Friday Night Football no longer a showcase?

hoianbulldog

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Why not allocate Friday night games in the same way they do the fixture. The lower you finish the less you get, the higher you finish the more you get.

Each team would get a minimum each year but the higher performers from the previous year would get a few more.

Oh wait, bad idea. Being fair might impact revenue.
 

basashi

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It has been three seasons now that the league has clearly been attempting to de emphasise the friday night time slot by choosing games of very little interest to the neutral viewer.

Whatever the reason, it is obviously a deliberate tactic. Possibly they felt they had painted themselves into a corner in relation to average advertising prices across the weekend...
 

dinger

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Friday night football is used to kiss the dick of the shitty archaic big 4 with no regard for having a game of decent football on. I've had a few 'casual' supporting mates wonder why the big game has absolute trash teams going toe to toe.
 

vaughany

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The Friday night scheduling would be worrying the AFL a lot this season.

I reckon the 2016 fixture will contain a couple rounds where there is a double header on a Friday night. One game in Melbourne and one game interstate.

The double header on Friday nights at least needs to be trialed!?
 
This is an embarrassment for Vic fans. Collingwood got 33,771 vs Adelaide earlier in the year. This is a disgrace. The reverse fixture would have been 50k guaranteed.

Not being silly… but is it plausible to argue that the constant return legs between Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond & Essendon are entrenching the mindset in supporters of mostly going to Victorian games even moreso than already existed (exists) and causing long term damage?

If the AFL had just stuck to ensuring each team played each other a fixed amount of times over a given timeframe (equal amount at home and away) rather than constantly trying to manipulate the fixture that we might end up with more… robust attendance levels in general. There is a part of me that thinks that we are just training these supporters to only go to the Victorian “derby” games. It’s also a lot more interesting to me (speaking as a North supporter) if we play different teams at home each year rather than what usually happens which is the same games over and over again. It is so incredibly artificial and the same for the Friday night and FTA games.

It has been three seasons now that the league has clearly been attempting to de emphasise the friday night time slot by choosing games of very little interest to the neutral viewer.

Whatever the reason, it is obviously a deliberate tactic. Possibly they felt they had painted themselves into a corner in relation to average advertising prices across the weekend...

It's possible I guess. Anything is possible with this lot at times, they genuinely do some mind bogglingly crazy s**t at times. I can't see that as overly plausible though as a theory. Surely out of nine games there are more than 1 each week that can offer value to the neutral viewer. Until they actually start doing real research on who watches what I don't think they can know. Personally I think there is massive variance in neutral interest across (for the sake of simplicity FTA) games depending on the timeslot. Personally I'd be trying to maximise neutral interest in games that already appeal to them (teams at the pointy end of the premiership cycle, teams that recent history suggests have tight games irrespective of their formlines) and trying to push the teams that have high in house support into timeslots that tend to have a higher proportion of non-neutral viewers. Unless or until they are gathering a hell of a lot more data than we are seeing I don't think the AFL or FTA are in a position to be smarter about it - although they can make the decision to be fairer.
 
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Mar 1, 2011
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It's utterly insane to have selected Carlton for so many Friday night matches in 2015. There isn't a single football expert (or even couch expert) that expected them to finish in the top 8. Richmond at least were expected to be a top 9 team this year, but their poor start emphasises that football isn't completely predictable. The solution to mitigate the potential damage to Friday night football is to limit the maximum number of games a club can play on Friday night. I don't know what that maximum number should be, but it sure as hell isn't SIX.
 

Belnakor

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It has been three seasons now that the league has clearly been attempting to de emphasise the friday night time slot by choosing games of very little interest to the neutral viewer.

Whatever the reason, it is obviously a deliberate tactic. Possibly they felt they had painted themselves into a corner in relation to average advertising prices across the weekend...

pretty sure they did some analysis and Friday night football has a low flucuation of viewers. So essentially I believe the AFL thinks they can schedule anything on a Friday night and it will get good ratings.

I think they fail to appreciate that the reason why Friday night has retained the loyalty is the previous record of having very good games on friday night.
 

basashi

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It's possible I guess. Anything is possible with this lot at times, they genuinely do some mind bogglingly crazy s**t at times. I can't see that as overly plausible though as a theory. Surely out of nine games there are more than 1 each week that can offer value to the neutral viewer. Until they actually start doing real research on who watches what I don't think they can know. Personally I think there is massive variance in neutral interest across (for the sake of simplicity FTA) games depending on the timeslot. Personally I'd be trying to maximise neutral interest in games that already appeal to them (teams at the pointy end of the premiership cycle, teams that recent history suggests have tight games irrespective of their formlines) and trying to push the teams that have high in house support into timeslots that tend to have a higher proportion of non-neutral viewers. Unless or until they are gathering a hell of a lot more data than we are seeing I don't think the AFL or FTA are in a position to be smarter about it - although they can make the decision to be fairer.

I couldn't say its a real reason but something is behind it.

If you go back to when this season's fixtures came out it was clear that most weekends we were given a Friday night game of almost no interest to the neutral viewer. That is not just how it turned out - that is judging them from what was known about the teams when the fixtures came out. Up until three years ago there was a very strong tendency to put more interesting games on the Friday night. That is clearly gone.

