Get rid of 3 Vic sides (so 16 with Tassie) and go to 30 games. Season could start a couple of weeks earlier, than do like in COVID, where you have a block of 'carnival' games, of averaging more than one a week.
Something like 7 games normal rounds, 8 in 5 weeks, bye, 4 games normal, 6 in 4 weeks, bye, 5 normal games, no pre-finals bye. Season takes 7+5+1+4+4+1+5 = 27 weeks. Which with 23 rounds now, with bye and pre-finals bye in only 2 weeks longer.
There's two byes during the season for players, and with 16 sides, you could let lists be bigger and make it players can only play a maximum of 28 H&A games, which effectively means 4 byes per player, to prevent burn-out.
Gives the double-ups so everyone gets everyone home and away. No more the final ladder positions inevitably decided by who was lucky enough to get West Coast and North (or whoever is the current years shit sides) twice.
