Roast We've got the season wrong and it needs to change now

[kickazz]

First game on 6th of March is ridiculous. It's just too long a season now.

Happened to be looking at stats for 2105 and noted that season didn't start until April - a bit of an anomaly of late, anyone recall why?

 

[raskolnikov]

This thread is a great way to get heat off the fact that Essendon hasn’t won a final in over 7000 days…

Top elite players should be able to play in any conditions, whether it’s humidity, heat, cold, rain, snow. I mean if your bitching about one type weather extreme, then I say, let’s not have any games in July, as it’s too bloody cold to go out, and might cause unwanted shrinkage.

This is the most absurd thing I have read, and that’s saying something…

Bringing Eesendon's recent finals record into a thread about the heat is the most absurd thing I have read.

 

[Walshawk]

First game on 6th of March is ridiculous. It's just too long a season now.

Happened to be looking at stats for 2105 and noted that season didn't start until April - a bit of an anomaly of late, anyone recall why?

Cricket World Cup.

 

[errant bounce]

Oversaturation is happening in heaps of sports now.

In the Premier League, about half the teams qualify for a European cup now and then those competitions go on longer and longer because UEFA want more games for those. you can watch your team about three times a week for 60% of the year and that's the case even if they go on to win **** all.

Seven months of the football season isn't that crazy, especially when your team plays once a week.

I think the issue is the peripheral stuff: two week trade period, pre-season player supplementary periods, round zero then round one, two week-roll in for Gather Round, then it's Easter then Anzac Day, couple of normal weeks and then you're into Indigenous Round and then the season gets serious.

Even though there's only 17 opponents and 23 matches, it feels like you're always playing the same fixture: from a Freo perspective there's always a game in Launceston and the SCG, same old double ups against Port, St Kilda, Gold Coast. playing in the same time slots all the time gets a bit tired. I don't get pissy like most fans of WA clubs at playing the last game of the round, but you know Carlton will get Fridays and Saturday twilight, Collingwood night matches, the SA and NSW teams are always on at 1.10 Saturday... you flick on a neutral match and it looks the same as the last time you watched it.

Then there are no real rivalries, a mostly homogenised game style, the teams that were shit 10 years ago still are, two grounds in Melbourne and then all the other stadiums have been done up in the last decade so we're used to them.

Just adds up.

 

[Ross]

Cricket World Cup.

If the AFL wants to continue with 'opening round' in early March and then Richmond vs Carlton at the MCG starting the following round then cricket will force some changes to the start of the AFL fixture with the MCG in 2027 hosting a one-off Australia/England Test from Thursday, March 11 to Monday the 15th to mark 150 years of Test cricket. In 2015 they played the World Cup final as a day-night game on Sunday and Richmond and Carlton played on Thursday night, not sure if it'd still be possible to get the MCG ready for AFL on a Thursday when there's one less day to prepare than there was in 2015 though.

 

[Walshawk]

If the AFL wants to continue with 'opening round' in early March and then Richmond vs Carlton at the MCG starting the following round then cricket will force some changes to the start of the AFL fixture with the MCG in 2027 hosting a one-off Australia/England Test from Thursday, March 11 to Monday the 15th to mark 150 years of Test cricket. In 2015 they played the World Cup final as a day-night game on Sunday and Richmond and Carlton played on Thursday night, not sure if it'd still be possible to get the MCG ready for AFL on a Thursday when there's one less day to prepare than there was in 2015 though.

The test will likely be over in four days, but if not three days will be fine. An 18/3 first MCG game is still a week after we usually start, so they to do one of these things…

• cut the season back to 22 games (no extra game for Gather Round)
• axe the pre-finals bye
• push the GF back to Oct 2.

 

[Ross]

The test will likely be over in four days, but if not three days will be fine. An 18/3 first MCG game is still a week after we usually start, so they to do one of these things…

• cut the season back to 22 games (no extra game for Gather Round)
• axe the pre-finals bye
• push the GF back to Oct 2.

Yeah, it's not going to cause chaos to the AFL season or anything. I guess I'm just a little bit interested to see when they start it though, would they do 'opening round' the same weekend of the Test? Easiest solution is don't compete with the Test, scrap opening round and start the season with a full round on the Thursday after the Test finishes, if they're not confident of having the MCG ready for Thursday if the Test goes the distance then just start the season somewhere else and use the MCG on Friday instead. Then just play the GF on October 2 or. They'll then be revamping the fixture in 2028 anyway with Tassie coming in.

 

[Outtatym]

Strange post Sheffield Shield is a cricket equivalent of VFL-WAFL-SANFL it uses "suburban ground" all season

MCG SCG, Adelaide oval, Gabba have all been used multiple times in the Sheffield shield alone

 

[CharlieMortdecai]

Exactly.

Harden up, tell skin cancer to FRO.


Or, wear a hat and apply sunscreen.

We have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world because many people who regularly spend time in the sun are too stupid to take care of their health, due to having their brains baked from all that heat.

I thought it was because the earth is a few million KMs closer to the sun in southern hemisphere summer than it is in northern hemisphere summer.

