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There's been some talk lately about a Tasmanian side being admitted in the next few years. If that happens without a relocation, the competition will have 19 teams. That would require byes every week. Byes are annoying to the players, but they can be made less annoying if sides received two byes each year so players received additional breaks.
If the fixture remains at 22 games, that would reduce the number of possible double-up games to four. I think it's time the AFL considered ditching these double-up games altogether, and have a fixture where every side plays every other side only once each year. There is a recent precedent - the COVID-19 affected 2020 season only had 17 home and away matches.
How would such a season be structured? I suggest 20 rounds where every club plays every other club once, and receives two byes. 171 matches over 20 rounds would have some rounds having eight matches and others having nine. The eight-match rounds would be nine rounds in the middle of the season, where every club receives a bye and eight clubs have two byes. The other 11 rounds would have 11 clubs having a bye, but the clubs with byes near the start or end of the season would have their byes close to the middle of the year.
With each club playing each other club only once, the allocation of home and away games becomes an important consideration. 18 opponents means nine home games and nine away games. Yet this presents an opportunity for balance. Consider trips to Perth. If every non-WA club was fixtured to make one trip to WA for a game - no more, no less - then this would balance out the fixture somewhat. The same argument applies to the other states except Tasmania: five states have an even number of clubs, so the number of interstate trips to that state becomes the number of clubs in that state divided by two. So a Victorian club plays in WA, SA, NSW and Queensland once each, and four or five times in Victoria. A non-Victorian club plays five times in Victoria, and once in the other states that have two teams.
The only thing that disturbs that balance is the need to balance trips to Tasmania. I suggest the following guideline: if a club plays an additional home game in their own state, they also play away in Tasmania, and vice versa.
To make the fixture fairer, the fixture is arranged over two seasons so each club hosts every other club over those two seasons. In the first season of a new two-season block, this constraint doesn't apply; only in the second season of a pair.
Finally, there's the issue of ranking sides with byes. In 2011, the AFL simply placed a side that had played fewer games lower on the ladder. In some past seasons (eg: 1943), byes were worth four premiership points. The AFL tried a match ratio as an alternative in the 1990s, but that was hard to understand and led to anomalies. I find all of these to be unsatisfactory. I suggest the following as an improvement: give a club two premiership points for each bye. This will place sides with byes in a more mathematically-precise position on the ladder than any other method, by ranking all sides together by wins minus losses (with byes and draws disregarded).
If the AFL does admit a 19th team, I expect the AFL will not persist with a 19-team competition for very long. A 20th team (possibly based in the NT) would be admitted soon after. With a 20-team competition, fixtures balanced by state would likely remain, with exactly one game in either Tasmania or NT each year for clubs outside those states, but the fixture would revert to one break per club with a split round reintroduced, possibly round 11.
The end of the season - and this post - is the finals. I see no need to change here. The final eight works well, and there's no need to expand it to a final 10. The finals should not reward mediocrity.
I find it interesting to consider how a future expanded AFL may work. Assuming the AFL admits one or two new teams, what are your thoughts on how the competition may be structured?
If the fixture remains at 22 games, that would reduce the number of possible double-up games to four. I think it's time the AFL considered ditching these double-up games altogether, and have a fixture where every side plays every other side only once each year. There is a recent precedent - the COVID-19 affected 2020 season only had 17 home and away matches.
How would such a season be structured? I suggest 20 rounds where every club plays every other club once, and receives two byes. 171 matches over 20 rounds would have some rounds having eight matches and others having nine. The eight-match rounds would be nine rounds in the middle of the season, where every club receives a bye and eight clubs have two byes. The other 11 rounds would have 11 clubs having a bye, but the clubs with byes near the start or end of the season would have their byes close to the middle of the year.
With each club playing each other club only once, the allocation of home and away games becomes an important consideration. 18 opponents means nine home games and nine away games. Yet this presents an opportunity for balance. Consider trips to Perth. If every non-WA club was fixtured to make one trip to WA for a game - no more, no less - then this would balance out the fixture somewhat. The same argument applies to the other states except Tasmania: five states have an even number of clubs, so the number of interstate trips to that state becomes the number of clubs in that state divided by two. So a Victorian club plays in WA, SA, NSW and Queensland once each, and four or five times in Victoria. A non-Victorian club plays five times in Victoria, and once in the other states that have two teams.
The only thing that disturbs that balance is the need to balance trips to Tasmania. I suggest the following guideline: if a club plays an additional home game in their own state, they also play away in Tasmania, and vice versa.
To make the fixture fairer, the fixture is arranged over two seasons so each club hosts every other club over those two seasons. In the first season of a new two-season block, this constraint doesn't apply; only in the second season of a pair.
Finally, there's the issue of ranking sides with byes. In 2011, the AFL simply placed a side that had played fewer games lower on the ladder. In some past seasons (eg: 1943), byes were worth four premiership points. The AFL tried a match ratio as an alternative in the 1990s, but that was hard to understand and led to anomalies. I find all of these to be unsatisfactory. I suggest the following as an improvement: give a club two premiership points for each bye. This will place sides with byes in a more mathematically-precise position on the ladder than any other method, by ranking all sides together by wins minus losses (with byes and draws disregarded).
If the AFL does admit a 19th team, I expect the AFL will not persist with a 19-team competition for very long. A 20th team (possibly based in the NT) would be admitted soon after. With a 20-team competition, fixtures balanced by state would likely remain, with exactly one game in either Tasmania or NT each year for clubs outside those states, but the fixture would revert to one break per club with a split round reintroduced, possibly round 11.
The end of the season - and this post - is the finals. I see no need to change here. The final eight works well, and there's no need to expand it to a final 10. The finals should not reward mediocrity.
I find it interesting to consider how a future expanded AFL may work. Assuming the AFL admits one or two new teams, what are your thoughts on how the competition may be structured?
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