AFL Looking At 3 Gather Rounds

[Teen Wolf]

2 days in to the 2nd year of it and already looking at ways to change it.

Just leave it

If it aint broke, leave it the fk alone.

Can't be left alone after 2027 because of the change to the number of teams and games.

 

[Interstater]

Can't be left alone after 2027 because of the change to the number of teams and games.

ANZAC Day is left alone when new teams are added.
Queens/Kings birthday game is left alone when new teams are added.
Grand Final location is left alone when new teams are added.

What changes is the T&C of the Broadcast deal and even that doesn't change the above.

Only thing that has been removed is Heritage Round so Eddie could /flex

Try again.

 

[BringFevBack2021]

I opposed the concept last year, but like it this year. However, there is a notably stale atmosphere at the games played so far and that includes games with both SA teams. Too many wealthy travelling neutrals and corporates.

Commercial success, economical success but a little diluted of a product.

I don’t know, I do like it a lot but it needs work before we go and add more.

 

[Teen Wolf]

ANZAC Day is left alone when new teams are added.
Queens/Kings birthday game is left alone when new teams are added.
Grand Final location is left alone when new teams are added.

What changes is the T&C of the Broadcast deal and even that doesn't change the above.

Only thing that has been removed is Heritage Round so Eddie could /flex

Try again.

Consider the maths of the fixture. Wrote this in the other thread but I'll just repost here:

19 teams x 24 games each = 228 H&A matches
19 teams retaining 11 home and 11 away = 209 H&A matches

So that means 19 games (38 slots, each team featuring twice) are leftover for the AFL, but that's 1 game too many for 2 Gather Rounds.

I suppose the alternative would be the AFL just giving each club 12 home games, and then state governments would have to deal with clubs directly to buy a bunch of them.

 

[Interstater]

Consider the maths of the fixture. Wrote this in the other thread but I'll just repost here:

19 teams x 24 games each = 228 H&A matches
19 teams retaining 11 home and 11 away = 209 H&A matches

So that means 19 games (38 slots, each team featuring twice) are leftover for the AFL, but that's 1 game too many for 2 Gather Rounds.

I suppose the alternative would be the AFL just giving each club 12 home games, and then state governments would have to deal with clubs directly to buy a bunch of them.

Not being sarcastic when I say I think your response is too logical.

I don't get why people think some things must be fair, while other things blatantly will never be.

It's about $, it's about power, you might make perfect sense, but that is irrelevant.

 

[stallon]

What about QLD?
2020 showed the gather round concept could work and imagine it without the borders being shut.

Rotate NSW and QLD every year

 

[LordLucifer]

Less is more !!!


Shouldn't have given Adelaide three years, a rotating annual roster between three locations would have been smarter.

 

[blueiris]

So AFL are going to rob the Lions of they’re biggest game of the year on Easter Thursday not sure the AFL are thinking seriously about this to have games in Sydney when the game is actually bigger in Queensland

 

[Mitchell Madness]

So AFL are going to rob the Lions of they’re biggest game of the year on Easter Thursday not sure the AFL are thinking seriously about this to have games in Sydney when the game is actually bigger in Queensland

And the hawks!

 

[Roobs321]

Definitely less is more. One round rotating keeps it viable. 3 rounds sounds to me like bye weeks (i.e. Some Gather)

 

[76woodenspooners]

The constant need to create new and unnecessary innovations is surely at breaking point.

You’re barking up the wrong tree. The problem here is trying to milk all the joy out of a good idea.

Innovation is always needed to evolve and adapt. Somebody always whinges about any change, but they get used to it pretty quickly. It’s been a while since I’ve seen people complaining about:

• Games televised live
• Umpires no longer wearing white (including the goal umpires in white lab coats)
• 15m penalty changed to 50m
• Stand rule

As the times change we change with the times.

 

[JackFlash]

I don't understand the Victorian "Gather" round idea at all? No problem going to WA where there are plenty of grounds, why no QLD played in Brisbane and Gold Coast? But if they are to do a Victorian thingy, then why not just involve the Victorian clubs playing each other in Melbourne and give the interstaters the BYE?

 

[76woodenspooners]

How can they justify putting a gather round in vic? Whats the logic there? Theres almost a gather round in Vic most weeks anyway, so theyll do 3-4 games in vic and 3-4 in tas?
Why bother making it a gather round? just schedule a few games in Tassy and carry on as usual.
Surely the logical idea if 3 gather rounds was locked in would be WA, SA and NSW. WA and SA need more attention than bloody Vic

+ isn’t the whole point of gather round to bring the whole competition to one place to leverage the tourism dollar?

Having half in Tassie and half in Vic isn’t really gathering around, is it?

Why wouldn’t they just host the whole friggen thing in Tassie? Hobart + Launceston, plus possibly Davenport and Burnie.

 

[basashi]

Does gather round actually achieve anything, other than people muttering "gather round" every five minutes?

Costs:

• crowds are smaller than a normal round
• ticket revenue is much lower than a normal round
• clubs dealing with lesser facilities at local grounds / slightly more compromised prep / medicals etc
• compounds the problems of teams in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney travelling too much throughout the course of the year

Gains for hosts:

• Adelaide / SA tourism
• Gives the Adelaide teams an advantage across the year

Gains for everyone else:
?

 

[76woodenspooners]

Less is more !!!


Shouldn't have given Adelaide three years, a rotating annual roster between three locations would have been smarter.

