So we have a situation in the AFL at the moment.

The current prelim finalists are...well, I'm sick of them being in the top 4.

In addition, 3 of the bottom 4's captains want out – at least 2 of them to these top 4 clubs.

The West Coast won 1 game and are losing 3x the best 22 players.

Add the chorus of talking heads saying that these same players would be "a good fit" for these same rusted-on finalists. Add the AFL'S "gettable" propagandists employed by the league, to undermine this same pool of bottom-finishing teams.

It’s over. At some point the analytics told the AFL that 85% of its audience aren’t going anywhere - regardless of results.

Huge, monumental spectacle is what the AFL wants its brand to be. Why spend decades building up half the competition when the other half already provides everything you need?

The smart big clubs woke up to this a while back. Collingwood’s list strategy is diabolical on paper, but they know they’ll just top up on talent because the system is built to sustain them. 3 of Geelong’s 4 best players came from other clubs.

This year was the least competitive season of AFL ever. The top 9 teams were decided by mid April. Thats 5.5 months of meaningless footy for half the clubs. The Age report on how poor this season was because they aren’t feeding directly from the AFL trough. Everyone else just happily follows the talking points, or else they might not get a good free suite at next years Gather Round.

It annoys me enormously that 2025 will be a huge financial success for the AFL because its overall product has stunk this year, and the guy leading the organisation never really wanted the job, and clearly has no vision for the future of the game.

This is all part of the problem. It continues to succeed in spite of itself, because we love the game too much.

10 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

It’s over. At some point the analytics told the AFL that 85% of its audience aren’t going anywhere - regardless of results.

Huge, monumental spectacle is what the AFL wants its brand to be. Why spend decades building up half the competition when the other half already provides everything you need?

The smart big clubs woke up to this a while back. Collingwood’s list strategy is diabolical on paper, but they know they’ll just top up on talent because the system is built to sustain them. 3 of Geelong’s 4 best players came from other clubs.

This year was the least competitive season of AFL ever. The top 9 teams were decided by mid April. Thats 5.5 months of meaningless footy for half the clubs. The Age report on how poor this season was because they aren’t feeding directly from the AFL trough. Everyone else just happily follows the talking points, or else they might not get a good free suite at next years Gather Round.

It annoys me enormously that 2025 will be a huge financial success for the AFL because its overall product has stunk this year, and the guy leading the organisation never really wanted the job, and clearly has no vision for the future of the game.

This is all part of the problem. It continues to succeed in spite of itself, because we love the game too much.

What do you propose? I think the horse has galloped and there’s no coming back.

11 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

This year was the least competitive season of AFL ever. The top 9 teams were decided by mid April. Thats 5.5 months of meaningless footy for half the clubs.

This is precisely why the Wild Card weekend should and will come in.

I get this argument to a point, but there is absolutely no way that Hawthorn should be outperforming North Melbourne by this much in 2025 given where the two sides were 5-6 years ago.

One of those teams has done everything right since then, and the other has been a disaster in every respect. Same for Essendon and West Coast.

I know Hawthorn are nominally a big club, but they were not attracting quality players circa 2020, nor were they loading up on draft picks. Their success has been built on finding hidden diamonds such as Newcombe, and then supplementing with players such as Ginnivan and D'Ambrosio that nobody else wanted. Mitchell has been extraordinary for that club, particularly given how little impact Clarkson has had at North.

West Coast and Richmond have both won premierships in the past decade, and are now taking their medicine. Richmond's strategy has been fine and they'll come good at some point. West Coast deserve to be garbage for a long time given how they have mismanaged their list. Melbourne are probably somewhere between those two, perhaps closer to West Coast, but it's only four years since our premiership.

I do agree that it is a real issue that Brisbane and Geelong can keep adding quality free agents within a seemingly unlimited salary cap, whilst the lower Victorian teams struggle to attract even mid-tier players without paying overs.

32 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

It’s over. At some point the analytics told the AFL that 85% of its audience aren’t going anywhere - regardless of results.

Huge, monumental spectacle is what the AFL wants its brand to be. Why spend decades building up half the competition when the other half already provides everything you need?

The smart big clubs woke up to this a while back. Collingwood’s list strategy is diabolical on paper, but they know they’ll just top up on talent because the system is built to sustain them. 3 of Geelong’s 4 best players came from other clubs.

This year was the least competitive season of AFL ever. The top 9 teams were decided by mid April. Thats 5.5 months of meaningless footy for half the clubs. The Age report on how poor this season was because they aren’t feeding directly from the AFL trough. Everyone else just happily follows the talking points, or else they might not get a good free suite at next years Gather Round.

