AFL wildcard round: Cheapening the product or keeping dreams alive?

3 months ago 7

The AFL’s decision to introduce a new wildcard round, giving the teams that finish ninth and 10th another chance to reach the finals, has ushered in fevered debate.

Already a staple in US sports, the concept is relatively new in Australia and Monday’s official announcement in Melbourne kicked off a torrent of reaction and opinion pieces.

We look at the contrasting arguments.

Another week of finals matches, more sudden-death football and more teams remaining in the play-off hunt for longer. Apparently, that’s a terrible idea.

The AFL’s decision to add a wildcard round to its schedule has ruffled feathers, with a poll conducted by this masthead showing that 80 per cent of fans are against the idea.

But once the initial opposition to the concept dies down and the matches themselves arrive, what we’ll be left with is another week of matches – and matches that mean a lot. They could even involve your team.

Those who see it as a way for the league to make more money aren’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean the fans won’t also be winners.

A large part of Andrew Dillon’s job as AFL chief executive is to maximise revenue and grow the game. The introduction of a 7 versus 10 and 8 v 9 matches will tick both boxes.

Yes, the team that finishes seventh will be treated the same as the 10th-ranked side. But seventh is hardly a stellar season, and home-ground advantage would come the way of the higher-ranked club. If they are good enough to finish seventh, then beating a team ranked in lowly 10th shouldn’t present a huge hurdle.

Nothing could be worse than the week off all finals teams have right now. The thought of Friday and Saturday night matches with two spots in the finals at stake – in place of nothing at all – is more than palatable.

Isaac Heeney and the Swans would have featured in a 2025 wildcard round.

If the NRL eventually goes down the same road, you can bet league fans would repeat the same cycle of initial rage before sitting down with a cold drink and meat pie to watch (on TV or in person) more matches with meaning.

In the seasons just ended, wildcard weekend would have provided another chance for the Western Bulldogs and Sydney Swans to get into the top eight in the AFL, while the Dolphins and Sea Eagles would have had the opportunity to win their way into the NRL’s top eight. Who wouldn’t want to watch matches involving those teams?

Another overlooked part of the wildcard concept is that it means the teams in 11th, 12th – maybe even 13th spot – remain in the hunt for longer. More fan bases will retain hope for more of the season. Especially for fans of teams that aren’t regular finals qualifiers, a bit of hope would sound pretty nice.

When the NRL moved to an eight-teams finals series, it was initially treated with fear and loathing in equal parts. But now, it’s de rigueur. Give this wildcard concept a couple of years, and it too will seem like it has always been there.

The cash cows that are the NFL and NBA have both gone down the wildcard route, met by the same initial accusations of diminishing the product. A lot of that died down once the matches were played.

In the NBA, it’s called the play-in tournament, and results don’t count as playoff fixtures. It’s just more games and more chances for teams to extend their season.

The extra matches mean more money from broadcast deals and, as a result, more money for the players. The chances of these plans being reversed any time soon sit at zero.

Right now, public opinion is on the side of the no vote on this concept by quite a margin, but once the games roll around, the TV numbers will probably paint a different picture. Let’s wait and see.

In introducing a wildcard round against the wishes of most supporters, the AFL has traded away a small, intangible, important thing in exchange for the opportunity to make money.

It has, not for the first time, confused “more” for “better”.

As a country, we are very good at feeling insecure about the things we do well, and lazily importing ideas from overseas to address those insecurities.

The top eight system was more than fine. It was perfect. There was absolutely no reason to change the format of the finals, but in their wisdom, the AFL has found three, and none of them are good: the capitalist urge to squeeze more cash out of everything, the reactionary response to one slightly less than spectacular season and the rise of the NRL, and the collective obsession of the AFL industry with every single aspect of American sports.

The Brisbane Lions’ title defence will include a wildcard round.

Say goodbye to storylines like the Western Bulldogs’ miraculous run to the 2016 flag from seventh place, or Hawthorn’s march to this year’s prelims from eighth. It’s now going to be that little bit harder for teams in those positions to go deep in September, because while the top six enjoys the week off, they have to play one extra game. Competitive balance gets thrown out, in a tiny but significant way.

And what do we get in return? Fans of mediocre teams get to be strung along for an extra few weeks before being inevitably put out of their misery. Great! Media hacks (myself included) will get to talk about “the race for 10th spot”, which ... yippee, how exciting, whatever.

Most importantly, the AFL and their broadcasters will pocket that little bit extra. And really, isn’t that what sport is all about?

On the increasing “Yankification” of our sporting culture: it’s important to remember that the NFL and NHL have 32 teams, and the NBA and MLB have 30. In America, wildcard games and play-in tournaments help keep entire markets alive in bigger leagues. They have scale, we don’t, so it makes a little more sense for them.

When you’re stealing bad ideas from the A-League, you know you’re in the wrong areas.

But only slightly more sense. The NBA plays 82 regular-season games; for the MLB, it’s 162. Do they really need another round to sort out their post-season? (Answer: no, they don’t, but they’ve got it anyway.)

It’s also important to remember that, just because this is happening in America, doesn’t mean that everyone in America loves it. Many of the same criticisms you’ve seen and heard directed at the AFL over the past 48 hours have done the rounds over there: that it’s unfair to the ‘top’ wildcard teams (7th and 8th in the AFL) and too generous to the others (9th and 10th); that the wildcard games, by virtue of pitting the also-rans against one another, aren’t particularly entertaining; and that it’s all kind of pointless since whoever wins never goes deep into the play-offs anyway.

Highly-paid executives in suits argued that this new way was “more exciting”, but what they meant by that was “I earn more money if we do it like this”.

At some point, you devalue the meaning and integrity of the season, and you reward bad teams with an avenue they don’t deserve. But you can’t measure those things, you can’t put a dollar value on them – so therefore, they are the easiest things to sell, and be done with. Problem is, the more you do that, the more pieces of your soul that you lose, and the closer you get to an inevitable breaking point.

So the AFL now has a situation where more than half of the competition will play finals. It’s a solution in search of a problem. The A-League used to do this; back when it had 10 teams in the men’s competition, the top six used to qualify. Nobody liked it. When you’re stealing bad ideas from the A-League, you know you’re in the wrong areas.

Of course, everybody will watch the AFL’s wildcard games. Unless you’re prepared to give up on the code, you don’t really have a choice. The machine has decided this is how it is now, and it will be a success. That doesn’t make it right. The AFL and their cronies will call it progress. We’ll call it for what it is: profiteering.