The AFL’s pledge to deliver football back to its heartland supporters will see Saturday night games brought forward to an earlier start next season after fans told the AFL that those showcase matches began too late for young families and followers from outside of Melbourne.
In one of several significant readjustments to the home-and-away season designed to lift dropping attendances, AFL boss Gillon McLachlan has confirmed the league will bring forward Saturday night games by 20 minutes to a 7.20 pm bounce.
Having stuck with its pledge to abandon Sunday night games completely along with almost all of its other experimental timeslots, the AFL fixture will also herald a traditional return to big Saturday afternoon games at the MCG. In 2014 there were only eight Saturday afternoon games at the MCG.
McLachlan said the Saturday adjustment, which will also see Saturday twilight games also marginally brought forward to accomodate the change, had come after extensive research into why Melbourne crowds had fallen in 2014. The competition’s governing body had tried for a 7.10 start but could not manage the domino affect with the Saturday twilight timeslot.
“We’ve listened to what people have said,” said the AFL boss, “and they’ve told us that Saturday night games are finishing too late particularly for families with young children and supporters coming in from country areas.
“We’ve looked at the research and we made the call some time ago that the 2015 fixture will be attendance-focused.”
Richmond and Carlton will open the 2015 season on the Thursday (April 3) before Easter at the MCG with reigning premier Hawthorn and Geelong – who will return to playing each other twice next year – expected to feature in round one, almost certainly on Easter Monday.
McLachlan has said there will be no games on Good Friday and only one bye, with the late start to the season due to the cricket World Cup pushing next year’s Grand Final into October.
An early draft of the fixture to be released next week sees the Hawks return to the MCG in round two to take on Essendon. The successfully rebuilt Adelaide Oval is expected to open its season on Easter Sunday, with the Crows taking on North Melbourne. Another early version of the fixture has the Gold Coast coming to Melbourne in round-one potentially to take on the Demons.
Collingwood, which has been consulted heavily by the AFL after bearing the brunt of some disastrous experiments in 2014 – notably the winter Sunday night game against Carlton which attracted the worst crowd for those two teams in 90 years – will travel to Brisbane in round one for a Saturday night clash.
The Magpies, whose Anzac Day clash with Essendon comes in round four, will play Carlton in round five in the game which sees its last premiership coach Mick Malthouse – now at the Blues – break the all-time coaching games record. The Magpies have also pushed successfully to play Richmond and the Bombers twice.
The AFL is understood to have settled the Saturday night scheduling change with its broadcasters Channel Seven and Fox Footy on Monday. The late start had been previously phased in to appease the networks but now Seven will shorten its pre-game program. The early starts will follow across the eastern seaboard with Adelaide and Perth games starting slightly later.
“It’s been a complicated process and I really have to thank the networks for their co-operation in this,” said McLachlan. The AFL has had to handle the sensitive negotiations with its networks in the knowledge that the next broadcasting agreement is expected to be settled over the next 12 months with both parties not ruling out a record 10-year deal.
This story first appeared in The Age
Round one
THURSDAY
Carlton v Richmond
SATURDAY
Melbourne v Gold Coast
Sydney Swans v Essendon
Brisbane Lions v Collingwood
Western Bulldogs v West Coast
SUNDAY
St Kilda v Greater Western Sydney
Adelaide v North Melbourne
