20 minutes ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

Really interesting thread with some wonderful responses. And interesting ideas. I do feel like a lot of the more radical changes would quickly bring about unintended consequences, and some might be worse than the thing they're fixing.

Speaking of unintended consequences, the strong clubs getting stronger was not an unintended consequence of free agency. It was very obvious it would happen. The AFL may have half-heartdly waved towards the vague possibility of lowly clubs getting out of contract stars seeking money, but it was never a serious 'selling point', because it was totally implausible.

I remember proponents of free agency playing a little word game when challenged on this: instead of saying the system would reward stronger clubs, they said it would punish clubs who didn't have their house in order. It was a "you did this to yourself" argument; and insofar as it was ever in good faith (it rarely was) it was an inch-deep analysis of how "success" and "failure" happens and is advertised to the public in the AFL. All clubs go through periods of not having their "house in order" - some of it down to incompetence, some down to poor behaviour, some down to extremely bad luck; but only the clubs at the bottom of the ladder are chastised for it in 'the industry'.

What was an unintended consequence was the shadow free agency that occurred alongside actual free agency, the cultural shift where it now became completely normal for any player seeking to move clubs to "nominate" a destination. This has been a hard one to explain away even for the most ardent free agency apologists, almost all of them the types who weekly secrete themselves in a toilet to fap off to the magical capabilities of the "free market", because it wipes out competition and even the semblance of fair recompense.

Whatever system we have today, too much power lays with the players and their agents.

It feels like they hold the smaller clubs for ransom whenever they feel like going to a big club. Ditto for home sickness, moving back to their state of origin.

On 17/09/2025 at 08:56, 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.

i've shared this to so many people in the last week @The heart beats true

everyone is in furiously depressed agreement

17 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

i've shared this to so many people in the last week @The heart beats true

everyone is in furiously depressed agreement

You'd think that in a very competitive landscape (easy access to international Sports) the AFL would prefer to grow the size of their market? Not just keep it stagnant? Reality is that, within two generations, the AFL is at risk of drying out the well of fortune.

6 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

You'd think that in a very competitive landscape (easy access to international Sports) the AFL would prefer to grow the size of their market? Not just keep it stagnant? Reality is that, within two generations, the AFL is at risk of drying out the well of fortune.

It's protected by Australian isolation in both a geographical and time zone sense.

The only time zone that remotely competes is US sport shown around 10am East Coast time.

Agree with your point in that if they had serious competition they would falter.

When are we going to hear about games in New Zealand again. They've tried everywhere else

Its a farce. Agents and players do as they please and ignore contracts they agreed to. Big clubs get the best players wanting to move. Scraps for the rest.

Like the positive ideas above but the AFL isnt taking it seriously.

8 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

It's protected by Australian isolation in both a geographical and time zone sense.

The only time zone that remotely competes is US sport shown around 10am East Coast time.

Agree with your point in that if they had serious competition they would falter.

When are we going to hear about games in New Zealand again. They've tried everywhere else

Well the landscape is a bit different today.

Streaming makes it viable to watch games on demand and spoiler free.

Add to that the fact that most immigrants these days are from countries where they don't even know the AFL exist, so how do you convert those new Australians into footy fanatics?

1 hour ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Whatever system we have today, too much power lays with the players and their agents.

Yep. I can see that many years ago players had legitimate concerns that clubs had too much control. But what's taken place has been a massive overcorrection.

58 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Well the landscape is a bit different today.

Streaming makes it viable to watch games on demand and spoiler free.

...

True. Though someone should tell the VFL to list replays streamable on the AFL website to make it spoiler free. At present it is impossible to click on 'play' without seeing the final score.

1 hour ago, whatwhat say what said:

i've shared this to so many people in the last week @The heart beats true

everyone is in furiously depressed agreement

If you think that’s good I’ve got a whole rant ready to go about the declining quality of Sausage Rolls (poor ingredients due to less direct relationships between bakers and butcher, less infrastructure to support kitchen staff resulting in less commitment to the craft).

I’m not afraid to tackle all the big problems.

1 hour ago, Diamond_Jim said:

It's protected by Australian isolation in both a geographical and time zone sense.

The only time zone that remotely competes is US sport shown around 10am East Coast time.

Agree with your point in that if they had serious competition they would falter.

When are we going to hear about games in New Zealand again. They've tried everywhere else

Ive no idea why they dont try India. Already have ovals, they speak English and there's a population of 1 billion. Huge market that even Already understands the Australian psyche a bit through cricket... but that's another story

38 minutes ago, biggestred said:

Ive no idea why they dont try India. Already have ovals, they speak English and there's a population of 1 billion. Huge market that even Already understands the Australian psyche a bit through cricket... but that's another story

India or even one or two States of India is definitely worth some grass roots investment. (The China play was a Kochie vanity project that should never be repeated). Strangely enough Kochi could be a perfect place to start.

It might even attract the Victorian Indian diaspora.

Being 5 hours behind it's not a bad TV market for 7:30pm games either