Hey docbrown,
I've been wanting to ask you for abit, you've previously detailed the potential benefits of a second Brisbane / another QLD team for tv rights. In particular, being able to show QLD teams twice on FTA every weekend. But if this were the case, then why wouldn’t channel 9 scramble to select a QLD team for the the Sunday afternoon TV game at every opportunity? Instead RND 7 was the first time a QLD team made an appearance on channel 9 Sunday, and even then, the ratings in Brisbane were not that exceptional, 158,000, which was not as good as several other Sundays this year with 2 non-QLD teams yet more people in Brisbane watched those games in most cases. This weeks game was 168,000 in Brisbane.
And in these weeks QLD teams played on Saturday nights, sometimes 2X, which are the leftover games after 9 and fox have got at it for FTA & the Monday games respectively. (I believe fox puts its #1 pick game on Mondays?)
Wouldn’t channel 9 be making the most commercial decisions possible every round?
There's really three parts to this answer.
1. 9 always tries to have a Friday Queensland game so they can boost the audiences into both states. This uses up one of their picks automatically. Then they either pick the other game for Friday or Sunday, usually Friday and usually a Sydney orientated game.
Then when Foxtel take their turns, they too are also conscious of maintaining their Queensland base (especially through their Austar association) so they tend to take the next Queensland game in their next set of picks. By the time 9 get their next allotment there's usually one Queensland game left and it's the worst out of the 3 so they tend to schedule a game (usually NSW based simply because of the number of teams) with teams that they think will be higher on the table in 5 weeks time. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong.
2. The Round 7 game you were referring to - Parra vs Gold Coast - was hardly anything to write home about (an example of getting it wrong...).
Queensland teams rarely feature on a Sunday for the reason I gave above, but even if you discount the Broncos games, North Qld & Titans on the rare occassions they've played have been able to pull 200,000+ in Brisbane on a Sunday as recently as 2009. A 4th Queensland team actually based within the metro area could be expected to do likewise.
3. Having a Queensland team every Friday & every Sunday under the current platform of
3 games would have an effect on Sunday Sydney audiences and it's actually not what I'm suggesting at all. At the moment they're getting better numbers out of the NSW game then they are if they had the lowest ranking Queensland team every Sunday.
What my suggestion specifically revolves around is follow-through audiences - just like Friday nights. By having
4 games a week - with two live games back to back on a Sunday - you get 4 sets of club fans plus general league fans watching both games - far more than what Sunday football currently rates - but across 2 games.
With a 4th Queensland team, you can then fairly distribute the F2A match allotments such that 2 Queensland teams can feature every week - one on a Friday & one on a Sunday. They don't have to be home games, they just need to feature.
And by doing this you can boost the Brisbane metro numbers from the current average of 150-160k to over 200k - but not just for one game but over both. No other bid could propose to achieve that kind of effect in a metro catchement, not to also forget the increase in Queensland regionals as well.
It's also why having 2 Sunday back to back games will boost audiences more than having a Monday or Saturday night stand alone game as the 4th F2A match.
