BY DAN

Recently the AFL decided it would introduce a ‘wild card weekend’ in place of its pre-finals bye round. This effectively expanded the finals to ten teams, and was met with a mix of mirth and mockery from the public, and some NRL journalists who claimed it rewarded mediocrity. But this approach is not new, and with broadcast rights up about to be negotiated it’s only a matter of time before it comes to rugby league.

The AFL’s “new” approach follows the expansion of finals series in a host of major competitions. The NFL – the competition that AFL loves to ape both in their approach to other sports and their tendency to assume they are the centre of the earth – expanded its playoffs to 14 teams in 2020. The NBA also expanded it’s finals through the dreaded play-in game in 2020, an event that is fun for fans of Trae Young and no one else. Major League baseball expands its playoffs series every few years, because 162 games of regular season was not enough. The Soccer World Cup is expanding to 250 countries (approximately) for the next event.

All these competitions have the same intent for expanding their playoffs, and you’ll be shocked to learn that, to paraphrase one of the 90s top three problematic rappers (it’s a crowded field), it’s all about the benjamins, baby. Post change, the NFL signed a new deal in 2021 for more than $100 billion. The NBA started negotiations in 2023 and ended with $77 billion. Both were massive increases on previous deals and records for each league. Even the MLB deal was surprisingly robust for a competition that is actually just a collection of regional leagues.

It works because not only is it more games, but it keeps fans of struggling teams engaged longer. Think about last year’s NRL season. If it was a ten team playoffs, only the Titans would have been mathematically eliminated from the finals after round 24. Even the Knights, the epitome of a team mired in the drudgery of the season would have been striving for a finals opportunity. If they’d made it Adam O’Brien may have even kept his job, an unjust reward for the mediocrity that eventually got him sacked. But the loyal fans of Newcastle would have been engaged, so what’s not to like?

The AFL is in the middle of their deal, and looking for a point of difference to confirm its position as the highest-cost, but not highest-watched, league in Australia. Establishing this extra round of finals will add to the pile of reasons that make broadcasters pay them the most – the others include longer games and regular ad breaks, and the fact that AFL and broadcasting executives all went to the same schools. The next AFL deal will be huge, and an extra round of playoffs, instead of a week of no footy, will contribute.

The NRL is about to enter negotiations for a new deal on a high. They have long been the most watched sport in the country, but in 2025 they even usurped the AFL’s only claim to fame: that their grand final rates more. The NRL took that mantle, and even a negotiator with the dubious skills of Peter V’Landys should be able to ensure a ten-figure injection of broadcasting funds in the competition.

But with high cost 18th and 9th teams entering the competition, broadcasters will want an offering. Getting cameras to Perth and Cairns/Townsville/Port Moresby won’t be cheap. Vlando has proven not just able but near damn giddy to do what broadcasters want in the past – like when he gave Channel 9 millions of dollars because Hugh Marks frowned at him. Extra finals games may be the ‘sacrifice’ he makes to keep the negotiating teams happy.

It won’t be new for the NRL – it’s been floated as far back as 2021. And so despite the general mockery of the idea in the AFL that occurred when it was floated recently, it will emerge into the rugby league discourse the longer the negotiations go. The media will back it, because they back everything the league does, in some kind of Trump/Fox relationship in which they forget what they or Vlando said five minutes ago and say the latest thing is the smartest thing. David Riccio did it best, raising the necessity of an expanded playoffs series when the NRL considered it in 2021, and poo-pooing the idea when the AFL actually did it in 2025.

Of all the things V’landys could do to the competition, this is among the least harmful. Moving to 18 teams, and maybe 19 or 20, in the coming decade will make finals expansion almost inevitable. The competition committee is reportedly considering implementing ‘winners kick’. The league is considering moving to 19 games and dreaded conferences. At least expanding the playoffs would only give the downtrodden a reason to be cheerful, no matter how unsatisfying it is for the shape of a competition to be driven by media needs. Empty calories are still calories after all.

So regardless of your vibes on this, the coming TV negotiations will almost certainly result in an expanded playoff series. You might not like it, but the league is more banking that it won’t stop you from turning on the TV for round one of the playoffs to the St George play the Titans for the right to be exploded by the ‘Riff in round 1.5. People will tell you good ideas prevail. But in sport ideas aren’t inevitable, money is. More finals means more money, and in the end that’s all that will matter.

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