Victorian bias in the Australian Football League

Victorian bias in the Australian Football League (also known as "VicBias") is an assertion by critics of the Australian Football League (AFL) that there is an intrinsic bias towards its Victorian based clubs and Victorian developed players. Causes of the alleged bias range from it being attributed to the fact that the AFL evolved from the Victorian Football League (VFL) resulting in the league's headquarters being in Melbourne and the majority of its teams being located there, to it being the result of intentional favouritism by the competitions administration towards Victorian clubs and players.

Background

In 1982 the VFL relocated the South Melbourne Football Club to Sydney in New South Wales with the following decade seeing the competition established clubs in all Australian mainland states. By 1997 there were 10 clubs located in Victoria and 6 clubs located outside of that the state. After a further series of expansion clubs being introduced the AFL consists of 8 clubs outside Victoria whilst retaining 10 clubs inside it. This imbalance of clubs inside and outside Victoria is often cited as the main, or even only, cause of any bias.

West Coast

Fremantle

Adelaide

Port Adelaide

Brisbane Lions

Gold Coast

Sydney

Greater Western Sydney

Western Bulldogs

Geelong

Essendon

North Melbourne

Carlton

Collingwood

Melbourne

Richmond

Hawthorn

St Kilda

Commonly cited examples of bias

Assertions of bias towards Victorian based clubs in the AFL are multifaceted.

Grand Final location

Main article: AFL Grand Final location debate

The location of the AFL Grand Final is often the subject of allegations of Victorian bias in the AFL due to long-term deals for it to be hosted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The AFL Women's does not have this arrangement and the Grand Final is rotated to the qualifying club's best available home venue.

History, clubs and expansion

Further information: Expansion of the Australian Football League

During its history, the league has consistently prioritised Victorian clubs in its national expansion in an effort to maintain their history, tradition and fanbase. As such the vast majority, 12 of 18 AFL clubs in 2024, present strong Victorian Football League identities. Two notable cases are the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions (who merged with the Fitzroy Football Club). In both cases the league offered significant incentives to retain their history and identity in the new national competition. In 1981 the league dismissed new license proposals from Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Sydney prior to incentivising the relocation of South Melbourne to Sydney. And despite the club not being accepted there, continued for decades to heavily subsidise it and re-tender the license to ensure its survival across the Barassi Line over a wide range of proposals involving non-Victorian licenses. The league pushed to move struggling Fitzroy to Brisbane as early as 1986 initially giving the proposal first priority over a new Brisbane license and ultimately forcing the merger in 1996. Likewise the league strongly prioritised relocation of the North Melbourne Football Club over plans for a Canberra, Gold Coast Football Club, Greater Western Sydney Football Club and Tasmania Football Club as new licenses with their own identities. In both cases, the Victorian clubs strongly resisted these moves. Despite North Melbourne's presence having a detrimental effect on each non-Victorian market the league persevered. In addition, the Port Adelaide Football Club was required to significantly modify its identity to protect the identity of Victorian club Collingwood prior to being granted entry to the league. Despite rebranding as the AFL in 1990, the league retains all Victorian records since becoming a national competition, meaning that it will take many decades for non-Victorian clubs and players to challenge existing records such as Victorian premiership tallies and Victorian player records which have an almost century long head start.

Fixturing bias

As a result of the majority of the 18 AFL clubs being based in Victoria the competitions fixture provides an unequal distribution of home games. The AFL is often criticised for scheduleing the big 4 Victorian clubs being fixtured with an unequal distribution of games at their home grounds in Victoria than other clubs, however the league cites commercial factors such as audience maximisation.

Travel burden

Due to the unequal distribution of teams based inside and outside Victoria, non-Victorian based players are required to travel far greater distances during their careers. This travel burden discrepancy is highlighted by comparing the distance travelled by West Coast Eagles players Darren Glass, Daniel Kerr, Mark LeCras, Quinten Lynch and Chris Masten all travelling over 515,000 km in their first 200 games compared to Collingwood players Ben Johnson, Alan Didak, Dane Swan, Josh Fraser and Travis Cloke all travelling less than 96,000 km for their first 200 appearances in the AFL.

Friday night broadcasts

Friday nights are regarded as the premier time slot for AFL fixtures as they are broadcast nationally on free to air subsequently generating the largest TV audiences of the week for the competition. Victorian clubs often dominate the Friday night fixture and this it is largely asserted that this is the result of broadcasters preference for those matches to involve Melbourne teams as that city is the largest market for the competition.

Public holiday events

The AFL fixture has a heavy bias towards providing Victorian clubs with stand alone public holiday fixtures. The Anzac Day match has been perpetually held in Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground since 1995 between Collingwood and Essendon and is often cited as example of a Victorian centric approach to commemorating the national public holiday. Victoria is the only state to get a dedicated public holiday for the AFL competition, non-Victorian clubs are required to travel early to Melbourne on Grand Final eve to participate in festivities.

Media

Player appraisals

As a result of both the AFL administrative headquarters (AFL House) and the majority of the league's teams being located in Victoria the majority of the competitions associated media is based in Victoria. As a result, it is asserted that the media that covers the game has a bias towards Victorian clubs and particularly Victorian based players with critics suggesting that players of Victorian clubs garner a higher profile compared to their non-Victorian counterparts.

