The AFL is considering extending its season

Sam Landsberger From: Herald Sun March 30, 2013 12:22PM


THE AFL will consider breaking a long-standing tradition and extending the season as soon as next year in a bold bid to attack the "free hits" it gives rival codes which start earlier.

Chief executive Andrew Demetriou said the league had looked at a number of options which would allow it to bring Round 1 forward, including starting the season overseas.

He also said clubs could play more than 22 games in an extended season with extra byes and had canvassed the possible changes with club captains.

“(We could) start the season up north earlier, use Etihad Stadium earlier – because it’s not a cricket ground – use Subiaco earlier, (and) I can’t rule out the possibility of playing overseas,” he told SEN.

“It could possibly include a variation of the length of the season.”

The mooted dramatic change would almost certainly spell an end to the NAB Cup in its current form, with Demetriou confirming the pre-season competition could be massively downgraded next year.

“Whether you need four hit-outs or two against other teams and maybe they play an intra-club, I think that’s got some merit,” he said.

The NRL, Super 15s and A-League are all in full swing by the first week of March, dominating media attention in the two northern states.

The MCG is currently off-limits to the AFL until the end of the Sheffield Shield cricket season.

Demetriou revealed the first game in South Australia next year would be a Showdown at the refurbished 50,000-seat Adelaide Oval but said it would not open the season.

A Saturday twilight opener is preferred by local officials to ensure a smooth opener.

- with Michelangelo Rucci

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/more-news/the-afl-is-considering-extending-its-season/story-e6frf9jf-1226609406940

Appeasement never works, lets stop being afraid of these bastards and set up the season how we want it.

So in the winter time? :) plz

Good

It means we will either reduce our season to 18 weeks or we will finally do what's best for our code

Playing overseas :lol:

He means Tassie

I can see someone's feeling a bit insignificant.

Carlton vs Essendon @ Lords. The home of AFL....wait, WHAT?!

22 games? Shouldn't they be playing way more? It's hardly as physically taxing as rugby.

We should just tell them that when you start and finish your season has no bearing whatsoever on anything, eh?

Good, let's see them fail in the internet age

It would have to be somewhere like GB with a load of ex-pats, surely.

:lol: Running scared. The world game will conquer Australia, it's inevitable.

Didn't work in 1938:(
Darth Demetriou's tactics during the WC bid annoyed a lot of football fans who followed both Soccer and Footy. All this will do is cause more multi coders to choose. Some will inevitably choose us. Some wont. If it brings their underhanded tactics out into the open, all the better, no more of this there's room for everybody crap. They(AFL) are out to bury us, lets stop pretending they aren't.

Edited by vanbasten88: 30/3/2013 06:52:59 PM

This will be a opportunity for A-League footy teams to play each other twice during the regular footy season, and not three times as is the case now.

Then when ACL footy matches are on, our footy teams play only them in that week.

The following week our footy teams can continue with A-League footy.

This would help to focus on the growing importance of ACL footy and raise it's profile.

Same thing

I've always cringed when the FFA talked about trying not to clash with the AFL, particularly pathetic when they don't respect FIFA international dates or ACL scheduling. The AFL believes it can just bully its way to whatever it wants, and why shouldn't it, it works. Time for the FFA to run the game based on what works best for football, not by the actions of other codes. There are three major codes in this country, there's room for all, but we have to do what's right for us. What a pity "commercial reality", whatever that really means, will kill anything that doesn't provide immediate profits, little understanding that a strong code is better in the long team.

meh.

So, AFL wants to move the start of its season because it's not getting enough media attention?

Interesting, how times have changed in Australian sport!!

Great way of looking at it:)

Better that they conform to popular but unproven opinion.

The AFL are forever looking at the other sports. Have a look at their latest advertising campaign. People from all over the world watching AFL players catch a ball (because their goals are such an anti-climax).

And we are heading down the same path because that's the theme to our all stars match.


Its important that the AFL continue to undo their sport by actively trying to outdo their competition instead of simply accepting that they have the most popular and most profitable football code in Australia

And if they can force the hand of our code in the right direction at the same time then its a bonus

Lol, Demitriou is destroying the AFL.

im an essendon fan but i hate the afl with a passion. under jackson the afl had it good, now under vladimir the constant game changes are making it hard to follow, the afl media running a scare campaign against football. they think they run australia .

Whatever fat andy!

Folks have choices that they never had before.
It won't matter if they go 52 weeks a year-it will never stop 10,000 Wanderers travelling to Newcastle on occasions such as yesterday, it won't stop teams such as LFC, Inter, ManUtd coming whenever they want, or big marquees playing in our comp.

Things are changing quicker than AD would like:lol:

Smell.................

Shouldn't that be BFL then?

So be it. Let the AFL extend their season. It should have no bearing on soccer. For a while I have felt that the FFA should put the A-League grand final on ANZAC Day and promote the hell out of it just as Collingwood and Essendon have done for the past decade. Of course we should be playing each team an even amount of times in the season. Four should be plenty until more teams make the grade (Geelong, Wollongong, Canberra, Tasmania etc.) but really, the FFA should not consider the AFL push into cricket season a threat. As the only football code to hold onto the summer they already have a foothold.

I know on day three of the Boxing Day test this year the FFA had the great idea of playing Victory and Jets at AAMI Park well after the scheduled finish of play. This has a couple of benefits - if the day's play is extended people still have time to make it to the soccer and being so close it is a simple walk across the road to get there. The plans did come a bit unstuck when Sri Lanka couldn't handle Jackson Bird and co. and the game was all over before lunch but these are the type of events soccer should place games around, not worry about how early the AFL/NRL/Super Rugby start their seasons.

ouch... 23K at sydney AFL derby, less than the swans average by itself. Seems the Sydney AFL derby is a turn off.

AFL moving the seasons will make no difference whatsoever to NRL, Union or the A-league in NSW.

^ They would have been stopped if they had to pay full price, pay -at all for their tickets

Nah... lets not talk about that, talk about the passion, THE PASSION!
:-k

Edited by condemned666: 30/3/2013 08:52:12 PM

I don't the AFL players would want a longer season. Imagine the injuries. It also means having a bigger squad list too.

15k less than the first derby last season.

Interesting article by Richard Hinds today on the three codes in Western Sydney. Crucial bit is that the CEO of GWS now claims that GWS are a team for the whole of Sydney and he sees the inner west of Sydney as an area they can cultivate. Anyone who knows Sydney knows that the inner west is not part of Greater Western Sydney.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/west-side-story-20130329-2gyzf.html