The introduction of the Gold Coast Suns takes the competition to an uneven 17 clubs and forces a mandatory two byes for each club next season.
Next year will be the first time clubs have been scheduled bye rounds since 1994, when the competition had 15 clubs.
The timing of the byes was among the League's strict constraints when it came to fixturing the draw - for example there must be a minimum of six weeks between a club's first and second bye - however some seemed to have fared better than others.
Fremantle, Geelong and the Sydney Swans all face teams coming off a bye four times in 2011.
Fremantle, from rounds three to five, and Geelong (rounds eight to ten) face three straight weeks of facing teams fresh from a break.
But AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan said the AFL had looked closely at the bye situation and the jury - including some clubs - was undecided on how preferable it was to play after a week off.
"Speaking to Sydney, they actually think it's a disadvantage to be having a bye and having a training schedule that's interrupted," McLachlan said at Friday's fixture launch.
"There is various opinion about the impact of it from the clubs and statistically the last time it occurred in that three-year period, you were actually better off not having had a bye and playing another team."
McLachlan said during the AFL's most recent bye era, from 1991 to 1994, statistics showed teams coming off a bye had not been as successful as one might have thought.
"The last time we had byes ... the opposite happened to what you might expect or what instinctively people might think," he said.
"Teams were more likely to lose when they were coming off a bye as opposed to when they were playing a team when they had a bye.
"In fact it was 46 per cent of the time teams who had the bye and were playing others teams lost ... it was actually the opposite to what people might think.
"And in fact the teams that have got the most of those types of games, the opinion's divided [as to whether playing a side off the bye is an advantage or a disadvantage]."
The Swans face teams coming off a bye in round 12 (Richmond), 14 (Collingwood), 17 (Fremantle) and 23 (Geelong).
Fremantle and Geelong face fresh sides in three-week blocks earlier in the season.
The Dockers cop Adelaide, North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs from rounds three to five.
The Cats, meanwhile, front up against rested Collingwood, Carlton and Gold Coast line ups from rounds eight to 10.
