THE OVERALL PREMIERSHIP LADDER

Australian Football is a sport that has such a proud, rich and long history but it is equally fragmented, debated and misrepresented. Often it is the debate surrounding premierships that is mostly hotly debated as club loyalty lines become more prominent and passion is ever present. Premierships are the aim of the game after all.

Aussie Rules Archive has attempted to settle the debate on the premiership ladder. While, it will probably do more provoking than settling, we believe it is a worthy exercise nevertheless. Before we get to the all important results, there are a few parameters to go over.

Firstly, this premiership ladder only focuses on the clubs currently competing at the highest level, the 18 AFL clubs. There are many state league clubs that could have laid claim to being at the pointy end of premiership ladders in their heyday. But for the sake of this exercise, we will only be concerned with the 18 current day AFL teams. This means that Port Adelaide will inevitably be seen as the odd one out as it is the only pre-existing club to enter the AFL competition outside of the league's VFL past.

What separates this ladder from others is that it focuses on the sport as a whole and not merely one competition, albeit a competition that now completely dominates the sport. The AFL clubs who have history in other competitions have been included in this exercise, under strict guidelines which we will get to later.

This ladder does not subscribe to the theory that elements of the sport's history should not be included when assessing the success of its clubs. Specifically, flags won before a certain date have not been completely discounted as though they were never won, but have been assessed for what they are.

Thus, this ladder does not simply included only premierships won in the "AFL era" for instance. It does not wipe the record books every time a new team is added to a competition either. But rather flags have instead adjusted to reflect the difficulty and significance of the achievement based on the number of teams in the competition. It provides the reader with the complete picture of the game's history and each club's success, how much they want to take in is up to them.

Flags from other state leagues outside of the VFL have been taken into account. The SANFL is the only relevant competition in this regard as it included Port Adelaide, who later joined the AFL in 1997. No WAFL or Tasmanian based teams have rose to the big time of the modern-day AFL.

This metric includes all premierships won in competitions at the highest or equal highest level. SANFL premierships have been adjudged to have been on an equal standing with VFL/AFL flags up until 1981. In 1981, the VFL introduced a draft that meant players were drafted from other state leagues, meaning the league was officially on a tier above state leagues such as the SANFL or WAFL. Therefore, SANFL premierships from the league's inception from 1877 to 1980 have been included. This means that 26 of Port Adelaide's 36 SANFL premierships have been considered under this ladder. The other 10 have been excluded as have all the years they have competed in the SANFL where they did not win the flag post-1980. Thankfully, for Port Adelaide supporters at least, the club has their fair share of premierships.

VIEW HERE: List of SANFL Premierships

However, Port Adelaide's SANFL premierships have also been valued significantly less in comparison to the VFL flags won during the same era due to the smaller size of the SANFL compared to the Victorian state league. For example, Port Adelaide's 1958 SANFL premierships is only worth two-thirds of Collingwood's VFL triumph in the same year under this system. This is due to the SANFL only being a 8-team league in 1958 compared to VFL's twelve-team competition. Similarly, the Bulldogs' AFL title in 2016 is valued a third greater than the 1954 VFL value due to the 12-team VFL/AFL competition in 1954 expanding to 18 sides by 2016.

'Champions of Australia' titles have been included also, however, no club is disadvantaged for participating and not winning, as only clubs who won the state premiership in their respective competition participated in any given year. Champions of Australia titles won after the tournament expanded to include premiers from the WAFL and Tasmania are worth double compared to those won when it was merely a tournament between the VFL and SANFL premier.

VIEW HERE: List of Champions of Australia titles

It is also worth noting that no distinction has been made between the VFL and the AFL after the league's name change in 1990. The view of this page is that the VFL was of no more of a higher tier in 1990 compared with 1989, despite the highly important and symbolic change of name.