 

[Walshawk]

Yeah, it's not going to cause chaos to the AFL season or anything. I guess I'm just a little bit interested to see when they start it though, would they do 'opening round' the same weekend of the Test? Easiest solution is don't compete with the Test, scrap opening round and start the season with a full round on the Thursday after the Test finishes, if they're not confident of having the MCG ready for Thursday if the Test goes the distance then just start the season somewhere else and use the MCG on Friday instead. Then just play the GF on October 2 or. They'll then be revamping the fixture in 2028 anyway with Tassie coming in.

Or they play the whole of the first round interstate whilst the test is on. Or just the Marvel clubs host in Melbourne.

My prediction is that the GF goes back to Oct 2, and they start with the usual Opening Round games in NSW & QLD whilst the test is on. Then the usual Round 1 Thursday Tigers v Blues. If they can get the turf ready in fours days in 2015, they can do it in three in 2027. Although that gives the NRL an extra week lead in. Will be interesting.

On a similar topic - do we think that the AFL will play through the Brisbane Olympics in 2032? Seven has the rights to Cricket and Olympics as well so that will have a big say in all of this.

 

[hawkman]

Now a potential cyclone for Brisbane on Thursday

 

[BigVic]

The start of the season threatened with a cyclone was not on my 2025 bingo card

 

[Clark G]

Will the postponed games due to a cyclone result in the AFL considering not starting the season so early from next season?

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Chaos looming Saturday with the Melbourne forecast currently 37 degrees and climbing

35 degrees in Geelong which will be a nightmare for players and spectators

Practice matches at lower levels being cancelled across the board

We’ve got it all wrong… the climate has changed… we have no business playing footy in March.

Push it all back a month.

 

[PonsfordMagpie]

The season starts two weeks too early.

Ditch Opening Round and get rid of either Gather Round or the pre-finals bye and the season will revert back to its normal duration pre-2023.

 

[maskmcgee]

Melbourne forecast currently 37 degrees and climbing

Climbing all the way to ... 33. That's some climb.

 

[Chaisa]

Why I don't expect them to change it is I think the nature of the sporting schedule in Australia (or being more specific, Victoria). Cricket season is clearly mid-November to January (with January playing footsie with the tennis). February is about the pre-season for footy with the season kicking off in March. October tends to be peak racing season. If the season started in April then February would be a complete dead patch sporting wise.

But yes, climatically April to October makes the most sense for a winter sport.

 

[btdg]

Why I don't expect them to change it is I think the nature of the sporting schedule in Australia (or being more specific, Victoria). Cricket season is clearly mid-November to January (with January playing footsie with the tennis). February is about the pre-season for footy with the season kicking off in March. October tends to be peak racing season. If the season started in April then February would be a complete dead patch sporting wise.

But yes, climatically April to October makes the most sense for a winter sport.

I think all of the sports are due a bit of a rethink, to be honest.

Cricket desperately needs to sort itself out. It needs the BBL cash cow in school holidays (January) to pay the bills, which is fine. It also wants test cricket to build across November and December. It needs to realign Sheffield Shield (to run August-December) and then ODIs (running in Feb after BBL) so that players can then go uninterrupted to the IPL or County Cricket (and thus become a full 12 month a year professional sport)

Racing... who cares. It's a different crowd, one focused a lot more on 'events' and the biggest of these is November.

Footy should run up to the last full weekend in October - grand final day 2025 should be Saturday October 18th. That's 3 weeks later, and would mean you could start the season with a staggered opening across the first week of April. Let's even go with a new and improved opening round:

• Friday 28th March = Brisbane vs Geelong @ the GABBA (Brisbane open the season by unfurling their flag)
• Saturday 29th March = Sydney vs Port Adelaide @ the SCG (repeat last year's Prelim)
• Sunday 30th March = Gold Coast vs Hawthorn @ Gold Coast (Gold Coast vs finals contender)
• Monday 31st March = GWS vs Bulldogs @ GWS (GWS vs finals team from last year)
• Thursday 3rd April = Carlton vs Richmond (traditional opener)
• Friday 4th April = Collingwood vs Melbourne (fill the MCG for the first big Friday night)
• Saturday 5th April (day/evening in Melbourne) = West Coast vs North (get one of these teams a win)
• Saturday 5th April (night) = Adelaide vs Essendon (big Melbourne viewership + interesting match)
• Sunday 6th April (1:10/4:10) = Freo vs St Kilda in the Ross Lyon revenge cup

How bloody awesome is that fixture? Everyone gets a showcase match in an appropriate timeslot, with the 4 northern teams getting their standalone opener. Everyone gets a full preseason. No one plays their second game before someone else plays their first. Much less chance of 34 degrees.

Round 2 can then flow into the following - keeping as much from this year, but with the following improvements: /

• Thursday 10th April = Carlton vs Hawthorn. We're keeping this one, but without Hawthorn's 6 day break
• Friday 11th April = Collingwood vs Bulldogs. Again, let's keep this in place, but without both teams having a 6 day break

etc.