Clash uniform policy

Supporters of non-Victorian clubs often complain about the AFL's clash uniform policy which is lenient on Victorian based clubs but strongly upheld for non-Victorian clubs. Richmond, Carlton and Collingwood are often singled out as almost never adhering to the AFL's 'Clash Uniform Policy'. However, in more recent times Richmond have been more accepting of the policy, wearing a full clash uniform for the 2017 AFL Grand Final.

Subsidisation

There have been claims that supporters of non-Victorian clubs pay higher ticket prices than those in Melbourne with the former effectively subsiding the latter.

State of Origin and representative football

Further information: Representative matches in Australian rules football

In 1990 the league made selection exceptions to State of Origin rules resulting in three of the four best players representing Victoria who were not even from Victoria, including Hawthorn's Jason Dunstall and Essendon's Terry Daniher from Queensland and New South Wales respectively. Upon taking over State of Origin in 1993, it merged 4 states and territories effectively removing their representation in interstate football. In 1994 it merged further states into a composite team called The Allies representing multiple states. Despite the competition being popular outside of Victoria and the unpopularity of these composite sides, it abolished State of Origin in 1999. After this it would schedule matches (AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match and State of Origin for Bushfire Relief Match) such that only Victoria would compete as a standalone state effectively preventing all other states from challenging it and all players from outside Victoria from representing their state of origin. In 2017 the AFL removed representative teams from the National Championships in favour of teams based on its clubs to secure talented athletes from other sports, which means that players from other states are not able to achieve state selection on merit from their local competitions.

Recruitment and AFL draft system

Disproportionate number of players recruited from Victoria

See also: Geography of Australian rules football

More than 60% of professional AFL players are recruited from the state in 2017 despite it having just 30% share of registered players worldwide and 40% of Australian players. While this reflects the proportion of Victorian clubs in the competition, it also denies many players from oustide Victoria the opportunity to play the sport professionally. AFL clubs across the country have been accused of focusing their recruitment on Victorian developed players. Critics claim that this is because current pathways favour them. This is exacerbated by a "go home factor" where clubs won't risk recruiting players from outside the state who could return due to homesickness. The AFL run Talent League which is based in Victoria and predominantly consists of Victorian teams is promoted as the best way to recruit players, with the vast majority of players being sourced from its ranks. Victorian AFL clubs have lobbied against the introduction of northern academies aimed at increasing the number of players from developing states like New South Wales and Queensland. This bias is not as evident in the AFL Women's competition where despite a similar demographic distribution, the most successful clubs appear to be more open minded to non-Victorian and local talent.

Father–son rule

The AFL draft includes a father–son rule, allowing clubs priority access to recruit the sons of former players. During the first two decades of the non-Victorian clubs' existences, this rule applied unequally to Victorian and non-Victorian clubs: for Victorian clubs, it applied to sons whose fathers who had played 100 games for their club; for Western Australian clubs, it applied to sons whose fathers had played 150 games for one of four WAFL clubs; and for South Australian clubs, it applied to sons whose fathers had played 200 games for one of four or six SANFL clubs. This was supposed to create a roughly equitable outcome, but failed in practice, with very few South Australian or Western Australian sons ever recruited under the state-league eligibility rule.

Next Generation Academy (NGA)

When the AFL introduced the NGA, vic clubs were given access 12 months before SA and WA, and then SA and WA were limited to indigenous players selected after pick 40 except for two remote regions.

Australian Football Hall of Fame

Main article: Australian Football Hall of Fame

The Australian Football Hall of Fame has been criticised by football writers and historians for being heavily biased towards figures from Victoria. The initial selection committee was made up of 11 Victorians, one South Australian and one Western Australian, with the current selection committee being made up of six Victorians, two Western Australians and one South Australian. Of the 136 inaugural inductees into the Hall of Fame, 116 played substantial parts of their careers in Victoria, with eleven of the thirteen "Legends" from Victoria.

Commonly cited examples of non-Victorian advantages

It is often argued by Victorian football commentators that the non-Victorian teams have the only real home ground advantages in the competition as they host travelling sides every second week whereas Victorian clubs are often hosting games against other Victorian clubs resulting in neutral fixtures in regards to home ground advantage.

It has been argued that the South Australian clubs receive an unfair advantage during the home-and-away season as a result of the neutral Gather Round event being played there, giving them an extra game in a home-like atmosphere compared with other clubs. Gather Round, first staged in 2023, will be played in South Australia every year until at least 2026.

Melbourne bias in the AFL

It is sometimes argued by supporters of Geelong that instead of there being a Victorian bias in the AFL it is actually a Melbourne bias with the club often being forced to play home games in the neighbouring city instead of in Geelong.

It is also suggested that the AFL revenue stream is more profitable from large Victorian Clubs succeeding in the regular season and playing finals, almost a desired top 8 of rich Victorian Clubs.

An AFL top 8 featuring high membership Victorian Clubs attracts larger TV viewership and therefore higher audience, which all helps with TV rights negotiations.

See also

• New South Wales selection bias