The modern AFL is all about ratings. Player ratings, the media rating whatever they can to fill dead air… but most importantly, TV ratings.
The AFL hierarchy signed a record broadcast deal with Channel 7 and Fox to deliver unprecedented funds for the league in recent years, and their end of the bargain is to deliver a football product that can be shown on our screens to entice and engage all manner of fans.
Sounds simple, right? The TV networks give the AFL billions of dollars, and in return the AFL delivers them sweet ratings and engagement by producing a watchable product.
The issue is, the product isn’t very watchable in 2026.
While on-air commentators will try to find a bright spot in any dark abyss of a game, the truth is, there are too many bad teams in the AFL this year, and it will make for too many unwatchable games (yes, I feel like Grandpa Simpson complaining there are too many states in the USA, but bear with me…).
I am, of course, talking about Essendon, West Coast, Richmond, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Melbourne, and Carlton.
Now fans of those teams will no doubt get their knickers in a twist over this. “We’re rebuilding!”, they’ll say, “Give the young blokes a go!”.
I get it, and while I agree most of your teams are building into something special (not you, Essendon), the reality is all seven of these sides are going to suffer through long patches of being unwatchable this season.
For example, I just finished watching North Melbourne and Essendon put on an absolutely putrid display of footy. While the networks will tell you it was a decent watch because it was decided by two goals, any AFL fan with eyes will acknowledge this was abysmal viewing.
The first three rounds of the season have thrown up a few of these “lucky” situations for the AFL, where they can hide behind a close result masking a poor showing of football between two hapless sides.
North Melbourne snagged a win over Port Adelaide in Round One, and we celebrated them for it. The same Port Adelaide side then returned home and spanked Essendon, while North went west and lost a game to an Eagles side that hadn’t collected four points since before the pyramids were built.
Carlton and Richmond played a “thriller” in Round One, as well…
Now it’s all well and good when these teams play random games against one-another, but what happens when they play the more competitive sides in the AFL?
Well, here are a few examples from just three-and-a-half rounds of footy (thanks to stupid Opening Round):
- Carlton lost to Sydney by 63 in Opening Round
- Essendon lost by 62 points to Hawthorn in Round One
- West Coast lost by 59 to the Gold Coast in Round One
- Melbourne lost to Fremantle by 48 in Round Two
- Richmond lost to Fremantle by 60 in Round Three
Each of these games could be classified by neutral fans as “unwatchable”, and I’m here to tell you, we’re in for more of this.
Just looking ahead to next week’s schedule, West Coast plays Sydney, Melbourne plays the Suns, and Essendon has a potentially murderous match-up against the Bulldogs. All of these games could be, and in fact are likely to be, shockers.
And while we’ve seen plenty of blowouts in previous seasons, I’ve gotta say, this is far bleaker than it has been before.
We have a pretty entertaining group chat among the Mongrel Punt writers, and out of the many footy-based conversations I have every week, I think I respect the opinions of my fellow writers more than anyone. This week, one of our brethren asked (rather comically), “Is footy shit now?”
It was hard to argue with.
Over the 2024 and 2025 seasons, we became accustomed to West Coast, North Melbourne, and Richmond basically giving away wins to teams who sat above them on the schedule.
It was a blessing for opposition sides who got to face them twice, and became a point of frustration for the AFL knowing so many of their games were non-competitive.
Well, when three sides jump to seven, you can imagine how bad it looks.
But all of this did get me thinking, why are these teams so bad? Why does this year’s AFL feel like the NBA, where there is a large collection of teams who actively try to lose games and ruin the spectacle of the regular season?
I’m not accusing any of the AFL teams of trying to lose, as that doesn’t make sense in this competition, but I am accusing them of being poor to the point where they can’t compete against good sides.
Truth is, there are a bunch of reasons you can point to. A blatantly compromised draft makes it harder for bad teams to improve (see Gold Coast and Brisbane adding elite talents at will while North has to settle for second pickings). The free agency system is set up to benefit clubs that are already successful, because naturally players are going to want to play for winners and not losers.
While I haven’t counted them in this bunch (and they should count their lucky stars for that), St. Kilda has been banging this drum for a while now. For the record, I totally agree with them.
But this column wasn’t designed to poke holes in recruitment and draft systems, I simply want to point out to the AFL that it must find a way to help the bottom sides get better at a quicker pace.
No doubt some readers will point out these teams have made plenty of their own mistakes, and are currently lying in the beds they made. That is true, but you can’t deny they are fighting an uphill battle against a competition that doesn’t seem to care if they are competitive.
Whether you have a bleeding heart for the bottom feeders is irrelevant, though. My point is, the system is now affecting the consumer.
The average Joe that sits down hoping for a good game of footy has less hope than ever, and that’s a shame.
Now I’m very aware I am pointing out issues without providing a solution, but as our previous Prime Minister once said, “that’s not my job.”
I don’t know what the answer is to this, but I hope the AFL are seriously looking at how poorly a large portion of their competition is performing, because I guarantee you, the fans are aware of it, and as soon as those fans are reflected in TV ratings, the people who paid billions to broadcast it will be all over it, as well.
