Wildcard round? More like cash grab. This is an AFL ‘innovation’ we just don’t need

The introduction of a wildcard weekend, pitting the teams that “finish” the home-and-away season ranked seventh to 10th against each other in two games, is an AFL idea that keeps being regurgitated like a bad, burpy attack of reflux.

If the wildcard weekend were applied this year, it would make a pretty penny for the AFL because at least two of Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon would be involved in those one-off games, which would be seventh versus 10th and eighth against ninth. On the current ladder, the wildcard games would be the Western Bulldogs v Essendon and Hawthorn v Carlton playing for the right to make the eight.

The MCG would be packed for at least one game, Melbourne would be abuzz ahead of a finals series largely bereft of Victorian teams, and the AFL would be proudly parading their new fixturing baby as proof of their brilliance, when all they would have done is imitate American professional sports.

Those hypothetical match-ups underscore how: a) the wildcard concept is all about generating more revenue and “product”; and b) it actually undermines the integrity and merit of the home-and-away season.

Take those hypothetical match-ups (which are likely to change over the next two rounds): Hawthorn, at seventh, have already dispatched the Blues on Sunday and are on track to earn themselves – subject to results in the final two rounds – a final-eight spot over the duration of a long season.

The same would apply to the Doggies, who took down Carlton and Collingwood, plus the Swans and Geelong on the road.

It is tough enough to make the eight in a competition decided by micro-margins – four games were decided by less than a goal within 24 hours last weekend – without having to front up for pre-elimination elimination finals; there is no need for repechages when you’ve already played 23 games.

The wildcard idea came up, yet again, in the most recent conference of club chief executives and the league in Perth, with the league, alas, expressing some enthusiasm for exploring it.

The fixture is already heavily compromised and – in another strange contradiction of the purported “level playing field” the AFL desires – handicapped by giving top teams from the previous year a harder run. Even then, the AFL stumbles – Carlton, mysteriously, ended up playing North Melbourne and the Tigers twice this year despite finishing third last year.

The club bosses were neither drinking the Kool-Aid on wildcards, nor vehemently opposed, according to one chief executive, who noted that “it was the AFL that was pushing it, not us”.

But if clubs and fans do not push back, the risk is that the de facto version of a “final 10” will be dumped on the competition, which will veer further in the direction of becoming a major events business rather than a genuine competition.

In the old VFL days, only one-third of the 12 clubs played finals. This was, rightly, expanded to five out of 12, then six out of 14 as the VFL went national, and – after one season (1994) in which a majority made the top eight – the final eight became ensconced.

Having messed around with different variations of the first and second weeks of finals – one v eight, two v seven, three v six and four v five, with higher ranked losers then playing lower-ranked losers and so forth – the AFL settled on two final fours, enshrining the idea that the top four should have a second chance, and the teams from five to eight should not.

It’s worth noting that in America’s NFL – the leviathan competition that has provided the genesis for so much of the AFL system (draft, salary cap, revenue sharing) – only 14 of 32 teams make the play-offs, including the “wildcard” teams. In Major League Baseball, just 12 out of 30 teams play in the post-season.

It is only the NBA that lets the majority of its 30 teams compete in some form of play-offs, permitting 12 to make it (six per eastern and western conference) plus four more who play a version of wildcards (called the “play-in tournament”).

The AFL should bear in mind that the NFL’s domination of broadcast ratings is predicated on the shorter season they play (17 games per team plus play-offs), compared with baseball and basketball, which have devalued the currency of regular-season games via excessive matches.

The AFL will soon have a 19th team, the Tassie Devils. Their arrival will make the top eight slightly harder to reach. But the AFL ought to stick to the premise that making finals is a significant achievement in a tight competition. If the league is hell-bent on expanding the finals, a final nine – with the minor premier earning a week off – is more sensible than the cash grab of two wildcards. But, really, eight is more than enough.

Only two teams have won premierships from outside the top four since the final eight was introduced – the Crows in 1998 (with a flawed finals model that allowed them a second chance from fifth) and the storied Beveridge’s Bulldogs of 2016, who stormed from seventh to snatch the most improbable flag in decades.

Instead of ruling them in, the wildcard concept would likely rule out seventh and eighth, who would have to win five finals.

It’s true that the gap between the top few and 10th or 11th has narrowed significantly, as we’ve seen in the precipitous descents of Carlton and Essendon lately and Hawthorn’s surge from 0-5 to inside the eight.

Equally, one can argue that this new equality has rendered the wildcard and finals expansion even more unwarranted. For the AFL already has a version of wildcard weekends – it’s called rounds 23 and 24.

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