They play Thursdays during bye rounds so teams are playing off a short break.
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Poll on Thursday Night Footy
- Thread starter Ian4
- Start date
Haha like I said I don’t like it when it’s us either.
I’ll still be going though… oh and definitely don’t want your nut but there will be over 25k
Not by all that much but definitely over 25.
Some of us like it though Ian.
There hasn't been one Thursday since round 3 when I haven't sat down and looked for a game of footy on. I'd love to see these bye weeks use the footy frenzy idea and play a game a night for three weeks.
I like watching Thursday night footy on TV. But I drink too much when we play and hate being hungover at work on a Friday!
Footy frenzy was ok when we were locked in our houses 23h a day and had nothing else to do or watch. Personally, if it was on now I would watch the Tiges and wouldn't bother with the other games.
Could not disagree more. But I’m not one of those people who lives and breathes footy. One benefit of playing on Thursday night is that it does free up the weekend for other things. But playing 2 games on Friday night instead of Thursday and Friday has pretty much the same effect. And I have long been an advocate of 2 friday night games.
Jesus…. Think I’ll have to admit defeat on the crowd… lucky to be 20 here atm… hopefully you don’t want my left nut
I think the small crowd is actually the point of Thursday night footy. At this time of year you get cold, shitty weather and people stay away, so we'd rather have the game on Thursday when we can watch it than Saturday arvo or such.
Agree on 2 Friday games. If it's such a marquee time slot then have one in Melb one in a non Vic venue. More WA fans will watch Freo v Bris than stk v Carl.
Not a wfh type?
In my hey day Thursday night after work drinks were massive. Still had to front up Friday.
Do you have a righty? coz i don't
lowest richmond home game crowd in 12 years (excluding COVID).
firstly, having 20,000 less at the game would have minimal impact on TV numbers when between 600,000-800,000 are watching footy on TV on Thursday and Friday nights.
Secondly, the AFL gloats about how big footy crowd numbers are. But crowd averages on Thursday nights in 2022 is 4% down on 2021. And remember last year there were restrictions all season. To me, this is pretty significant.
Yep, I used to play pub poker on Thursday nights in my 20s and 30s. didn’t get to bed til 1am-2am on many nights and always rocked up to work the next day. I can’t do that anymore.
That's not what I mean, Ian. I think the club and the league would be happy to have the game on Thursday night for the bumper TV ratings, as opposed to a Saturday afternoon when ratings are much less.
We might have had 30,000 there on Saturday afternoon, which is still not a profitable return for the club. Much better to have the TV ratings, which are what sells to sponsors.
That’s a fair argument, but i hope the club doesn’t see it that way… that they’re willing to accept 10,000-15,000 less people to a game if it means more in sponsorship dollars. That is not the right attitude for a publically owned sports team... and it comes down to my long-held view that footy boards shouldn’t be solely run by lawyers, accountants and business people.
I don't think that affects the club funding model. Their AFL contributions aren't measured by their TV audiences, otherwise GCS and Saints have by far and away the biggest TV audiences. So I don't see why the club would be happy but the AFL might be as they get another game in a prime time TV time. Its why they love the 3.20 Sunday arvo games that most supporters hate.
We would have had closer to 40k if played at the weekend, when we played them at the G in 2017 it was a Sat 1.45 game in the middle of winter (mid July) and we got over 40k. Thats a huge difference for the club and a much bigger differential than you'd see from most other clubs. For example, if Geelong get an average attendance of about what 30-35k for their home games regardless of opposition , do you think they would really see that much of a drop (ie. 20k less?). I don't, especially with part of their stadium closed.
The TV audience wouldn't be much difference with whoever you have on a Thursday night as long as the game is good as there generally isn't much competing TV on a Thursday night so it makes sense for the competition to schedule other teams on a Thursday but they seem obsessed with Richmond playing Thursday night games.
It doesn't impact their funding directly from the AFL, for the club it's more about sponsorship. How many people are your logos going to be exposed to on uniforms and signs during a broadcast.
In the bigger picture though 80c in every dollar comes from the TV deal so that's a huge impact on funding. With the AFL trying to make a big deal with joints like Amazon and Paramount, they won't give a stuff about who is at the game and want to know when the game is on and how many eyes are on it so they can see how much advertising they can flog.
Yes I know that and its the same point I'm making.
If you can get the same TV audience for a Thursday night game at Geelong with say 17k fans compared to 20k at the G, but get 20k fans at the G compared to 10-15k GMHBA stadium on a weekend, why wouldn't you?
You would have an additional 5-10k paying fans (either paying for tickets or for food / beverage / merch / footy records, why would you not want that if you get the same TV audience either way? Overall, its increased revenue regardless.
