Mince is very good as a commentator. Depends on his SEN contract. As long as I don't have to listen to BT Darcy Brayshaw or Donk I'm good.
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Next TV Broadcast rightd deal.
- Thread starter Bones17
- Start date
Not sure Unccy Rupe and Big Kez would be happy dropping 4.5 billion to show Gold Coast vs Port on a Thursday night.
I get you prefer a spectator friendly fixture which then lessens the TV rights but I wonder how you see that working in practicality?
Would you rather see ticket prices higher instead?
Whilst I benefit from being able to view Thursday night games on TV living in rural QLD I totally agree with you. The clubs and their members should have been consulted in this... but we are talking about the AFL aren't we?
What’s the game attendance numbers like on Thursday nights ? Are they lower as a general rule v Friday or Saturday night ? Because if they are, and being a big club that drags in the tv viewers such that we’ll get stuck with a bunch of them, then what comes back our way to offset any lost revenue ?
If we host a home game v Cwood on a Thursday night, will we lose game attendance revenue v a Friday or Saturday ?
If we host a home game v Cwood on a Thursday night, will we lose game attendance revenue v a Friday or Saturday ?
Yep Thursday night games suck. Especially at the MCG in June and July. If they are going to play them in the winter months they should only be in the northern states.
Have their bean-counters worked out a very clever plan to fit 15 Thursdays into half of a 23 round season?
That’s what I was wondering when they made that statement last night.
Expect Victorian Thursday night games will be played the first 8-10 rounds and then interstate in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney thereafter.
Yeh Mince is OK on a broadcast and he doesn't have bias like many. Agree on your list of boneheads I cannot listent to, Fox smashes Ch 7 in terms of talent.
Yes, AFL mathematician Simon Nofriends has stated: “ There will be 15 Thursday night games scheduled for the first half of the season and 8 games scheduled for the 2nd half.”
The clubs would be absolutely delighted with this deal and would have accepted it without question.
Reality is there are just over 1.1 million members across every AFL club. Even if they average a very generous $100 each they are worth about 120 million a year to the game or about 600 million over the 5 years of the deal.
That's ash tray money in the car when you are talking a 4.5 billion dollar deal.
There was a short period, I dunno, 20 years ago, when they did this.
Well said.
I said this half a dozen times, but I was watching the pre-game on fox for a Thursday night game earlier in the season (I think it was the Dogs v Swans). And they were talking about how Thursday night footy is likely to be extended in 2023… They were carrying on about how good this is and how much the fans love Thursday night footy.
Not only were the sycophantic AFL media pushing the AFL’s agenda, but they were p!55!ing in the pockets of the fans. They were telling us how to think. And you know what? We just accept it like the conforming sheep that we are.
I’d love to crack open your skull and analyse the way you think, because it’s completely opposite of how I think.
If you are an 11 reserved game member that lives 2 hours away from Melbourne, and we play a few home games on a Thursday night that you can’t attend, you will be questioning whether you are getting value for money with your membership… You may downgrade or even not renew.
Add lower ticket sales on top of that and clubs could potentially see a drop in revenue. Maybe the TV rights money will make up the shortfall, but that doesn't make it right. Excluding the 2 COVID years, we just had the lowest average crowd numbers in 26 years. This new deal isn’t gonna help with this. We may see the return of teams placing jumpers and banners over the top of whole seating bays. Won't that lok great?
FYI, saying “More fan friendly timeslots means higher ticket prices” is the type of propaganda that the AFL would come out with. They will raise prices irrespective of what time games are played. To suggest they won't is laughable.
As for being “practical,” there is an easy solution. Dump Thursday and play 2 games on Friday. That way, getting home at midnight is far less problematic.
When we played Port Adelaide in June, the crowd was 20,000. It was the lowest MCG home game crowd in something like 20 years (excluding COVID). When we played Carlton the week after I believe the crowd was about 50,000 (or just under). Both games were 18,000-20,000 under what it would have been had they been played at 2pm Saturday.
