Eight rounds (or nine if you count opening round – more on that later). That’s how many bye-impacted rounds we as football fans are being forced to manage.
Out of those eight (or nine) bye rounds, six (or seven) either have seen, or will see, one or more of the top ten teams currently on the ladder absent that weekend for a well deserved break.
But why is it so spread out?
I can only assume that there’s a distinct aversion to having a distinct block of time when no football is played during the season, but whether this is due to broadcast deals or another, more esoteric concern is above my pay grade (which, like most Mongrel writers, is nothing). Within my circles, I’ve not met a single person who likes this spread of bye rounds. In fact, including myself, most seem to actively dislike this part of the season. Teams are well and truly in the swing of things, they’ve developed an identity and a style that viewers are excited to see develop and evolve.
I’m not against the bye in general. This is a high-impact and endurance sport, unlike any other in the world. Players get tired. They need a break. Rest and recuperation are important, and I won’t begrudge anyone seeking that. But I do want to see these managed better. So this is my open letter to AFL house to fix a problem that they brought on themselves: the messy period of the year when your average supporter doesn’t even know who’s playing this week.
Opening Round Plus
One of the roots of the bye problem starts at… well, the start.
Opening Round was certainly a novel idea, and the concept of growing the game in the north-eastern states was and is something worth pursuing. I think we can all agree at this stage of the experiment that Opening Round wasn’t quite the solution, however. On top of not being the spectacle the AFL would have wanted, it’s also led to the clubs participating requiring an extra bye round at the start of the season to equalise games played with the rest of the competition.
Guess how I feel about that.
So what’s the solution? Well, the AFL have already been in talks to scrap the concept of opening round in favour of something else entirely, and so I present to you my extremely well-thought-out concept: Opening Round Plus.
It’s sort of like Opening Round but all 18 teams meet in one round of football, therefore removing three (or four) of the current bye rounds plaguing the game. Now, I know what you’re thinking if you’ve made it this far – what makes this any different from plain old, boring old round one?
First we have to also talk about another issue facing the start of the 2027 season in the form of the Centenary Test being played at the MCG in March, rendering the hallowed turf unavailable for the first two weeks of the month. Under other circumstances this could potentially push the start of the season back a full two weeks, but fret not. I have the solution to this as well.
All 18 teams will meet on the first weekend of March, all “interstate” for lack of a better term.
In order to solve the curse of the excessive bye rounds, the AFL must do what is anathema to the organisation – allow itself to be a fully national competition. Now, I know that Victorians like to think of themselves as the centre of the world, but I ask that you don’t immediately close the article and rush to the comments.
Save that for later.
I know you don’t like to hear this, but travel burdens on interstate sides are a real concern, so I would posit that this Opening Round Plus be listed as home games for the Victorian clubs (with some exceptions, but you’ll see that later) with tickets available through their memberships. Supporters can make a trip at the start of the season when they’re all still full of hope and vigour for their club, interstate sides get an extra week when they don’t have to face the burden of travel, and the big Victorian sides might even rack up some frequent flyer points for once.
Here’s the rough theoretical schedule for Opening Round Plus in 2027.
Thursday Night at the Gabba: Brisbane V Collingwood
Friday Night at Optus Stadium: Fremantle V Geelong
Saturday Morning at Manuka Oval: GWS V Bulldogs
Saturday Early Afternoon at the SCG: Sydney V Melbourne
Saturday Mid Afternoon at People First Stadium: Gold Coast V Carlton
Saturday Night at Adelaide Oval: Adelaide V St Kilda
Sunday Morning at Adelaide Oval: Port Adelaide V North Melbourne
Sunday Afternoon in Tas: Hawthorn V Essendon
The Graveyard at Optus: West Coast V Richmond
Ok, you can complain about it now. But there’s more work to do to resolve the bye problem.
Dead Air
Is there anything more terrifying to a broadcaster than dead air? Maybe Godzilla or something, but other than that I’m not too sure. I’d say that one of the reasons we have these bye rounds spread out among so many weeks is that the AFL has a deal with their different television/streaming partners to ensure a certain amount of AFL related content hits our screens per week.
I think that’s weak. I think it’s boring. I hate these bye rounds with a passion while understanding the need for them, and for players and clubs to reset. So why not just lump them all together in one week? One big week when no AFL games are played. Would the world really collapse if we did that?
To answer the problem of dead air, I have a few solutions. By around the midway point of the season we generally have a pretty good idea of what teams are good and what teams are not. So why not spend a bit of time looking at that split and pick out the match ups that seem most exciting and playing some older games at the regular time slot that can highlight the history between the top sides? Would we really turn our noses up at a collection of Geelong v Hawthorn match ups over the years? Maybe even with some talking heads during quarter/half time to provide some context for the games we’re watching. Or hit rewind and play back some of the best games that have already graced us this season.
If that doesn’t take your fancy there are plenty of other options.
State league football still exists, if you can believe that. They even tend to play all-star games between themselves. So what’s stopping the AFL from making a deal with those leagues to highlight them during the bye round? The way I see it there are two options along this road. First, have the state league all star games all played over the one weekend. You could so easily have the SANFL, VFL, WAFL and the rest play each other. Have two games on the Friday, have two games on the Sunday. Winner faces winner, loser faces loser at the MCG or Marvel Stadium. Second, make the state leagues aware that they will have the opportunity to play a couple of blockbuster games and let them fixture their most exciting clashes for that weekend. Spend a little money and get their grounds ready for broadcast to show the facilities, maybe have some legends of those leagues enter the broadcast. For the supporters of AFL sides who have memberships you could include a certain number of tickets to these games in the package and get some attendance at these state leagues to build the game at the lower levels.
My last suggestion to fill dead air is to have some sort of documentary weekend. There are some pretty good AFL documentaries out there already that could be highlighted, but also there’s a great scene on Youtube with people creating documentary-style content already who would be very well suited to the task of creating something new for a special event such as this. Just throw a bit of money at some of these creators or documentarians working in Australia with an interest in the footy and see what they can do. I’d love to see something fresh come through that space and this would be a perfect opportunity to bring new fans of the sport in a la Drive To Survive or whatever the tennis one was.
In Conclusion
Any of the above suggestions could well work on their own, but I feel they’d work best in conjunction with one another. Sometimes we need to break the shackles of normality to make something better, and I really do believe that’s the case here. The current system just doesn’t work, and in order to make it work something needs to be done.
I love footy and I just want to see more of it per round. If that means we have a round or two either without footy or perhaps even half the standard games being played alongside one of the above suggestions then I think we’ve reached a net positive for the game.
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on the bye rounds in the comments if you’re so inclined, so let rip.
