Sep 9, 2020

Just curious how Americans/non-Aussies would feel about a particular draft rule we have in Australian football which I think is pretty cool and keeps traditions going. It's called the Father/Son Rule and it gives a club priority to draft the son of a player who played for the club.

The criteria is the father has to have played 100 games for the club (to put that in context there's 22 games in our seasons, so it's a considerable amount of time - it'd obviously be different depending on the sport). Originally you used to have to give up a third-round pick for the son but there started to be some absolute steals so a bidding system was introduced recently. To put it simply if another team bids their first rounder, you have to match it with your first rounder - a lot of teams just bid to prevent a steal anyway.

And in case someone asks yes, the son can decline so they're not locked into it or anything if they don't want to. On a similar note if a father has played 100 games for two different clubs the son can choose which one, so they're never locked in to having to be drafted by a team they can always just enter the draft as normal.

What are your thoughts on this? I think it's a cool rule unique to our game that can keep tradition alive and let names live on for generations through clubs - we've got at least one third generation player right now playing at the same club his father and grandfather played for. Whenever I've mentioned it to people unfamiliar with our sport they've always thought it was cool as well. Not saying you should implement it or anything just think it's a unique feature I'm actually surprised hasn't been adopted in some way elsewhere (that I'm aware of).

 

Sep 9, 2020

@Kon you're a sports guy, curious what your thoughts are on this. Trying to think of other sports people haha @Donkey Kong Cuntry am I right in remembering you as a sports fan as well?

 

Sep 9, 2020

I think it would be cool but it will never happen in American sports.

 

Sep 9, 2020

Any particular reason or just think they cbf?

 

Sep 9, 2020

Yeah it’s just not common enough For them to actually make a change

 

Sep 10, 2020

@SHUDEYE have we ever had an instance where the Father/Son duo played on the same team at the same time in AFL?

I can only think of an instance of that happening in pro sports and that was MLB with Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr.

 

Sep 10, 2020

Not unless it happened in like the 1890's or like 1900's, I'm definitely not aware of it. Dustin Fletcher was probably the closest I can think of it being a possibility in recent times. In NBA we might get it with LeBron/Bronny.