9]

Except now with Gather Round, we have 207 games per year. So 7 more than the 200 you're proposing; they're not going to reduce the number of games from the broadcast deal.

Even more if you keep it to 23-24 games a year, why wouldn't the AFL schedule more games if they can? What's stopping them from doing that? No one's kicking down the door of AFL HQ to reduce the number of games now, and the broadcasters certainly wouldn't seem to mind.

Also, who's to say expansion will stop at 20 teams? One day there might be 22 teams, so they'd need a minimum of 21 games, so what's the point of going to 19 games if they're just going to increase the number of games again in the future?

Less is more.

 

[caveman72]

My guess on the extra round is the AFL are gifting the non Tigger fans a bonus game to enjoy of meltdowns from their fans as they return to their rightful place just outside the 8