Once again, the AFL National Draft has dominated the sports media in the past fortnight in a way that defies logic, reason or any form of commonsense.

Consider this: pages and pages of newsprint, gigabytes of cyberspace and hours of talkback radio have been given over to 17- and 18-year-old footballers most of us have never heard of. And, the stats would suggest, are unlikely to hear much of again.

We've had stories about little players, big players, players who've recovered from life-threatening illnesses, players who've grown up in one-horse towns and players who've been brought up by maiden aunts. We've had pieces about who's going to be picked at No.1, the likely top 25 candidates, who's got the highest standing vertical leap, who has the best beep test, who eats the most Weetbix for breakfast and which of these gentlemen prefer blondes.

Forget the Melbourne Cup, this is the new sporting event that stops a nation - or a deranged part of the nation that is obsessed by such things. The one day in November when footy tragics tune in to the Foxsports telecast, or SEN broadcast, or afl.com.au webcast, to discover which of these young men get assigned to their club.

The obsession really is a tale of our sporting times. And a living example of how the AFL has taken over the sporting landscape in vast tracts of Australia. The AFL season no longer ends neatly on the last weekend in September. It drifts over into October when we have trade week, pauses briefly for Melbourne Cup week - although it is footballers, of course, who dominate the social pages out at Flemington - then hits full stride again before Draft Day in November.

(And it's not just the teenage would-be champions who beguile us. I'd guess more words have been printed in the Herald-Sun and The Age about Luke Ball's future since the grand final than have been printed about Barack Obama. That's just a guess, but I'd be willing to lay a small wager on it.)

On Thursday night, the draftees' names will be called out by clubs in a staccato ceremony so full of dead time it makes the Brownlow Medal count seem like a candidate for the Tony Awards.

These kids will have their moment in the sun - or the TV arc lights - and good on them. But, the brutal reality is that the vast majority of them will never get to play 100 games. And only a tiny percentage will become the household names they've always dreamt of becoming.

The facts, taken from AFL drafts between 1996 and 2005, are these:

• 29% of top 10 selections play 50 games or fewer; only 51% reach 100 games.
• 55% of those picked after selection No.10 play 50 games or fewer.
• 44% of those picked after selection No.10 play 25 games or fewer.
• 16% of those picked after selection No.10 never get to take the field at all.

What these stats show is that after the first 10 picks?—?the standouts that Blind Freddy could see were champions-in-the-making?—?it's an absolute raffle. The guy picked at No.81 has got almost as much chance of succeeding as the guy selected at No.11.

As inexact sciences go, AFL drafting is up there with economics and weather forecasting. Some duds get drafted in the top 10, while champions get overlooked until the third, fourth and fifth rounds. Consider this: Chris Grant was picked at No.105 in 1988, James Hird at No.79 in 1990, Scott Burns at No.90 in 1992, Brent Harvey at No. 47 in 1995, Brendan Fevola at No.38 in 1998 and Ryan O'Keefe at No.54 in 1999.

Of course some of the boys written about in the past fortnight will go on to become household names. They'll be the Judds, Hodges and Murphys of the next decade - even the Hirds, Grants and Harveys. But let's wait until they become champions, or even 100-game journeymen, before devoting acres of newsprint, hours of airtime and gigabytes of cybermemory to careers that have not yet even started. For the sake of the trees.