AFL slammed over baffling Thursday night footy call: 'Doesn't make sense'
Garry Lyon says it makes no sense to have a series of popular Thursday night games, only to drop the fixture in the middle of the season.
AFL great Garry Lyon says he doesn't understand why the league has scrapped Thursday night football for the next seven weeks, only for it to return in the weeks leading up to the finals. The first five rounds of the season saw matches played on Thursday night, with Lyon believing fans would be disappointed by its absence after several highly-rated matches.
The season-opener between Richmond and Carlton was played on a Thursday night and drew a record crowd of 88,084, while the other fixtures have also produced some stunning results. Though Lyon predicted Thursday night games would become a more permanent fixture under the AFL's new broadcast deal, he said it was time for the league to 'give the people what they want' now.
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“There’s a rhythm that’s come to this footy season … we just get into the rhythm – we get used to the Thursday night. Now it stops really abruptly," he said on AFL 360. Lyon also criticised the inconsistent start times of games, which are due to start at 7:40 but have frequently been late.
“The AFL’s got a habit of – they do a lot right – but the continuity, game time starts … it doesn’t make any sense does it? We’re going to start with six Thursday nights, give it a spell for seven and then come back again.
“(Start times) That’s a raffle as well! Just turn up sometime after six and you’ll be a chance!”
Lyon's co-host Gerard Whateley was in agreement. He said it was 'confounding' why the AFL wouldn't persist with Thursday night games throughout the season.
Whateley also argued that playing one extra game prior to the weekend gave the remaining matches a little more room to breathe. Multiple matches are played simultaneously on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, with Whateley believing the Thursday night game would benefit a majority of fans - particularly die-hards.
“The infernal climbing over each other of games which annoys the hell out of me on Sundays and it becomes a real logjam for games on Saturday as well,” he said. “Give the people what they want! Football.
“We should rectify it in the back end for this year because there’s a whole set of rounds that haven’t been pinned – and they do say they start Friday nights. Once we go back to Thursday nights (in Round 13), we should just stay there.”
AFL expecting to add more Thursday games in future
Fans should expect more Thursday night matches in seasons to come, with AFL fixtures boss Travis Auld hinting at their lucrative potential for the league. “When you now look at the crowds and the ratings, it’s too compelling to only have 10, 11, 12 of them,” he said.
Whateley said the AFL needed to be 'agile' and consider moving some Sunday games to the Thursday night slot. “Seven straight weeks without Thursday night after having a terrific run with it at the start of the year,” he said.
“It’s a great sporting night. It gives you that taste of the weekend a fraction early. We’ve had thumping good crowds at most of the fixtures we’ve had.
“It feels like a million people every week tune in. Why would we leave this property vacant?”
The next Thursday night fixture won't be until round 13, when the Sydney Swans host St Kilda at the SCG.
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