There are plenty of positive associations with the letter X. Malcolm X, X-Men and to those with a high pain threshold, The X-Factor, perhaps. AFLX, however, has not won a place on that golden list. In its inaugural outing earlier this year, the competition was blasted by fans as boring, poorly designed and an unnecessary distraction from the AFLW season.
For round two, AFLX has been reimagined as a one-day tournament played between four teams made up of a mixture of players across all clubs. There will be a live draft from which players will be chosen; it will be played at Marvel Stadium, and to really lean into its corporate ties, the tournament will be superhero-themed.
The blueprint behind the idea is clear, but it’s more Justice League in its execution than Avengers: Infinity War. It’s meant to be a spectacular, something that’s entertaining and fun for audiences, especially kids. And it’s apparently meant to motivate people to play AFL socially.
The only bug in this grand scheme is that AFLX is not AFL; it is two teams of just eight players playing on a rectangular field for two 10-minute halves. This is akin to pouring someone a glass of LA Ice Cola when in fact a Coca Cola had been ordered and expecting no one to notice.
AFLX is back…but with new logos!
— Herald Sun Sport (@heraldsunsport) December 16, 2018
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The biggest problem AFLX faces is with its soul. It doesn’t have one. The AFL was built on the sweat and tears of its earliest players and fans for whom a game of footy was their only relief from a life of hard physical labour and struggles. While the economic and social reality for (most) fans is drastically different, that spirit of pride in a team and a blood-curdling desire to win is what keeps drawing people to the game.
There’s no soul behind a puppet game, which is what the AFLX is.
The success of the AFL is built on this foundation, and without it, it’s just another game with a ball. AFLX is the epitome of a soulless brainstorming session that has been dreamt up in a boardroom by a group of people in suits, three of whom are called Peter, and who like using words like “synergy” and “actionable”.
If the AFL wants more people to play the game socially and wants to draw kids away from soccer, it needs to find a way to use its greatest asset instead of throwing gimmicky ideas up in the air and pretending it’s a revolution. There’s a shared scent of progress for the sake of progress with AFLX and the upcoming third season of AFLW, which has been turned into a conference system for the sake of innovation and at the cost of the games’ players and fans.
There is also the issue of the eye-watering cost: $300,000 in player payments alone. Players will earn between $5,000 and $20,000 to participate in a game that is widely disliked; compare that to the annual salary of an AFLW player – a maximum of $24,600 for an entire season. Imagine what the AFLW could do if they had that money, instead of it being frittered away on something that has as much appeal as another Batman origins movie?
The AFL’s struggle to create a spectacular pre-season has been its Achilles heel since it was established in 1988. It makes sense on paper, to give fans a taste of the action after four or five desperate months of no footy. But even its most recent predecessors, the NAB Cup and the NAB Challenge, failed to capture fans’ imagination and passion.
In its attempt to make its pre-season work, the AFL wants fans, and would-be fans, to believe that AFLX is an action-packed blockbuster that will capture people’s attention with its fast pace and friendly competition. But in the words of Billy Joel – and ones that would surely be shared by Thanos – it’s all about soul.
