I was having this discussion with a few mates last night and we all feel the same way. We are all longtime Footy fans as well.
The AFL is really turning fans off with a lot of their decision making.
It's the heavily compromised draft that really gets to me. It always seems to benefit the same teams over and over again, and the AFL's refusal to admit that it's completely compromised... and refusal to try and fix it and make it fair for all teams is really off-putting.
As a fan of a team who clearly benefits from it I also think it's stupid. If we do win a flag there's always always going to be that little asterisk that devalues it.
I just don't get why they decided to change the NGA rules to punish all the non-rugby state sides, that was a good and fair way of countering it, even more so because a lot of those kids grow up as fans of other sides anyway so there's not always a desire to play, it was like JUH was too good a prospect so they just threw the whole system out.
The NSW/QLD academies are very important for the growth of the sport so I don't really like the other approach of getting rid of them, GC in particular is one of the biggest and fastest growing youth participant areas in the entire country (which is only going to break things even more over the next 5+ years) and that's huge for the long term of the sport but effectively having 4 teams who get an extra bonus system is broken.
I'm indifferent on the bonus, I like it in that it makes it easier for guys to get to the clubs (includes FS guys) but I also wouldn't have any issue if teams just had to pay the full price.
The farce that the first round was this year needs to be fixed, it's probably only noticeably stupid because of the weird desire to split a draft almost no one watches into a multiple day event but as long as you have that it's stupid, it's also definitely punitive to the bad sides, the Eagles 2nd pick at 30 this year is ridiculous. I don't think it would be a terrible idea that the teams can match a bid for as many players in round 1 as they have first round picks going into the draft, so GC with 4 guys would have needed 4 first rounders going in to match them, otherwise they could pick only one if they only had one pick. Would mean that the first round remains the correct length.
I am still trying to work out what all the fuss is about with having to change rules / trades etc due to the split R 1.
Why complicate things. Just leave everything the same as last year except for taking the top 18 scores during
R 2, 3, 5, 6.
When selecting your team for R1, each coach would have to decide before R 1 if they wanted to include any of the Open Round (OR) players in their team or not. If they decide to not pick any then they just pick their side with the same rules as last year.
Coaches need to weigh up any advantages or disadvantages by picking any OR players in your team. It would be the same for all teams.
Then it becomes a stategic decision.
The advantage of picking a player who plays in the OR is that you do not have to use a trade later on to get them & you get to use that player when they play in the other opening rounds when they play.The loss of any players who play in the OR round is countered by only taking the top 18 scores for that round.
Am I missing something in this analysis???
I think you're ignoring the round 0 factor. Having only 8 teams playing means there needs to be some kind of concession that round, whatever that concession is will have significant impacts on everything. You've also got 4 bye rounds that may or may not be best 18, if it's best 18 then it's a huge change also, if it's not it's also a massive decision.
No matter what path they take will have huge strategic ramifications. Double game round, best 18/22 in byes, not counting round zero, round zero free hit, lockout at end of round zero or open until round one, round zero scores instead counting in bye weeks or whatever other path they take, all of those will be massive which is why everyone is super focused on it.
That doesn't even factor in how they'll deal with the price changes.
It's not really worth doing anything planning wise until we know what they're doing but speculating about what they might do is part of the fun.
I still think a DGR with best 18 byes is the most likely but it would also be just about the most drastic and probably boring as it would make those round zero guys much more desireable and just about locks. DGR with best 22 makes the decision much tougher. I don't expect the freehit idea purely because if you mess up round zero you may as well delete your team and I don't think they go with an unrecoverable play like that purely because of it.