The advantage of giving them three years is that it allows a state government an opportunity to make some capital investment. And it allows the concept to be developed as the organisers learn from previous years and adapt without having to also deal with a change in location.

 

[Magpie Since 1986]

Does gather round actually achieve anything, other than people muttering "gather round" every five minutes?

Costs:

• crowds are smaller than a normal round
• ticket revenue is much lower than a normal round
• clubs dealing with lesser facilities at local grounds / slightly more compromised prep / medicals etc
• compounds the problems of teams in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney travelling too much throughout the course of the year

Gains for hosts:

• Adelaide / SA tourism
• Gives the Adelaide teams an advantage across the year

Gains for everyone else:
?

I have heard 100x times EVERY TICKET FOR EVERY GAME IS SOLD OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What they don't mention is they gave away the tickets for free. And gave them away early in the year when people werent sure whether theyd travel or not... the result is the crowds are more like this (every seat is sold!!!):

 

[76woodenspooners]

Does gather round actually achieve anything, other than people muttering "gather round" every five minutes?

Costs:

• crowds are smaller than a normal round
• ticket revenue is much lower than a normal round
• clubs dealing with lesser facilities at local grounds / slightly more compromised prep / medicals etc
• compounds the problems of teams in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney travelling too much throughout the course of the year

Gains for hosts:

• Adelaide / SA tourism
• Gives the Adelaide teams an advantage across the year

Gains for everyone else:
?

Gather round as it is today should be compared with a pre-season round. From an AFLPA POV, that’s essentially where access to the players has come from. And how else would you add an extra game to the H&A schedule without giving 9 teams an extra home game?

• Crowds up (More people attend gather round games than pre-season games)
• Ticket revenue exists (Do they even charge entry into pre-season games?)
• Facilities better than at country ovals where they were holding some pre-season games.
• Doesn’t really change the travel situation. (Only so many times West Coast play Freo; Sydney play GWS, etc during a pre-season. Teams had to travel anyway). If anything this levels it by forcing the Vic teams to travel more.

 

[Teen Wolf]

I don't understand the Victorian "Gather" round idea at all? No problem going to WA where there are plenty of grounds, why no QLD played in Brisbane and Gold Coast? But if they are to do a Victorian thingy, then why not just involve the Victorian clubs playing each other in Melbourne and give the interstaters the BYE?

Reported as the whole opening round in Tassie, except for the first game in Geelong (I guess the AFL would still want a 40k crowd to kick the season off). Coinciding with the Labour Day weekend, like this year when the MCGs and Marvels were out of action.

Not sure QLD will get a look in until the Premier gets serious about investing in oval stadia. Doubt it'd impact Brisbane's Easter Thursday match though, because the Gather Round during "Easter school holidays" is just what the current slot is.

 

[Teen Wolf]

Definitely less is more. One round rotating keeps it viable. 3 rounds sounds to me like bye weeks (i.e. Some Gather)

Even if they keep a 9-game Gather Round, it still leaves the AFL with a spare 10 games to play around with once we go to 19 teams and 228 games.

So who gets to host the extra 10 games? Who misses out?

 

[76woodenspooners]

I don't understand the Victorian "Gather" round idea at all?

Victorian gather round makes more sense when thinking of it more from a government POV than an AFL POV.

The Victorian government have long been at the forefront of investing in tourism and major events.

They’ve got the Grand Prix. They’ve got the Australian Open. They get a lot of the major theatre productions. Gather Round would be another major event. And all the better if they get to steal it off SA. And no other state makes more of a circus out of a major event than Vic.

 

[SC_Power]

Victorian gather round makes more sense when thinking of it more from a government POV than an AFL POV.

The Victorian government have long been at the forefront of investing in tourism and major events.

They’ve got the Grand Prix. They get a lot of the major theatre productions. Gather Round would be another major event. And all the better if they get to steal it off SA. And no other state makes more of a circus out of a major event than Vic.

Taking the Victorian way of thinking about the AFL....

Gather Round in Adelaide has a rich VFL/AFL tradition that can NEVER be changed.

 

[Magpie Since 1986]

As a Victorian, Victoria has gather round basically every week. Almost every day of every round their are multiple games played in Victoria across the weekend. Whether its 4, 5 6 or 9 who cares.

 

[The 747]

I opposed the concept last year, but like it this year. However, there is a notably stale atmosphere at the games played so far and that includes games with both SA teams. Too many wealthy travelling neutrals and corporates.

Commercial success, economical success but a little diluted of a product.

I don’t know, I do like it a lot but it needs work before we go and add more.

This is reason 101 why it should be rotated every year. Once every four years would feel fresh.

But $$$ over fan experience and fixture fairness as we all know.

 

[The 747]

As a Victorian, Victoria has gather round basically every week. Almost every day of every round their are multiple games played in Victoria across the weekend. Whether its 4, 5 6 or 9 who cares.

Agree, not sure of the point of it. In theory if you played in all regional areas maybe but its stupid to schedule big drawing clubs at tiny grounds in the same state.

 

[76woodenspooners]

As a Victorian, Victoria has gather round basically every week. Almost every day of every round their are multiple games played in Victoria across the weekend. Whether its 4, 5 6 or 9 who cares.

I guess an advantage to having a Victorian ‘Gather round’ concept is that it could simply be a normally scheduled round of the season - there are enough Vic teams to host 9 games in a round for them.

Don’t call it ‘Gather Round’, call it ‘Victorian Festival of Footy’ or something like that.