AFL Grand Final start time - Afternoon, twilight or night

[Dan26]

You posted that TV rated better at night for ALL PROGRAMS and that's why it's prime time.

The COVID night grand finals aren't in the top 15 most watched AFL grand finals.

Yes they are. I dispute your comment in regards to the 2021 Grand final. At 4.1 million it’s one of the top couple of Grand Finals of all time in terms of ratings. And between two low drawing Victorian teams too which is the worst match up for TV ratings

But anyway, it’s not about what they rate compared to other Grand Finals. It’s about how much more they rated at night compared to what they would have rated in the day.

Everything rates better at night than what it would during the day. Everything. That’s why it’s called prime time.

 

[iameviljez]

So far as I can tell, this seems to be about the wants of the traditionalist fan, vs the growth of the game through casual fans.

Like having the game start with a random bounce, ten teams in one state, and the GF at one venue, if you were designing the league from scratch, you would never have the showpiece game at 2:30, ever. I can’t think of a trophy on earth that does this.

 

[McIvor]

So far as I can tell, this seems to be about the wants of the traditionalist fan, vs the growth of the game through casual fans.

Like having the game start with a random bounce, ten teams in one state, and the GF at one venue, if you were designing the league from scratch, you would never have the showpiece game at 2:30, ever. I can’t think of a trophy on earth that does this.

FA Cup is not in the evening and in an afternoon time slot.

FWIW, I agree with your sentiment and personally would prefer a twilight start for the GF.

 

[Dan26]

FA Cup is not in the evening and in an afternoon time slot.

FWIW, I agree with your sentiment and personally would prefer a twilight start for the GF.

The FA Cup would be a distant third in importance behind the league title and the Champions League in terms of perceived value to the top clubs. It’s a horrible comparison.

 

[Glassjaw]

The harder Channel 7 push for a night gf, the more I want to keep the day. Big no vote for the strong arm tactics. Absolute plebs.

 

[iameviljez]

FA Cup is not in the evening and in an afternoon time slot.

FWIW, I agree with your sentiment and personally would prefer a twilight start for the GF.

I’d forgotten about the FA Cup.

Still, Champion’s League, Europa, Euros, World Cup…

I used to be 2:30 bounce all the way, till I went to the 2020 GF. First time I had actually felt anything in the build up and pre game.

 

[iameviljez]

The FA Cup would be a distant third in importance behind the league title and the Champions League in terms of perceived value to the top clubs. It’s a horrible comparison.

I think McIvor is just making a technical point

 

[magpie_marty]

2.30 leave the game alone.

 

[Cleavy]

And when the AFL & NRL Grand Finals are on the same weekend which happens more often than not?

I don't think they've been the same weekend for a while now, aside from when the AFL played the GF replay the week after the drawn GF (purposely scheduled that way).

 

[LB#16]

I don't think they've been the same weekend for a while now, aside from when the AFL played the GF replay the week after the drawn GF (purposely scheduled that way).

2023....Saturday 30th Sept and Sunday 1st Oct.

 

[Cleavy]

2023....Saturday 30th Sept and Sunday 1st Oct.

appreciate the correction

 

[iameviljez]

Yes they are. I dispute your comment in regards to the 2021 Grand final. At 4.1 million it’s one of the top couple of Grand Finals of all time in terms of ratings. And between two low drawing Victorian teams too which is the worst match up for TV ratings

But anyway, it’s not about what they rate compared to other Grand Finals. It’s about how much more they rated at night compared to what they would have rated in the day.

Everything rates better at night than what it would during the day. Everything. That’s why it’s called prime time.

Yeah, nobody in TV ever said "hey, MAFS is rating well at 7:30 on a Sunday, let's put it to 2pm on a Saturday and watch it really go!".

 

[McIvor]

The FA Cup would be a distant third in importance behind the league title and the Champions League in terms of perceived value to the top clubs. It’s a horrible comparison.

BS. The FA Cup is English football’s GF. I bet if you’d lived there before you’d share that view with the coverage and prestige of the game. Hell the Community Shield prior to the season kicking off is just as big.

So are we now discussing which football title in Europe carries the most importance as you’re implying?

What’s the relevance of the Champions League Final to this that is only open to Europe’s best clubs? Or the relevance of the league title when there is no final premiership type game?

