In the coming week, the AFL will finally unveil what for the past few seasons has become one of the most frustrating rituals in Australian sport.
I'm talking about the delayed release of the remaining fixture from Rounds 16-23, with Round 24 again left floating somewhere in the abyss until the very last minute.
As "floated" on radio last week, the league is now considering an even more convoluted approach. Rather than releasing the remaining schedule in one hit, the AFL reportedly wants to drip-feed blocks of fixtures throughout the back half of the season to ensure every Thursday and Friday night game becomes a “blockbuster”.
In theory, it sounds clever. In practice, it sounds like yet another example of the AFL overthinking itself into a hole.
Because the modern AFL fixture is no longer a fixture. It's an evolving content strategy meeting disguised as a sporting schedule.
The obsession with data, metrics, broadcast optimisation, and commercial outcomes has reached the point where the league has managed to achieve something genuinely impressive: it has annoyed almost everybody.
Fans hate it. Clubs complain about it. Travelling supporters get left stranded. Media commentators moan about it every season. Yet the AFL keeps doubling down because somewhere in a boardroom, a spreadsheet says this is what maximises engagement.
No one envies fixture boss Josh Bowler and his team. The AFL fixture is probably the most commercially compromised and uneven schedule in world sport.
The league has 18 clubs, different stadium deals, state governments wanting marquee content, broadcasters wanting prime-time inventory, clubs demanding home-game requests, contractual obligations around blockbusters and now apparently an obsession with ensuring every Thursday and Friday night game is worthy of a Hollywood trailer voiceover.
But at some point, somebody at AFL House simply has to say: Enough. Not every game has to be a blockbuster. Not every decision has to be optimised. Not every fixture needs to be treated like the launch of a Hollywood epic.
Instead, the AFL keeps trying to please absolutely everyone and in the process pleases nobody.
We've already been subjected to Friday night double-headers that cannibalise each other, Saturday 12.30pm starts to accommodate some sort of double-header at Marvel when the MCG is free at 2.10pm, and of course the much-hated Opening Round, also known as Round Zero to most normal people - RIP.
Round Zero and Friday night doubleheaders were supposedly backed by “data”. Everything in AFL land is backed by “data”. The problem is that in the real world, supporters overwhelmingly thought it was stupid. But the AFL remains utterly convinced that if enough graphs say something is good, the football public will eventually fall in line.
They won't.
Which brings us back to the floating fixture. The concept already drives fans insane. Supporters trying to organise interstate travel, accommodation, annual leave, family commitments or even just a weekend plan are left hanging for months while the AFL waits to see which teams become relevant enough for prime time television.
And now the league wants to stretch that uncertainty out even further by releasing the fixture in little teaser trailers throughout the season. It's absurd.
The NRL scrapped its floating fixture years ago because it became too frustrating. The English Premier League largely locks in its schedule from the start. Even the mighty National Football League, the competition AFL executives seemingly idolise more every year, has a set fixture before the season begins.
Yes, the NFL uses flex scheduling late in the year. But there's a crucial difference: Fans still broadly know when games are happening. The league merely shifts certain late-season games into more suitable prime-time slots.
A Sunday afternoon game might become Thursday night, Sunday night or Monday night. It's targeted, limited and understandable.
That model would actually make sense here.
Instead, AFL fans get entire blocks of the fixture left floating in limbo because the league is terrified of scheduling a Carlton or Essendon game in prime time only for both clubs to be mediocre by July. Which, to be fair, recent history suggested was always a live possibility.
The irony is the AFL's obsession with manufacturing blockbuster television often ignores the fact supporters simply want certainty.
Not everyone lives inside the football industry bubble.
Some media personalities seem perfectly comfortable with floating fixtures because their entire lives revolve around football anyway. But ordinary supporters have jobs, kids, shift work, social commitments and budgets to manage. Shockingly, not everybody can jump on a plane at 48 hours notice because the broadcasters suddenly decides a game has finals implications.
Spare a thought for Hawthorn or Melbourne fans potentially trying to organise a trip to Launceston for Round 17. At the time of writing, they still don't know the date. If both clubs remain in finals contention, it could become one of the games of the round.
Meanwhile, airfare prices rise. Accommodation becomes scarcer. Leave applications get harder.
North Melbourne is playing some of its best footy in years, yet their Round 21 game in Launceston against the Hawks may not even get clarity until much later again because apparently everyone can just travel at the drop of a hat.
And it's not only Tasmania. Think about games in Canberra, Darwin or other destination venues where supporters often plan entire weekends around the footy.
Local businesses, hospitality operators and regional fans all get left dangling because the AFL wants flexibility
for television ratings.
Again, the league will market this next week as a massive win for supporters.
There'll be glossy graphics, hype videos, executives talking about “maximising marquee moments” and ensuring “the best possible showcase for fans”. But supporters can see through it.
This isn't about fans. It's about protecting television inventory from the possibility of the occasional dud Friday night game.
And honestly? Who cares.
Every sport has bad games in prime time sometimes. That's life. The AFL's desperation to eliminate every possible scheduling imperfection has turned the fixture into a bloated, confusing mess where the competition seems terrified to simply lock in games and live with the consequences.
The fixture is already compromised beyond belief. Rivalries are protected. Big Victorian clubs get favoured slots. Marquee games remain untouched regardless of ladder position.
State governments lobby for content. Broadcasters demand windows. Clubs negotiate stadium deals. Everybody gets accommodated except the people actually paying to follow the sport.
And that's the part the AFL still doesn't understand.
Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.
Release the fixture. Lock in the dates. Accept that not every Friday night game will be Geelong versus Collingwood in a top-four shootout.
And stop turning the fixture into an eight-month social experiment designed by consultants who think uncertainty equals excitement.
Because at this point, the AFL isn't optimising the fixture. It is just optimising how quickly it can annoy the entire football public.
