The NFL leage in USA also has 32 teams, happy days, take Kilkenny out and put London in and be done with it.
They split the 32 teams into 2 conferences and each conference into 4 divisions of 4 teams.
Your team will then play the season as follows:
•You play 6 games (one home and one away) against the other 3 teams in your division.
•You play 4 games against each team in one of the other 3 divisions in your conference. Those divisions are rotated each year. This means you play every team in your conference at least once every 3 years during the regular season.
•You play 4 games against each team in one of the 4 divisions in the opposing conference. Those divisions are rotated each year. This means you play every team in the other conference once every 4 years during the regular season.
•You play 2 games against teams that finished in the same place in their respective divisions as you did in your division (e.g. a 1st place team will play 2 other 1st place teams, a 2nd place team will face 2 other 2nd place teams, etc.). These teams come from your conference and come from the 2 divisions not used in the second bullet above.
At the end of this we could have the top two in each division play knockout to win their conference. Then the two conference winners play in the All Ireland Final. Everyone is guaranteed to play everyone else at least once every 4 years, home and away fixtures have to adhered to. I think this model is perfect and fair.
Maybe what is less noticeable - in the US NFL every team plays 4 games against teams placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th from the prior year.
If your idea was adopted for the AIC - I would still prefer - 1) to avoid 'div 1v4' pairings; and 2) have teams move Confs, so any 2 of 32 could potentially meet in an AI Final over time.
Back on topic....top 3 in each NFL div (4x8) join the 4 KO Prov Champs in the AI Last 16 (byes likely, NFL berths seeded 5-16) ? Rd of 16 - 1 hosts 16, 2 hosts 15 etc (adjusted for 'double up' byes).