I'm just looking at the reality. Even on basic arithmetic, a $673 million a season deal means every single game is worth $3.1 million on average.
If you fill the MCG up you make a profit of a few hundred thousand dollars at best. A crowd of 20k v Port on a Thursday night vs a crowd of 40k on a Saturday afternoon might change the bottom line by 50k.
We had 100,000 members, huge crowds and won a premiership in 2019 and didn't make a profit that equalled what TV pay for one single game.
If we want the best people involved and our game to be as good as it can be, it cost money and that money comes from TV. TV isn't going to pay that money unless they see a return on investment, so they want the best times, biggest ratings and maximum advertising return and Thursday nights deliver all of that in spades.
I was a country kid so I appreciate the difficulties of going to the footy with a 5 hour round trip and the impossibility of things like night games and Sunday twilights etc but unless we are going to pay $1000 a seat TV has to be the first priority so the game is funded to the level it needs.
you're still missing the point. All you talk about is money. all i talk about the best interests of the fans.
I'm not saying money isn’t important. of course, it is. But the balance of the scales is tipped way too far in favour of money at the expense of the fans.
I’m not asking for much, just pull the scales slightly closer to the centre. Supporters don’t like attending Thursday night. Supporters don’t like the late starts on Friday night. Supporters don’t like 3:20pm on Sunday. supporters don’t like Sunday twilight. And I can tell you as a fact that supporters will hate the FTA TV blackout on Saturdays.
Its been said previously on this thread. The English premier is the most lucrative sports league on the planet, but most of their games still start at the traditional time of 3pm. the premier league still sticks to the traditions of their competition. 2pm Saturday is the traditional start time in our sport and is still the preferred time for supporters to attend games. But 2pm Saturday is now dead. The AFL have been trying to kill it for years and they have now achieved this goal.
No doubt you're right, TBR. The league and the broadcasters will want big teams to ensure big ratings so they can tell us how much we love Thursday night footy. But Norf v Collingwood would rate its tits off, so would Gold Coast v Essendon.Not sure Unccy Rupe and Big Kez would be happy dropping 4.5 billion to show Gold Coast vs Port on a Thursday night.
I'm not at all, those things are closely intertwined.
Entry prices and membership costs for AFL fans are dirt cheap when compared with other sports. You can walk up to the gate at an AFL game and buy a ticket for less than $30. Probably cost 50 quid to get into a soccer game. Food and drink are also comparatively cheap, assuming you are not at Augusta.
The other thing in the best interests of fans is having the best game you can. We want the best kids to choose footy over cricket and we want the best staff working in footy.
The TV money is the rising tide that lifts all boats, fans included. Yes, there are inconveniences for fans around the fixture but that is the price you have to pay to maximise the TV money, and give a better and cheaper experience to the fans.
That’s a bit of a misnomer. Yes, you can still buy a GA ticket for $27, but those spots are limited and you are stuck in the nosebleeds or standing. You’re paying $40-$50 these days for “Level 4 Front” at the MCG, which is appallingly expensive. The AFL is also doing massive shifty by reclassifying seats every year then claiming prices are frozen. It’s a massive scam they continue to get away with.
You’ve dug yourself into a hole by saying tickets are more expensive overseas. Almost every game in the EPL is a sellout. Supply and demand pushes up prices (I paid $250 to watch a Spurs game a few years ago for example). But you said in your post yesterday that more TV rights money will bring down ticket prices (or at least stop them from increasing). Bulldust.
If you use “supply and demand” as a guide, AFL ticket prices are ridiculously overpriced. Only a handful of games are sold out every year. When we played away to Hawthorn in R9, they charged $60 for a level 1 seat. There was a crowd of 40,000. Level 1 was empty, which is terrible for aesthetics.
As for food and drink being cheap… I don’t know a pub in Melbourne that sells a schooner of mid-strength beer for $10.