It annoys me enormously that 2025 will be a huge financial success for the AFL because its overall product has stunk this year, and the guy leading the organisation never really wanted the job, and clearly has no vision for the future of the game.

This is all part of the problem. It continues to succeed in spite of itself, because we love the game too much.

All valid observations but if it continues there will indeed be a drop-off, incremental and over a long time span.

If the AFL was serious about equalisation wouldn't they increase the salary & soft cap for clubs that finish lower on the ladder? 🤔

42 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

It’s over. At some point the analytics told the AFL that 85% of its audience aren’t going anywhere - regardless of results.

Huge, monumental spectacle is what the AFL wants its brand to be. Why spend decades building up half the competition when the other half already provides everything you need?

The smart big clubs woke up to this a while back. Collingwood’s list strategy is diabolical on paper, but they know they’ll just top up on talent because the system is built to sustain them. 3 of Geelong’s 4 best players came from other clubs.

This year was the least competitive season of AFL ever. The top 9 teams were decided by mid April. Thats 5.5 months of meaningless footy for half the clubs. The Age report on how poor this season was because they aren’t feeding directly from the AFL trough. Everyone else just happily follows the talking points, or else they might not get a good free suite at next years Gather Round.

It annoys me enormously that 2025 will be a huge financial success for the AFL because its overall product has stunk this year, and the guy leading the organisation never really wanted the job, and clearly has no vision for the future of the game.

This is all part of the problem. It continues to succeed in spite of itself, because we love the game too much.

Until we don’t. There is growing discontent with a lot of facets of the game and I think it will eventually transfer to the bottom line on its current course.

North and west coast are two examples of complete rebuilds and why you need to avoid them at all costs. They are equivalent to declaring bankruptcy.

The real problem is how long it takes to build a team. There is only so much you can do with trades and draft. And if you get it wrong.,. We just have too many teams in the comp which dilutes the talent

9 minutes ago, No. 31 said:

All valid observations but if it continues there will indeed be a drop-off, incremental and over a long time span.

If the AFL was serious about equalisation wouldn't they increase the salary & soft cap for clubs that finish lower on the ladder? 🤔

No, this creates more issues and the press piling up because it's unfair.

What should happen is, the AFL brings the concept of the super max contract.

See the NBA for example, they have different tiers of contracts depending on the level of the player. This ensures no team can manufacture a situation where said player can take unders just to help their destination club to accommodate their salary.

And salary caps should be made public.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by ElDiablo14

Agreed Salary cap should be made public.

But in terms of equalisation, afraid the Toothpaste is out of the tube on that one.

40 minutes ago, poita said:

I know Hawthorn are nominally a big club, but they were not attracting quality players circa 2020, nor were they loading up on draft picks. Their success has been built on finding hidden diamonds such as Newcombe, and then supplementing with players such as Ginnivan and D'Ambrosio that nobody else wanted. Mitchell has been extraordinary for that club, particularly given how little impact Clarkson has had at North.

They’ve done very well, but the ability to add Impey, Scrimshaw and Karl Amon (who signed with them when they were rubbish over us when we’d won a flag) reset their backline. Along with Sicily it gave them a platform to take off once the rest of the side hit competence. Then 1 good year and Barrass and Battle lob in.

Midfield they really built up from a lot of home grown players. Newcombe is an incredible find but they also got the benefit of covid keeping him hidden and the benefit of Box Hill’s decades of attracting quality. North VFL unearthed a good player in Cooper Lord who is at Carlton, they finally hid one away with Cooper Trembath.

Forwards they’ve found some gems. Still, I’m not sure even Ginnivan and Chol level players sign at North, that’s how limited North’s ability to land talent has been until recently. I guess North tried a Ginnivan with Jaidyn Stephenson.

They managed to keep making additions to some level even when they were in a position that looked kind of no where when Mitchell took over.

Josh Battle also made some interesting comments when admitting he took less at Hawthorn than the Saints offer, something along the lines of the Hawks having access to investment portfolios to grow wealth. Extra earnings in business, marketing, property (cough Geelong cough) is what I’m suspicious about.

Remove all the BS from the draft.

Publish salary caps with earnings for anyone over 500k and a total for how much each club spends under 500k. If you don’t want your earnings to be public ask your club to cap your wage at 500k.

Those 2 things would quickly balance things up.

1 minute ago, DeeSpencer said:

They’ve done very well, but the ability to add Impey, Scrimshaw and Karl Amon (who signed with them when they were rubbish over us when we’d won a flag) reset their backline. Along with Sicily it gave them a platform to take off once the rest of the side hit competence. Then 1 good year and Barrass and Battle lob in.

