The AFL announced this morning of an Opening Round of just four matches, two of each to be played in Sydney and SE Queensland, on March 7-9 next year. That will be followed the next week by Round 1 featuring all 18 clubs, including the traditional Carlton-Richmond Thursday night clash at the MCG. The eight teams’ extra game on the rest of the competition will be smoothed out with byes at some point after Round 2, but before Round 6, meaning all teams will have played six games heading into Round 7.
The full 2024 fixture will be announced tomorrow (Thursday).
Even assuming 3 out of 4 (sorry @VictorianSun) opening round games are on 7, plus 2 extra Thursday night games. There will be quite a few empty Saturdays (in Victoria) on 7 this season in a precursor to 2025.
Channel 7 and the AFL have come to an agreement for Friday night matches to begin 10 minutes earlier at 7.40pm from next season. However, the trade-off is Thursday night matches starting 10 minutes later at 7.30pm.
Can’t see them moving that lucrative 30min main channel BH&G though, so negatively that means only 10min of Pre Game now, a number of minutes is made up by the great “Player Focus” V/O pre-record segment, leaving what, ~6min free. Otherwise, it’s a positive, same with Thursday.
Wonder if shares will be impacted/earlier finishes (especially if not many stoppages), games often go until 10:30pm and with that late time and run time generates share vs next to nothing on rivals, as well as utilising prime time in zones far behind (such as Perth).