Go tell Wimbledon or Wigan or Portsmouth who have all won the FA Cup in the last 30-49 years of how irrelevant it is when they don’t have a hope in hell of winning the Champions League how unimportant the FA Cup is by your logic.

You’re absolutely clueless and have clearly never lived in England if you think the FA Cup is a “horrible comparison”.

 

[iameviljez]

BS. The FA Cup is English football’s GF.

IMO, the FA Cup is very much English football's third prize, behind Champions League (for Man City), Premier League (for Arsenal and Liverpool). It is in stark decline, compared to what it was.

If you offered Man United the chance to swap their FA Cup for winning the League last year, they would rip your hand off.

The major value in the FA Cup now is the pathway into the European comp for those who didn't make it otherwise, or the bragging power of a "treble" for those who are likely to storm the league.

Go tell Wimbledon or Wigan or Portsmouth who have all won the FA Cup in the last 30-49 years of how irrelevant it is when they don’t have a hope in hell of winning the Champions League how unimportant the FA Cup is by your logic.

I am a Pompey fan in some respects (they are a bit tough to follow without Prem broadcasts), and the reason the FA Cup meant so much is precisely because we couldn't win a League title. But to the best teams, the FA Cup is nearly an afterthought.

 

[sid waddell]

Fan of AFL from Ireland here. Moving the Grand Final from 2:30pm to twilight or evening would be utterly daft.

I grew up watching Aussie Rules on UK TV in the late 80s and early 90s when all the games were in the daytime. To me playing it in daytime made it much more accessible as a spectacle. Sport generally looks better in daytime, though there are certain exceptions. Overall you need to strike a balance. Friday night and Saturday night regular season games in the AFL are great, but night games should be the exception rather than the rule.

For me the classic AFL Grand Final scenario is blazing sunshine for the first two quarters before the late afternoon shadows draw in. There's a wonderful feeling of timelessness and tradition to this. In Ireland the Grand Final starts at 5:30am.The first two quarters are played in pitch dark, then it starts to get bright during the third quarter and the final quarter is played in broad daylight. I love that too. Having the Grand Final at 10:30am Irish time would be more “convenient” for me, but it would take away from the specialness of watching it. It would be missing an essential element of what drew me to the sport in the first place – the traditional spectacle.

Tradition matters. It's fine for the Champions League to be played in the evening/night. It always has been. It's been a night competition from the start. People don't know anything else of this competition. Night football is what you expect from it.

But English football at the weekends is a daytime thing. Saturday 3pm is the time. If all the matches were moved to Saturday nights, it would be crap. The public would hate it. Why? Because it has always been 3pmon Saturday. The FA Cup final moving to 5:15 or 5:30pm has been a colossal failure and yet one more element in the progressive downsizing of a once great competition. The last two years it has moved back to 3pm and been far superior as a spectacle, with the traditional Cup Final cauldron atmosphere in blazing sunshine. Beware the intangibles which can destroy the specialness of an occasion forever because the FA Cup final is a great example.

World Cup football has always looked better in the day than at night. The classic World Cup games are generally played in a furnace. Brazil-Italy 1970, Italy-Brazil 1982, Argentina-England 1986, and so many others. World Cup and Euros finals are played on Sunday nights during the summer. It's not a great time for a final. It's the end of the weekend, people have work the next day.

In Ireland, the big matches in our indigenous sports of Gaelic football and hurling are nearly all played in the afternoon. There simply isn't a debate about moving All-Ireland finals away from their traditional Sunday3:30pm time slot. This is our tradition. The match finishes about 5:10pm. Then the rest of the Sunday evening is for long dissection and discussion about the match. The day is about the little traditions and the times they happen at.

In saying this though, in recent years the finals have moved from September to July – a totally daft move driven by culture war zealots within the Gaelic Athletic Association, a complex story I won't bother explaining in detail because none of you would understand the intricacies of it. A loose analogy would be if the AFL Grand Final moved to July because the VFA or the WAFL demanded they have August and September all to themselves. The result: a sport cutting off its own nose to spite its face.

I've just finished up watching the latter stages of the NRL Grand Final and it pales as a spectacle compared to the AFL Grand Final. The darkness of Stadioum Australia simply doesn't cut it compared to the glorious colour splash of the MCG on the last Saturday afternoon of September. As an outsider it's one of the great sporting sights. Ending it would be eejitry driven by spivs who only care about $$$$$$, not protecting the sport and its traditions.