Another footy season has come and gone with the regular season ending a week ago. For me and my beloved Saints, that means that the season is over. The Saints finished in ninth place - the top eight move on to the Finals (what Americans would call the playoffs). Some sports fans might be disappointed by this outcome, but I thrive off this frustration. In fact, one of the reasons I chose the Saints was for their maddening inconsistency. Now that a once promising season has been mercifully laid to rest, I have had the opportunity to reflect on a lot of the things that the AFL does right and should be copied by other sports leagues.
The AFL is comprised of eighteen teams that play twenty-two games over the course of a twenty-three week season. Obviously, some teams play each other twice in a single season. Unlike the NFL or the NBA, there are no divisions. As teams rise and fade in glory, the schedule is adjusted to create more marquee matchups. I prefer this to the NFL schedule where teams play their own division’s opponents twice a year regardless of the quality of the division. Further, I do not believe the argument that the divisions help to create a history and rivalry as there are plenty of heated rivalries in the AFL without divisions. Even worse, the divisions in the NFL do not even make sense. For example, the NFC West is comprised of the Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, Arizona Cardinals, and Saint Louis Rams. One of these teams is not like the others... unless you happened to remember that seventeen years ago, the Saint Louis Rams were the Los Angeles Rams. In the NFL, divisions are arbitrary and have way too much influence over the schedule.
Although an AFL team plays six more games in a season over the NFL, in both leagues every game matters - especially compared to an eighty-two game season in the NBA or even worse the one hundred sixty-two games season of the MLB. With a relatively small number of games, it is natural that occasionally there will be ties in the win-loss records. In the NFL, there are a series of Byzantine rules that dictates which team wins a tie breaker starting with the most wins in an arbitrary division. The AFL, in contrast, has an extremely simple method of determining a tie breaker. Throughout the course of a season, the points for and points against are carefully tracked and used to calculate a teams percentage (PF/PA). The team with the higher percentage will win in the event of a tie. The percentage is of significant importance and creates a strong incentive for teams to play hard even if the game is becoming a bit of a blow out. The players still try to put points on the board to give their percentage a boost.
As a fan of the NFL, I found it difficult to embrace the idea of taking my children to a game. The thing about kids in general and my kids in particular is that they are unpredictable. Given that the cheapest seats to an NFL game would cost $75 each, I would hate to spend $225 and wind up having a bad time because my kids were not in the mood or felt like going home. The AFL, by contrast, will offer up a free ticket for children under 5. Children between 5 and 11 cost a scant $2.50. In fact, taking the family to the footy is far cheaper than taking the family to the movies. Given that there are fewer NFL games played and that the prices are dictated by supply and demand, I don’t see ticket prices going lower for children any time soon, but the family friendly atmosphere of the footy games along with steeply discounted tickets for children is something that should be copied by other leagues.
In the NFL, the two top teams in each division earn bye weeks. In the AFL, the top four teams play each other and the bottom four teams play each other in the first round. The teams that win in the top four earn a bye week while the losing teams earn a second chance by playing the winners in the bottom four. The incentive to make the top four is extremely strong knowing they get a either a second chance or a bye week. As the season nears the end, the games become extremely important as the top four teams would not even consider coasting out of fear of losing their top four spot.
Finally, the easiest change for the NFL to implement, changing the day of the Super Bowl... In the AFL, the Grand Final (the equivalent to the Super Bowl) is held on a Saturday afternoon. How civilized is that? Plenty of time to get drunk and watch footy and still have a day left in the weekend to recover. I know there is plenty of tradition behind Super Bowl Sunday, but I am honestly curious if any sports fan in the United States would object to the Super Bowl being held on Saturday?
Footy is an incredibly fast paced game that demands a lot from its participants. It is a crazy blend of speed, endurance, powerful hits, hand-eye coordination, and teamwork. I have truly enjoyed attending several games this season and am looking forward to seeing even more next year. Not only is the game great, but the league itself does several things a little differently than I am used to from American sports. While comparing AFL football to the NFL is truly like comparing apples to oranges, a lot of these differences make the game more fun and should be brought to the NFL and other leagues.
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