VIEW HERE: List of VFL/AFL Premierships

The VFL's predecessor, the VFA is also included as well as the pre-VFL era that begins in 1870. This is conducive to the complete picture of Australian Football this ladder attempts to encapsulate. The VFA (that is now the VFL) obviously continued beyond the formation of the VFL/AFL but flags won after this have not been considered as it was a second tier competition.

VIEW HERE: List of VFA/AFL Premierships

Furthermore, if you don't like maths skip this section...

Teams were ranked in this ladder by "average years per premiership" calculated by adding all the years they have competed in a top-tier league by the number of teams that were in the competition. For example, the Adelaide Crows joined the AFL in 1991; meaning they competed in a 15-team league for 4 seasons (4 x 15 = 60), a 16-team competition for 16 seasons (16 x 16 = 256), a 17-team league for 1 season (1 x 17 = 17) and the current day 18 team competition for 8 seasons as of the end of 2019 (8 x 18 = 144). Add all these totals up and it's 477 (60 + 256 + 17 + 144 = 477). This number is divided by the seasons they have won premierships. The Adelaide Crows won AFL flags in 1997 and 1998, both in 16-team leagues (16 x 2 = 32). Therefore, 477 is divided by 32. Leaving the Crows with an "average years per premiership score" of 14.9 (477/32 = 14.9). Complicated, I know... This number is obviously different if you merely divided the number of years Adelaide have been in the AFL by the number of premierships won (for the record this is 29/2 = 14.5). This is because the figure we use factors in the fact that the number of teams in the league has changed during Adelaide's stint in the AFL. Adelaide won both their premierships during the time, in their AFL existence, that the league had the least amount of teams, and was therefore, viewed in our data as marginally less significant. As a result Adelaide's number is less impressive in our figures compared to if you were to simply divided their number of season by flags won (14.5). Obviously, the smaller the "average years per premiership" number the better, as clubs want to win more premierships in less years and not the other way around.

Adelaide's calculations were probably the most simple of all the clubs. Certainly, the Brisbane Lions provided its challenges. But rest assured, both Fitzroy and the Brisbane Bears' histories are appropriately accounted for. However, justifiably since the two clubs merged from 1997 onwards this period is valued twice as much (for better or for worse).

In regards, to the three AFL clubs yet to taste premiership glory (Fremantle, Gold Coast and GWS) there is no way to calculate a score for them with absolute accuracy. So it has been decided that there score - armed with an asterisk - will be based on the law of averages and the assumption that they win one flag in the next 18 years, such is the nature of the 18-team competition. We resisted the temptation to rank them all stone motherless last (sorry St Kilda) or exclude them altogether. This is because it would be unfair and probably inaccurate to categorise a club yet to win a premiership in their short eight year existence as less successful that a team who has won just 1 in over 140 years (again, sorry St Kilda). So, basically Fremantle, Gold Coast and GWS are estimates or progress scores, because GWS are younger (and hence, had less years of not winning the premiership) they are ranked highest on the ladder out of these three premiershipless teams. Due to this same logic, Fremantle is the lowest ranked of these clubs. The scores of Fremantle, and to a lesser extent Gold Coast, are also increased (which is bad!) very marginally (decimal places, marginally) because of the fact they played in the AFL when there were less teams and also failed to win the premiership, unlike GWS who have only existed in an 18-team AFL competition.

I won't be outlining the calculations for every club, as I'm convinced that won't make for interesting reading but feel free to ask any questions you may have on our various social media platforms and I will respond!

So, here it is...

1. Port Adelaide - 5.01

2. Hawthorn - 6.81

3. Essendon - 7.36

4. Carlton - 7.65

5. West Coast - 8.33

6. Collingwood - 8.69

7. Geelong - 9.48

8. Richmond - 10.54

9. Melbourne - 11.39

10. Brisbane Lions - 12.6

11. Sydney Swans - 14.23

12. Adelaide - 14.9

13. North Melbourne - 25.05

14. GWS - 26*

15. Gold Coast - 26.94*

16. Fremantle - 41.17*

17. Bulldogs - 47.5

18. St Kilda - 142

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