If you have ever found yourself on the couch, ranting about how the AFL fixture is rigged, congratulations, you are not alone.
The fixture is a perpetual sore point for fans outside Victoria. How is it fair that Collingwood could probably waltz to a prelim without leaving the MCG, while West Coast racks up more frequent flyer miles than a mining exec just to win three games?
I’ve decided to fix the AFL fixture by doing what no one at headquarters seems willing to do: build a giant spreadsheet and re-write the entire thing from scratch.
It all kicks off with a dead simple principle that somehow still eludes the actual AFL: each team plays every other team once. That is 17 games, neat and honest, and ensures your club gets to host or visit every rival at least once every season.
At this point, the traditionalists are nodding. This is the fixture purity we have all craved. No more double-ups against cellar dwellers to pad a top-four side’s win tally, no more fixturing quirks that see the Magpies play Melbourne twice but only travel to Perth once every presidency.
Then comes the juicy bit: the in-season tournament, as has been floated in recent days.
Of course, we couldn’t just stop at 17 rounds. That would be far too sensible.
Instead, I cooked up an in-season tournament to inject some spice through the year, and to cleverly fix the age-old Victoria-centric problem by forcing those teams to travel.
Here’s how it works:
– The comp splits into four groups (based roughly on the previous season’s ladder). Each group has teams from different performance bands.
– Each group is linked to a city: Perth, Queensland (Brisbane and Gold Coast), Adelaide or Sydney.
– Between Rounds 8 and 19, groups travel to these hubs and play each other in games that count towards both the AFL homen-and-away season and the tournament.
– Groups play three or four games depending on their size (i.e. groups with five teams play four games, while ones with four play three), spread over several rounds, so it’s not a rushed mini-carnival.
– When your group is not scheduled, your club just plays a normal AFL game against another available team.
– The top team from each group at the end of this tournament qualifies for the in-season semi-finals.
– Semi-finals are played in Round 21, with the Grand Final in Round 22 – building hype without interrupting the real season. The other clubs play newly scheduled games (double-ups, meaning the second time they play those teams that season), so everyone still gets 23 games.
– These matches double as regular season games, so they impact the race for the top eight.
– The biggest upside: it forces Victorian clubs to travel for these group games, finally sharing the travel load.
This is where it gets interesting: because of these group stages, each club ends up playing about seven teams twice across the season (including Gather Round). You play every team once in regular home and away matches, with double-ups against six teams based on the previous season’s ladder.
I’ve composed possible groups that would have been used for this season, with each containing a team in the 2024 top four, 5th to 8th, 9th to 14th, and the bottom four. The Perth and Queensland groups have an extra team due to there 18 teams in the competition.
WA Hub: Geelong, Hawthorn, Fremantle, St Kilda, West Coast Eagles
QLD Hub: Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood, Gold Coast, Richmond
SA Hub: Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, Essendon, Adelaide
NSW Hub: Sydney, GWS Giants, Melbourne, North Melbourne
Nick Daicos is tackled by Marcus Windhager. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Each round would roll out like this: when a team’s group is not playing, they would play a regular home-and-away game.
Rds 1 – 4: normal home-and-away season games
Rd 5: Gather Round (in South Australia)
Rds 6 – 7: normal (Easter and Anzac Rounds)
Rds 8 – 11: In-season tournament group stage – e.g. WA & SA groups play while QLD & NSW groups play home-and-away games
Rd 12 – 13: Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous Round, home-and-away games (Gold Coast play in Darwin)
Rd 14 – 16: Bye rounds: each club plays two home-and-away games + one bye
Rd 17: WA and QLD group games
Rd 18: SA and NSW group games
Rd 19: WA and QLD group games
Rd 20: Home-and-away round to allow time for the AFL to make the Rd 21 and 22 fixtures
Rd 21: In-season tournament semi-finals. 14 other teams play new double-up games
Rd 22: In-season Grand Final. 16 other teams play new double-up games
Rd 23-24: normal, traditional season wrap-up
Then: Finals
To give a sense of how this proposed fixture balances the AFL’s long-standing travel and home ground issues, I tracked every game type for every team in the league – home, away, neutral, sold, and even estimated appearances at the MCG. It tells an interesting story.
