Gotta be something better

[froars]

I can't comprehend a competition where half the teams supporters hope they lose games just to get early draft picks and priority picks.
There has to be a better way.  Do we go back to zones, free trade, 10 year players being free to go anywhere etc.
Any of you NFL/NBA etc aficionados who know a bit about how they do it in these leagues care to have a go at how we solve this problem.
BTW, i'd welcome any changes after this trade period lol

[WilliamPowell]

Well in Major League Baseball they don't have silly things like a salary cap. That's why the rich teams have payrolls of over US$120 miilion and the poor teams try and survive on US$25-30 million.

So the "Commissioner" (the MLB'S answer to Andy D at the AFL) bought in the this thing called a luxury tax which means the higher the payroll the greater amount of tax you pay to support the poorer teams. There's a catch though - all MLB teams are privately owned - and a number of the owners of poorer teams spend less so they can get more luxury tax but they put it in their own pocket rather into their teams.

After so many years (I think it's 7) the players can file for free agency and sell themselves to the highest bidder. As supporters it can break your heart - just as it can when the Clubs trade players half way through a season.

It is the side of baseball I don't like but in the MLB they cannot bring in a salary cap because of the existing contracts in place. The highest paid MLB player is 4 years into a 10 year US$252 million contract
 

[mightytiges]

From past RFC experience I'm dead against zoning. It's great if you have the best zone (Hawthorn - Assumption college and Essendon - their top footy local schools - PEGS) but it's a path to destruction if you receive crap ones like we did (Glen Waverley region). I hold it highly resposible for getting us in such a financial mess in the 80's as after our premiership champions retired we didn't have enough young talented kids coming through and so we had to look elsewhere with a open chequebook. Lack of funds combined with ridiculous recruiting meant we then had to find and spend more money on more dud recruits and we spirialled into the abyss. No thanks!

I also don't see the need for free agency. Firstly as WP pointed out it destroys club loyalty and favours weathier clubs. For kids who idolise their heroes that is heartbreaking. Secondly the current system allows for a player to leave if he really wants to via the PSD (a la Nick Stevens, Jade Rawlings).

I support the salary cap because if it wasn't in place we would end with an EPL scenario of the same couple of sides winning the premiership every year. Also for many "poorer" English clubs their financial well-being is only a year-to-year proposition and relies heavily on tv rights deals.

The priority pick was meant to stop a side spending many years down the bottom (a la Saints in the 80's) not just one. The problem with the current system is you can get priority draft picks after just one crap season even if you finish in the top 4 the year before. Brisbane and Melbourne wrongly benefitted from this when the real reason why they had a bad year was due to a heap of injuries not poor lists.  So I would change it so that you only get a priority pick after 2-3 poor years (5 wins or less in 2 successive years and 7 wins or less in 3 successive years). I would also randomize the order of first round of draft selections for the bottom eight teams so that sides that continually finish 9th or 10th (like us over the past 10 years) don't wallow in mediocrity and as well as disallowing the situation where sides  can "tank" games to get an earlier pick.