Can the AFL and NRL competitions be made fairer?

While this scheme would be impossible to apply in the Australian situation, there is one sensible way that the AFL and NRL could ensure some greater degree of fairness. With each team playing all teams once, remaining matches could be rotated on a yearly basis to ensure that each plays every team twice every two to three years (depending on the number of teams).

Again this would not be a perfect proposal as the standard of each team waivers from year to year which means that some teams will face tougher draws from year to year. However, such an arrangement would at least provide a schedule that is fair and consistent to all teams.

There are other measures that encourage a degree of competition fairness, although there are critics. Despite the recent controversy associated with Melbourne Storm’s breach of the salary cap, both leagues ensure some fairness with such a scheme. With the AFL implementing a salary cap on its clubs since 1987, the 2010 competition allowed total player payments of about $8 million for the 2010 season. The NRL, which adopted a salary cap in its first season in 1998, had a level of about $4.7 million in 2010.

One important difference between the two leagues is that the AFL has a players draft whereas the NRL does not. While the NRL wants a draft, it has been unable to get the permission of the Rugby League Players Association, a reality evident since 1990 when the players successfully challenged in court the Australian Rugby League’s bid to introduce a salary cap and draft together on the basis of restraint of trade.

As the former Rugby League great, Ricky Stuart, points out, the salary cap was designed to work in tandem with a draft, and the AFL draft has been a great success after it gained agreement with their players’ association to provide concessions if the players didn’t challenge it. As Carlton found out when cheating the salary cap in 2002, the $1 million fine was dwarfed, in effect, by it being penalised from obtaining future draft choices; it was only in recent years that the club has rebounded to play finals football.

Australia is lucky to have two great football codes. The AFL is the fourth most attended sporting league in the world in terms of average crowds (about 38,000 per game in 2010), while the NRL also enjoys a healthy average (about 17,000 in 2010).

Nevertheless, we can make the AFL and NRL fairer. Do we simply go on promoting regular seasons that seek to maximise crowds, revenue, and preferences? Or do we adopt a set of rules to ensure that the competitions are made fairer in terms of who plays who on a consistent basis. I, for one, support the latter.