AFL Dream Team

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The AFL Dream Team is a yearly competition run on the Australian Football League's official site AFL.com.au. The contest has been running since 2002. A similar competition called Supercoach is being run by Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun starting in 2006.

Upon registration you are given a $6.3 Million salary cap to choose your team of 30 real AFL players.

Once the season has started you score points on how your players perform in actual AFL games. You get points for each possession a player gets.

At the conclusion of round 4 of the AFL Season, the dream team leagues get under way, made up of 16 teams per league. The teams compete over the following 15 weeks until round 19, when a finals series gets under way with the top 8 teams during the season striving to be the league champions.

In 2006 over 200,000 entrants from Australia and overseas are competing in the competition. The winner of the competition gets a $AU10,000 cash prize.

A typical view of a Dream Team in the 2007 afl.com.au competition.

[edit] Scoring

A player gains, or loses, points for the following.

Handball: 2 Points

Kick: 3 Points

Mark: 3 Points

Tackle: 4 Points

Free Kick For: 1 Point

Free Kick Against: -3 Points

Hitouts: 1 Point

Goal: 6 Points

Behind: 1 Point

At the end of each week the entrant has their individual score calculated. The scores of players in your team are then added to together to give your total team score.

[edit] Cultural Effect

As Dream Team has grown in popularity, it has had a sizeable effect on the way some people view the game. With AFL games being increasingly high possession, Dream Team has given fans a new source of interest, particularly if their team is not participating. It has also given some lesser known league players notoriety for their Dream Team efforts. Some of these players include Kane Cornes, Dane Swan, Heath Scotland, and Cameron Bruce.