The eight clubs from outside Victoria finally get their wish, easing their travel pain. This fixture does a lot to balance their usual nightmare of constant airport lounges and red-eye flights.
Most end up with around 13 to 14 games in their home state, thanks to the clever inclusion of the in-season tournament group stages hosted in places like Perth, Queensland, Adelaide, and Sydney.
This means fewer brutal long-haul flights, less living out of suitcases, and more games in front of their home fans. The Giants and SUNS will play less games in their home states as they sell two games to Canberra or Darwin, respectively.
Each team receives approximately two games at the MCG each season – no more or less than they are currently receiving.
For Victorian sides, this fixture still feels like home – but it gently forces them to actually experience the travel grind. Most still get 14 or 15 games in Victoria, including traditional home games plus ‘away’ games that happen down the road at Docklands or the MCG.
Clubs like Hawthorn, Melbourne, North Melbourne, and the Bulldogs still sell off some home games to Tasmania, Alice Springs, Ballarat, or Bunbury, which slightly lowers their Melbourne tally. But crucially, Victorian teams now travel about 10 or 11 times, which is a big shift from the usual cushy six or seven.
There is also less MCG overload. Most non-traditional tenants still get two or three appearances on the famous turf, while the big crowd pullers like Collingwood, Richmond and Melbourne still keep a strong ‘G presence – just not monopolising it at the expense of fair travel for others.
On the plus side, this revamped fixture does wonders for fairness and for shaking up old habits. The biggest win is how it levels out the travel burden across the entire competition. No longer do the interstate sides have to shoulder endless cross-country flights while Victorian clubs rarely stray from Docklands or the MCG.
By sending groups to hubs like Perth, Queensland, Adelaide and Sydney for the in-season tournament games, the fixture finally forces everyone, especially the traditionally pampered Victorian sides, to rack up some frequent flyer points.
It also restores genuine fixture integrity, with each team playing every other club once before doubling up on roughly six teams based on groupings tied to last season’s ladder. Gone are the days of quirks where a top-four team gets to repeatedly feast on bottom dwellers while dodging serious rivals twice.
Plus, the in-season tournament itself adds an entirely new dimension to the season. It is a bit like the NBA Cup – a parallel prize that gives clubs outside the premiership window something real to aim for, while also adding spice and more finals-style contests for broadcasters, sponsors and fans to enjoy. Local supporters also benefit, with mini footy festivals guaranteed to roll into their cities, bringing multiple clubs at once, open trainings, fan zones and extra excitement.
Of course, no plan is bulletproof. The traditionalists will hate it, grumbling that it disrupts the pure home-and-away fabric they grew up with. There is also a risk that the in-season tournament might not always deliver dream semi-final matchups, especially if a strong club is hit by injuries and bombs out of their group – so broadcasters might lose some marquee games they had counted on.
For the Victorian clubs, who have grown used to being the AFL’s homebodies, it means more time in airports and hotels, which they are bound to complain about once the novelty wears off.
It also adds a layer of complexity; some fans could be confused at first by the overlapping in-season tournament ladder and the regular premiership ladder, even though the games count for both. Finally, the rigid group allocations might disrupt the fixturing process, with Rounds 21 and 22 not being able to be scheduled until a few weeks before. I am not entirely sure the AFL is ready for such a quick, adaptable, rolling fixture.
In short, this fixture means every fan finally gets a season that feels genuinely national. No club is forced into an endless airport routine, no team cruises to September barely leaving Melbourne, and every game feels like it actually belongs in a balanced national competition.
Sure, it is ambitious. But if the AFL really wants equality, it might be time to borrow my spreadsheet.
