What marquee games do we currently have? Friday Night, and about 6 Thursday Night games. It's so stupid.Not for the dollars into footy, the clubs, the players ....
The days of footy being a loss leader are gone.
We know that Thursday and Friday night games rate well on TV, and would increase the value of the rights (if rights stayed the same, the rights holders would make more money from advertising). Sunday Night is huge for TV, all the biggest shows have been on Sunday nights, Big Brother, MAFS etc. It's the most prime of prime time.
Perth teams are crying out for a marquee fixture. 4pm/5pm local time on a Sunday Arvo (7pm east coast) would put both teams well into the national spotlight every week. If Ch10 showed it, could push it earlier to 6pm eastern (3pm/4pm AWST). The AFL is so stupid when it comes to maximising the use of its timezones. In the festival of footy last year, the AFL played a game in perth at 5pm eastern, followed by a game in Brisbane at 8pm eastern. Why not flip that and push it later? The mind boggles.
That's a very long-winded way of saying that the AFL has the capacity to create more marquee slots that bring in the advertising $$$. Making sure that the only games that overlap are the Saturday 2pm games (lowest advertising $$ slot, but traditional and good for fan engagement so has a pay off).
I think we'll find the next media rights are a lot more segmented than they currently are. A return back to the days of 2002Fox already arcing up over the local broadcast rules. I dont expect that to be in the next media contract.