{"id":756014,"date":"2026-06-23T23:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/756014\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T23:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:15:24","slug":"afl-news-2026-radical-fixture-overhaul-proposal-for-19-team-competition-james-hird-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/756014\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Radical fixture overhaul proposal for 19 team competition, James Hird comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the announcement of Tasmania<\/a> becoming the 19th team in the AFL<\/a>, the competition is set for a radical overhaul of its fixture in 2028, with the proposals dividing opinions.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Nine\u2019s Footy Classified<\/a> on Tuesday night, the panel broke down the four major fixture models floated during an AFL executive meeting and spoke about panellist Eddie McGuire<\/a>\u2019s proposed idea. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hird is pushing for change in the AFL ‘relatively soon’. \u00a0Footy Classified<\/p>\n

In 2025, McGuire floated the \u2018exotic\u2019 shakeup<\/a>. He revealed that he discussed the fixture suggestion with AFL CEO Andrew Dillon, urging him to bring it to the table. <\/p>\n

McGuire\u2019s proposal was to have 20 games in the season, with each team playing each other once, with the inclusion of Gather Round. Then, it would break the ladder up into four groups for the top 16. <\/p>\n

Each team would play every team in their group of four once to determine the top 10 and the bottom three teams, who do not qualify for the group stage, would play each other for draft picks. <\/p>\n

James Hird<\/a> argued that the league has now outgrown its traditional roots and needs to evolve to survive against rival sporting codes in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the draw does need to change. I think people who say, \u2018Why can\u2019t we just keep it the same?\u2019 We\u2019re not a 12-team competition based in Victoria anymore,\u201d said Hird. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re an 18-team competition, we\u2019re going to 19 teams. We need more TV dollars. We\u2019re competing against entertainment, we\u2019re competing against rugby league, competing against all sorts of sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t change, I think we will get left behind. I think there needs to…be more games of consequence. The season needs to go on longer for more teams, but we need to keep the fairness and integrity of the competition there, and I think a change needs to happen relatively soon.\u201d <\/p>\n

While players have reportedly written off some of the more extreme proposals, including the idea of a mid-season tournament that would require a three-week break, there is growing support for a model that introduces late-season competition.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Footy Classified, Isaac Smith argued the third option would allow for more overhaul and \u201cgames of consequence\u201d late in the year, eliminating the late-season boredom for teams outside the finals race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you said on games of consequence. And for too long, for a good decade now, you get to about round 16…this time of year, and the games just start to peter out a little bit,\u201d said Smith. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The panel discussed the proposals.\u00a0Footy Classified<\/p>\n

According to McGuire, the new structure directly solves the issues that plagues the final weeks of the current regular season. <\/p>\n

Under the proposed model, the bottom three teams would be segregated, which would stop heavyweights from boosting their percentage against bottom-tier sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we don\u2019t want to have is situations that have happened in recent years,\u201d McGuire explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhere one of the teams that\u2019s completely cooked plays a team, gets beaten by 120 points, and the percentage makes the difference between finishing fifth and fourth.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the announcement of Tasmania becoming the 19th team in the AFL, the competition is set for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-756014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}