Or maybe just change the draft.
In the lead up to the AFL Draft I’ve thought often about
this article about the NBA draft last year, which basically argues for the NBA draft to be abolished. While the subject matter is about basketball, I think Kevin Arnovitz makes some really persuasive arguments as applied to the AFL.
Think about the kerfuffle about Archie Perkins saying, very honestly and I think fairly, that he didn’t want to go interstate, and suggested non-Victorian clubs should select someone else. There were accusations of draft tampering, but isn’t this a perfectly reasonable request for an 18 year old to have some agency on where he lives?
Given you’ve got 40-odd players on an AFL list and 22 players in a team, I don’t think the salary cap or positional fit would be as great a leveller in the AFL as in the NBA, so draftees selecting their clubs free agent style would probably funnel talent too much towards the more powerful clubs, but I think something like ‘The Match’ might be an interesting approach.
I’m not sure what sort of system would work, but I think a system whereby players have some say on where they go should be looked at. Perhaps players can have a certain number of vetos or nominate a certain number of clubs (say at least 6). Perhaps a non-nominated club is still entitled to draft a player, but then must on-trade that player to one of the six clubs nominated by the player (the AFL might need to reverse the order of draft and trade period). Perhaps the AFL sets the salaries of draftees based on draft position, so that if a players slides down the order on the basis of a nomination they will be paid less in the first two years of their career. At the moment AFL draftees picked in the first 20 get $95,000 in 2019 plus $4000 per senior match. Perhaps the AFL lets the first 5 picks in the draft earn more on their draft contract on a sliding scale, and (if needed) outside the salary cap (eg, pick 1 gets $400k, pick 2 $300k, pick 3 $200K pick 4 $150K) to encourage them not to nominate outside the bottom few teams.
Let’s use the example of Jamarra Ugle-Hagan this year. Let’s say before the draft he nominates Geelong, Richmond, Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Hawthorn (but not the Western Bulldogs). The Bulldogs would have a choice – pick JUH and get the best value from a trade with one of those other clubs (perhaps Collingwood packaged up Stephenson and two future first round picks) or simply select the next available talent that has them on the list.
I know it will never happen as the AFL is determined to protect the smaller Victorian clubs and NSW/Queensland clubs, and AFL clubs and agents will probably find too many loopholes to game the system, but I think there will be a time in the not too distant future when sending kids to far-flung parts of the country against their wishes in the name of equalisation of a sporting competition will be difficult to justify.
There is an element of luck in drafting anyway. If you move players around a few spots in each draft based on their preference, I'm not even convinced clubs would end up worse off over a long period of time.