Midfield they really built up from a lot of home grown players. Newcombe is an incredible find but they also got the benefit of covid keeping him hidden and the benefit of Box Hill’s decades of attracting quality. North VFL unearthed a good player in Cooper Lord who is at Carlton, they finally hid one away with Cooper Trembath.

Forwards they’ve found some gems. Still, I’m not sure even Ginnivan and Chol level players sign at North, that’s how limited North’s ability to land talent has been until recently. I guess North tried a Ginnivan with Jaidyn Stephenson.

They managed to keep making additions to some level even when they were in a position that looked kind of no where when Mitchell took over.

Josh Battle also made some interesting comments when admitting he took less at Hawthorn than the Saints offer, something along the lines of the Hawks having access to investment portfolios to grow wealth. Extra earnings in business, marketing, property (cough Geelong cough) is what I’m suspicious about.

Just cut the [censored] AFL, be serious and investigate these dodgy - against the rules practices.

Going back to the NBA example, see how the Clippers are in big trouble for the Kawhi Leonard situation. Probably a perfect example of what the likes of Geelong do in the AFL.

41 minutes ago, No. 31 said:

All valid observations but if it continues there will indeed be a drop-off, incremental and over a long time span.

If the AFL was serious about equalisation wouldn't they increase the salary & soft cap for clubs that finish lower on the ladder? 🤔

The kids of the rusted-on parents are not going to want to keep going to the footy if years of cellar-dwelling destroys the winning culture of some of these clubs. Lucky for the Dees, we are still dining out on our 2021 premiership, and still derive a level of status from this. Hence the arrival of Steven King, lauding our (shrinking) list of premiership stars.

Just now, DeeSpencer said:

Remove all the BS from the draft.

Publish salary caps with earnings for anyone over 500k and a total for how much each club spends under 500k. If you don’t want your earnings to be public ask your club to cap your wage at 500k.

Those 2 things would quickly balance things up.

This too.

No more compensation picks.

No more academy access.

F/S keep but make it "expensive" to bid on a F/S selection.

It would be good to make the fixture reasonably equal too. Send teams to Geelong and Tassie, etc.

How bout we have the 4 Prelim finals teams banned from free agency? NFL do this to great effect.

Might make all these player from the bottom clubs think twice about wanting out after signing massive long term deals.

1 hour ago, poita said:

I get this argument to a point, but there is absolutely no way that Hawthorn should be outperforming North Melbourne by this much in 2025 given where the two sides were 5-6 years ago.

One of those teams has done everything right since then, and the other has been a disaster in every respect. Same for Essendon and West Coast.

I know Hawthorn are nominally a big club, but they were not attracting quality players circa 2020, nor were they loading up on draft picks. Their success has been built on finding hidden diamonds such as Newcombe, and then supplementing with players such as Ginnivan and D'Ambrosio that nobody else wanted. Mitchell has been extraordinary for that club, particularly given how little impact Clarkson has had at North.

West Coast and Richmond have both won premierships in the past decade, and are now taking their medicine. Richmond's strategy has been fine and they'll come good at some point. West Coast deserve to be garbage for a long time given how they have mismanaged their list. Melbourne are probably somewhere between those two, perhaps closer to West Coast, but it's only four years since our premiership.

I do agree that it is a real issue that Brisbane and Geelong can keep adding quality free agents within a seemingly unlimited salary cap, whilst the lower Victorian teams struggle to attract even mid-tier players without paying overs.

You had until,
Melbourne are probably somewhere between those two, perhaps closer to West Coast LMFAO!

The biggest issue with equalisation as it relates to the AFL is that is takes a poor team way too long to rebuild. Although Merrett seems like a peanut, he's clearly read the writing o the wall and knows that Essendon are absolutely cooked for at least the next 5 years. That's too long for a bloke pushing 30 - he has to weigh up the value of winning a premiership or finishing his career as a one club player with minimal team success.

We have a draft system based on US sports, but franchises in those leagues can turn their fortunes around with one great pick. This is true in the NBA because one player has enormous influence given there are only 5 players on the court at a time, and the NFL because a good QB totally elevates both the floor and ceiling of a team. Plus they draft ready to go 21+ year olds who can contribute right away.

So, to help shorten this rebuild timeline, I think the AFL needs to make 2 dramatic changes to the draft -

1. Scrap all father/son and academy concessions. Academies should be run by the league and all clubs should have free access to the talent they produce. Father/son is a total nonsense, sold as a romantic feature of our game, but in reality just robs bad teams of generational talent for the sake of vibes.

