From father to son: A review and demographic analysis of the Australian Football League's Father–Son rule

Highlights

•	Sons of ex-players can be preferentially selected to their fathers’ club.
•	Considerable disparity exists in the observed number of selections between clubs.
•	A demographic model of expected sons can explain the disparity.
•	The opportunity to select players has differed considerably between clubs.
•	The model can be used by managers to promote between-team equity.

Abstract

The Australian Football League's (AFL's) Father–Son rule is a unique player drafting rule that allows sons of former players to be selected by their father's club. The rules that determine eligibility have undergone numerous changes since its introduction in 1949, including rules for new teams from outside of the traditional Victorian-based clubs that had no history of fathers from which Father–Son selections could be derived. The observed number of Father–Son selections to each club is markedly different between the Victorian-based clubs, and between the Victorian and non-Victorian-based clubs. In this paper, a demographic model and player data from the AFL and the state leagues are used to estimate the annual number of available sons to each of the AFL clubs. Results show that the observed number of selections can largely be explained by the number of available sons. The model can also be used to predict the number of available sons into the future, and so can be used to guide management decisions regarding competitive balance if further modifications to the AFL's Father–Son rule are required.

Keywords:

• Sports management
• Demographic model
• Player drafting
• Competitive balance

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the AFL, and in particular Rod Austin, Col Hutchinson, Shane McCurry and Patrick Clifton, and the various state-based club historians and enthusiasts for their kind assistance and provision of VFL/AFL/WAFL and SANFL player data. Rod Austin is thanked for piecing together the various Father-Son rules described in Table 1 from the AFL rules booklets. Greg Wardell-Johnson (WAFL statistics), Mark Beswick (SANFL statistics), John Lysikatos and Deanna Sellick (Sturt Football Club), Linda Crabb (Port Adelaide Magpies Football Club), David O’Hara (North Adelaide Football Club), and John Storer (Woodville-West Torrens Football Club) are all thanked for their generous time following numerous interrogating emails from GNT. Many thanks to Scott Foster (CSIRO Digital Productivity Flagship, DPF) for statistical advice and reviews of earlier drafts. Thanks also to Dhananjay Thiruvady (DPF), Alistair Hobday (CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship) for their review of the manuscript, Athol Whitten (Mezo Research) and Rob Macdonald (University of Melbourne) for valuable advice and suggestions, Simon Dunstall (DPF) for his support of the work and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. I also thank Prof. Ernie Tuck (University of Adelaide) for a life of inspiration and guidance.

Notes

1 Assuming it takes a player until at least age 23 to have qualified under a Father–Son rule (e.g. 5 seasons from debut to reach 100 games), then the probability of a male dying between the age of 23 and age 50 is less than 0.035 (based upon Australian life table statistics for 2008–2010; ABS, 2011).