Fantasy football has gripped Australia in the last 3 years although it has been around for more than a decade in one shape or form. I have been doing fantasy football since the early-mid 1990s when Melbourne newspaper The Age had a fantasy football competition. I remember competing with my two brothers and Dad with each of us putting money in per team we had. We didn't join the actual Age newspaper competition but just competed amongst ourself. I used to sit at the Apple IIE for hours filling out the scores. I remember Shaun Rehn and Chris McDermott used to be high scorers along with Jason Dunstall and a few others. Well, things have slightly changed these days with the advancement of the internet and now there are two main AFL fantasy football competitions - Dreamteam and Supercoach.
Dreamteam is run by the AFL and Supercoach is run by the Herald Sun which is another Melbourne newspaper although Supercoach is run entirely through their website. Both competitions are run on the virtual sports platform and are managed in almost the exact same way. The difference is in how players' values are priced and also how players score points. Dreamteam has a simpler scoring system than Supercoach which uses accuracy in kicking and handballing and whether a possession or mark is contested or not. Supercoach uses some of Champion Data's statistics to formulate a player's score. It is arguably stated that Champion Data's player ranking system is the best method to determine how well a player has performed using over 50 variables to work it out.
Dreamteam Scoring
6 points - goal
4 points - tackle
3 points - mark, kick
2 points - handball
1 point - free kick for, behind
-3 points - free kick against
Supercoach Scoring (standardised to 3300 per game total for both teams)
8 points - goal, Mark contested (from opposition)
6 points - Mark contested (maintaining possession)
4 points - Free kick for, tackles, mark uncontested (from opposition), loose-ball get, hardball get, Effective kick
3 points - Hitout to Advantage
2 points - Effective Handball
1 point - Handball receive, behind, Mark uncontested (maintaining possession),
0 points - Ineffective kick, Ineffective handball,
-6 points - Free kick against, Handball clanger
-8 points - Clanger kick
There is no doubt that Supercoach is a more complicated scoring system and it is hard to accurately determine a players score during a match whereas dreamteam is able to give running totals during a match. Champion Data is the company with the stats which The Herald Sun uses to tally up the points of a player and they are very protective of their data and data feeds. Dreamteam has a larger base of supporters for a few reasons such as; it has been around for longer, easier to manage, player values move less and a players score can be calculated during a game and this data is used and kept live on a few websites in Australia. I think that for Supercoach to become a more used system then its scoring system needs to be made available (or at least the feeds) to more websites than just the Herald Sun.
If you are new to the game of Australian Rules Football (AFL) then the AFL Dreamteam fantasy football competition is probably more up your alley but if you are a hard core fan then you might want to try Supercoach. I personally do both. In fact, an Englishman won one of the AFL fantasy competitions in recent years (which really got up the Australian nose as England and Oz have an intense sporting rivalry, I suppose it was lucky an Aussie took out the Premier league fantasy footy as a comeback) so anyone can be successful and have a crack. Both competitions are free and have thousands of dollars worth of prizes. So if you want to get involved in Australian Rules Football, join either Supercoach or Dreamteam and start building your team.
Dub Johnston writes articles on finance, insurance, politics and entrepreneurialism. He has a web innovation business called Reflex Media and a car insurance comparison website call OzInsure
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