2. Teams that finish the season 9-18 should draft twice before the top 8 sides have a pick (meaning the team that finishes 8th will pick first at 21). Obviously this would allow rebuilding sides to supercharge the acquisition of young talent, but it would also give them more capital to trade for established talent.

Note - I'd keep FA and its current compensation rules as is.

Still cannot understand why the Eagles can't get off the canvas given their money, resources and location advantage.

Some random thoughts:

Unfortunately father/son has to go.

Academies favour interstate teams in lesser markets. I can see the benefit but you wonder if they really do anything to encourage youth participation generally. Arguably they are just another elite channeling system.

Trades... a player tax paid to the AFL based on average ladder position over previous three years. The higher the club is ranked the more that goes to the AFL (say to a maximum of 20% of salary)

Finally .. payments/facilitization by loosely associated entities. Banned unless player and entity can clearly show no connection. Onus on player.

The fixture has simply become too contrived and gets worse year on year. Like the gambling dollar the AFL has become addicted. Very hard to unravel but perhaps incremental steps.

Not worried about West Coast, you'll see why below... but current 'equalisation' is a rort. Have a look at the grand finalists of the last 25 years:

This years preliminary finalists, and I have added Sydney and West Coast to it for even greater reading:
01- Brisbane 🏆
02 - Brisbane 🏆 Collingwood
03 - Brisbane 🏆 Collingwood
04 - Brisbane
05 - Sydney 🏆 West Coast
06 - West Coast 🏆 Sydney
07 - Geelong 🏆
08 - Hawthorn 🏆 Geelong
09 - Geelong 🏆
10 - Collingwood 🏆
11 - Geelong 🏆 Collingwood
12 - Sydney 🏆 Hawthorn
13 - Hawthorn 🏆
14 - Hawthorn 🏆 Sydney
15 - Hawthorn 🏆 West Coast
16 - Sydney
18 - West Coast 🏆 Collingwood
20 - Geelong
22 - Geelong 🏆 Sydney
23 - Collingwood 🏆 Brisbane
24 - Brisbane 🏆 Sydney

Only '17, '19, and '21 have not featured this years preliminary finalists + Sydney and West Coast.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by mfcrox

4 minutes ago, Deestinga2 said:

How bout we have the 4 Prelim finals teams banned from free agency? NFL do this to great effect.

Might make all these player from the bottom clubs think twice about wanting out after signing massive long term deals.

This is a massive part of the solution in my view. Free agency was the big rock that started the landslide. It was supposed to give opportunity to all, so bottom clubs could over-spend a little to get quality talent in to help them rise back up. The opposite has happened - quality players are leaving bottom clubs, often taking a pay cut, for the top teams. Footballers get paid such a huge wage that losing a small bit of cash doesn't matter. Imagine making 1.5 million vs 1.2 million over 3 years. That is essentially the average wage of an AFL player and what's happening. Now imagine you get to play in a winning team most weeks and in front of huge crowds and have more opportunity post-career. That or you get an extra bit of cash but have to rock up to a negative environment where you get flogged harder, have to travel further to work, have worse facilities, lose every week, play infront of smaller and more hostile crowds, and have less opportunity post career. That difference in wage is meaningless, and it's obvious why it's happening. It's amazing most of the smaller unsuccessful clubs like North and St Kilda are even alive at this point.

The same teams are always at the top and it's killing the league. Free agency rules need to be updated so the top 4-8 teams cannot have incoming free agents. If they can't entirely block that, then the top 4-8 teams need to pay a hefty premium that will actually impact them, something like 50% additional wage. That way if a star player like say Kozzy left where he's getting paid 12 million over 9 years, that then becomes 18 million, and gets indexed to TPP cap, so could wind up over 20 million etc.

In essence, top clubs need to be significantly impacted, or barred entirely, when it comes to free agents for the good of the game.

If anyone has the argument that players deserve more etc they can get stuffed. Most players get paid obscene amounts of money and would be working menial low paying jobs if they weren't born taller than average. They get paid more to run around and play sport than doctors who save lives and actually help the world. They are already better off than they need to be and should have less power, not more.

We are missing one more point, the draft rookie contracts.

It is farcical that a top 5 or even a top 10 pick only gets a 2 year contract.

Should be 3+1 (team option) at least.

Ah hell

Bring in the handicapper.

MFC starts with say a 4.5 game start over Collingwood etc

9 minutes ago, Lord Travis said:

The same teams are always at the top and it's killing the league. Free agency rules need to be updated so the top 4-8 teams cannot have incoming free agents.

What about if a top team picks up a free agent it loses draft pick/s.
Sort of weigh up the now vs future element.