It is the neutral interest that counts if you are trying to get ratings on a prime Friday night slot. No club has enough of their own fans to make it a ratings success on a Friday night. It can only be a ratings success if you attract a significant number of neutrals.
 

basashi

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I think AFL needs to accomodate better TV too the Victorian audience rather than interstate viewers as regardless, they will have matches of both their teams televised eg WA will air Eagles and Freo games every week on free to air in WA. Friday and Saturday night games, on Channel 7 in Melbourne needs to always be bw 2 Victorian sides

* R1, Saturday night, Lions v Pies

* R2, C7 Televised for Vic viewers
Eagles v Blues on Friday night
Power v Swans on Saturday night
(That's 3) interstate teams taking prime time away from Vic viewers

* R3, Saturday night, North v Port
* R4, Sat night, Port v Hawks

Victorian teams like Bulldogs and Demons agree should get more night games. I'm not saying brush interstate teams away when play in Vic, but just move them to other slots to allow Vic audience to watch their teams on prime time

But Friday night games need neutrals to rate well, not fans. I think most Victorian fans would have rather watched the SA Showdown than an all Vic game that didn't include their own team.

When Freo aren't playing I don't automatically look for an Eagles game. I look for an interesting game.
 
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One day in the near future I can see a game in Melbourne on a Friday night starting at 6.10pm and then a game in Perth on the same night starting at 8.50pm (6.50pm WA time).

They did something like this in 2008 as a one off for Round 1 Easter Thursday.

Carlton v Richmond at the extra early start at 6:10pm on Ch 10.
Then the GF replay from Adelaide, Port v Geelong at 8:40pm on Ch 7.

6:10pm start would ensure a TV double header ends well before midnight with enough time for some post game. Admittedly, a 6:10pm start is a bit too early. Okay for Round 1 I guess, but for other double header Fridays I'd push it back to 6:40pm (just have to chop off the post game to fit everything in before midnight).
 
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3;00 oclock sunday game will be the marquee game of the week. lead into the news

I think this Round 6 coming up should be used as a template to get rid of Sunday twilight.
6 games on Saturday... kind of like the VFL days again, only with games staggered out.
Allow the 3pm FTA Sunday game to get more of a marquee match-up since it will bookend the round.
Market it as "Australia's Game of the Week".
 
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It's utterly insane to have selected Carlton for so many Friday night matches in 2015. There isn't a single football expert (or even couch expert) that expected them to finish in the top 8.
Pretty sure Gillo did

And he said Carltons youf was better than the Dogs youf.
 

sprockets

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But Friday night games need neutrals to rate well, not fans. I think most Victorian fans would have rather watched the SA Showdown than an all Vic game that didn't include their own team.

When Freo aren't playing I don't automatically look for an Eagles game. I look for an interesting game.
I'd ALWAYS prefer to watch two Vic teams playing than any team besides Richmond playing an interstate team. I've grown up with my team having rivalries with local teams and for me at least interstate games are there for when there's nothing else on. I suspect many 40y/o+ Victorians would feel similar. It's the same reason local derbies are the ratings winners in their home States. The lowliest of Vic teams interest me more than the best of the interstaters.
 
Apr 7, 2010
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I'd ALWAYS prefer to watch two Vic teams playing than any team besides Richmond playing an interstate team. I've grown up with my team having rivalries with local teams and for me at least interstate games are there for when there's nothing else on. I suspect many 40y/o+ Victorians would feel similar. It's the same reason local derbies are the ratings winners in their home States. The lowliest of Vic teams interest me more than the best of the interstaters.

You'd rather watch Carlton than Port, I feel sorry for you.
 

sprockets

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You'd rather watch Carlton than Port, I feel sorry for you.
I'm not sure if you go to watch local footy as in amateurs or whatever but usually people are interested in their local teams rather than teams from far away suburbs and Carlton are more local to me than Port or Freo. Plus, as I say, I grew up watching them. I'm not suggesting I'd rather see Carlton win than Port or Freo, just that I'd rather watch them play and watching them lose is especially enjoyable.
 
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I'd ALWAYS prefer to watch two Vic teams playing than any team besides Richmond playing an interstate team. I've grown up with my team having rivalries with local teams and for me at least interstate games are there for when there's nothing else on. I suspect many 40y/o+ Victorians would feel similar. It's the same reason local derbies are the ratings winners in their home States. The lowliest of Vic teams interest me more than the best of the interstaters.
People I think we have found Mike Sheahan's Big Footy account :)
 
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I'm not sure if you go to watch local footy as in amateurs or whatever but usually people are interested in their local teams rather than teams from far away suburbs and Carlton are more local to me than Port or Freo. Plus, as I say, I grew up watching them. I'm not suggesting I'd rather see Carlton win than Port or Freo, just that I'd rather watch them play and watching them lose is especially enjoyable.

I want to watch the best teams play regardless of where they're from. Geography doesn't factor in for me at all. It sounds like it's still 1980 for you.
 

sprockets

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People I think we have found Mike Sheahan's Big Footy account :)
Because I'm a Victorian that's more interested in Victorian teams than interstate teams? Which teams are of most interest to West Australians? I'm tipping one starts with WCE and the other F.
 
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