COVID-19 restrictions forced the draft to be based out of the AFL Review Centre (ARC) where all eight rounds and and 122 picks - if needed - will be crammed into one night of mayhem.
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Melbourne teenager Jamarra Ugle-Hagan saw the event start full of emotion as his family broke down in tears following his selection with the No. 1 pick.
Ugle-Hagan was wrapped up into a hug by his mum after the Crows selected him with the first overall pick.
However, the Bulldogs pulled off a draft coup by matching the Crows' offer because he is a product of the club’s Next Generation Academy.
The selection made history on Wednesday night as Ugle-Hagan became the Western Bulldogs' first ever No. 1 draft selection.
The star prospect said straight after his selection that his father had also broken down in tears.
"It means a lot, I’ve never seen my dad cry before, so it obviously means a lot," he said.
"I dunno, it’s just an unreal experience."
The 18-year-old is also the first Indigenous player to go No. 1 in the draft since Des Headland in 1998.
The key forward is also expected to become the richest teenager in the history of the game on Wednesday night as a result of the improved economic forecasts for 2021 and the game's Total Player Payments pool.
As the No. 1 pick, Ugle-Hampton will receive a $10,000 cash payment from the draft's corporate sponsor. Speculation earlier this month suggested that with match payments of $4000, first round picks at the 2020 Draft could earn up to $200,000 in their first year in the game.
The Herald Sun reports the payments - on top of their base salary of $100,000 - would see Ugle-Hagan become the richest teenager the game has seen.The picks will be flying in right through to 10pm (AEDT) with around 60 selections expected to be made.
AFL 2020 DRAFT ORDER - ROUND 1
1 - Western Bulldogs, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan
2 - Adelaide Crows, Riley Thilthorpe
3 - North Melbourne, Will Phillips
4 - Sydney Swans, Logan McDonald
5 - Sydney Swans, Braeden Campbell
6 - Hawthorn, Denver Grainger-Barras
7 - Gold Coast Suns, Elijah Hollands
8 - Essendon, Nikolas Cox
9 - Essendon, Archie Perkins
10 - Essendon, Zach Reid
11 - Adelaide Crows, Luke Pedlar
12 - GWS Giants, Tanner Bruhn
13 - North Melbourne, Tom Powell
14 - Fremantle, Heath Chapman
15 - GWS Giants, Conor Stone
16 - Port Adelaide, Lachlan Jones
17 - Collingwood, Oliver Henry
18 - GWS Giants, Ryan Angwin
19 - Collingwood, Finlay Macrae
20 - Geelong, Max Holmes
21 - Melbourne, Jack Bowey
22 - Melbourne, Bailey Laurie
23. Collingwood, Reef McInnes
24 - Brisbane, Blake Coleman
25 - Adelaide, Brayden Cook
26 - St Kilda, Matthew McLeod-Allison
Updates
43. Brisbane Lions – Harry Sharp
44. Collingwood – Beau McCreery
45. St Kilda – Tom Highmore
46. Hawthorn – Tyler Brockman
47. Geelong – Nicholas Stevens
48. Western Bulldogs – Henry Smith
49. Port Adelaide – Ollie Lord
50. Fremantle – Brandon Walker
51. Richmond – Maurice Rioli Jr.
52. West Coast – Luke Edwards
53. Essendon – Cody Brand
54. Fremantle – Joel Western
55. Western Bulldogs – Dominic Bedendo
56. North Melbourne – Eddie Ford
57. West Coast – Isiah Winder
58. GWS Giants – Cameron Fleeton
27 – St Kilda, Nathan O'Driscoll
28 – Adelaide, Sam Berry
29 – Hawthorn, Seamus Mitchell
30 – Collingwood, Caleb Poulter
31 – Collingwood, Liam McMahon
32 – Sydney, Errol Gulden
33 – Geelong, Shannon Neale
34. Melbourne – Fraser Rosman
35. Hawthorn – Connor Downie
36. North Melbourne – Charlie Lazzaro
37. Carlton – Corey Durdin
38. Adelaide Crows – James Rowe
39. Essendon – Josh Eyre
40. Richmond – Samson Ryan
41. Carlton – Jack Carroll
42. North Melbourne – Phoenix Spencer
Collingwood and GWS have made a high stakes trade that has gifter the Pies two late picks in the first round of the 2020 draft.
It has come at a high price for the Magpies with the Giants receiving Collingwood's first round pick in 2021. Collingwood receives picks 24, 30 and the Giants' fourth round pick in 2021.
The Pies wheeling and dealing allowed them to select Blake Coleman with the No. 24 pick – which they used to force the Lions to match their offer.
The Pies' decision to select Coleman forced Brisbane to pay a high price for their academy selection.
The Crows dropped the first big surprise of the 2020 draft when they selected Luke Pedlar with the No. 11 selection.
Most draft experts predicted Pedlar would fall through to the second round and would likely be picked up around the 30th overall selection.
Veteran draft expert Kevin Sheahan described Pedlar as a "bolter".
Essendon picked Archie Perkins with the No. 9 overall selection just hours after he declared on radio he didn't want to be picked by any club outside of Victoria.
Perkins got a lot of noses out of joint when he said on radio he hopes clubs respected his dream to stay in Melbourne, despite nominating for the draft fully-aware that it could require him to begin his footy career at one of the eight inter-state clubs.
READ: How Perkins' honesty divided footy
Hawthorn cut the Swans off from trying to pick academy talent Braeden Campbell later in the first round when they used their No. 5 pick to select the star midfielder.
It forced the Swans to match the offer, weakening their selection power for the rest of the draft.
The Hawks' expected move was leaked earlier on Wednesday with the Swans previously hoping to see Campbell fall as low as No. 9 in the draft.
Expected No. 1 pick Jamarra Ugle-Hagan has revealed he will be wearing Bulldogs superstar Marcus Bontempelli's pants when he steps in front of the cameras on Wednesday night.
The key forward is expected to get the the Bulldogs through the club's Next Generation Academy allowance, despite the Crows wanting to use their first overall selection on him.
The 18-year-old revealed how strong his connections are at the Bulldogs even before his fate is decided when he revealed on Wednesday he forgot to pack pants for the event and has borrowed some of Bontempelli's threads for his big night.
As soon as he realised e'd forgotten to pack pants after travelling from Warrnambool, Ugle-Hagan said his first call was to Bontempelli.
"He took me in for a week and looked after me and I obviously learned off him," he told afl.com.au.
"I'm actually taking his pants tonight as well because I didn't have jeans up in Melbourne.
"I think he was the first person I rang, I was like, 'do you have any jeans I can borrow?'
"I'm going to go pick them up soon."
A star is born.
The footy world is both sympathetic and scathing of Draft prospect Archie Perkins' decision to publicly call on interstate clubs not to select him at the 2020 AFL Draft.
Perkins didn’t outright name the club he hoped would pick him, he did however put half the competition on notice to not pick him.
He says he wants to stay in Victoria – giving the eight clubs outside the home of football a dilemma of whether to pick the teenager or not.
“I have (told clubs he wants to stay in Victoria). I hope they take that on board. I get that they do what’s in the best interests of their footy club, but I just think personally I’m not ready for that in my stage of life and I feel it would impact me too much,” Perkins said on SEN's Whateley.
“I don’t think it would be in their best interests as a footy club to have me there because I wouldn’t be 100 per cent with it if I was going over there and couldn’t really commit myself 100 per cent as opposed to staying here where I’d be 100 per cent ready to go and fully committed.
“I just don’t think I’m ready for that and I wanted to be honest about it.”
– How footy reacted to brutal honest answer
