Monday Night Football - stay or go?

[Timmah]

Richo has come out and hammered the concept, saying it's destroying crowds. FOXTEL won't want to give it up. This will be interesting.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...et-for-scrapheap/story-e6frexnr-1226025069285

NRL clubs will not tolerate Monday night football when the next TV rights deal comes into place in 2013.

The NRL is considering scrapping Monday night matches after a torrent of complaints from club bosses.

In a massive win for clubs - who are sick of low gate receipts on the school night - the NRL is looking into switching the Monday night game to a Sunday twilight match.South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson said the only way Monday night football will exist after the TV rights deal expires at the end of 2012 is if the NRL pays clubs "massive compensation".

"I don't care where they move it to on the weekend, as long as it's not Monday," Richardson said.

"Fans hate it. Clubs hate it across the board. Sponsors hate it. It is a financial disaster for us. Clubs are incredibly dissatisfied. We're all fed-up on Monday night.

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"It's a disgrace that Fox Sports gets the third pick of the matches anyway and puts an absolute blockbuster like last week on a Monday night."

Richardson said Monday night matches regularly lose 10,000 fans who would have attended on a weekend.

The NRL may pay for the fixture relocation in the hip pocket because Fox Sports prefers the existing arrangement.Game-day broadcasts of NRL matches made up 39 of the top 50 programs on Australian subscription TV last year - most of them Monday night matches.

NRL boss David Gallop said the next TV rights deal would take a hit if Monday night matches were scrapped.

But he confirmed it is a very real option.

The Sunday twilight timeslot is already a proven winner for the AFL and Fox Sports.

The only other timeslot being considered is early Sunday afternoon, which is unattractive for bidding networks.

Gallop expects the league's next broadcast deal to be extremely lucrative, whether or not Monday night football is killed off.

"It's certainly a very attractive TV product," Gallop said of Monday night matches.

"Next time we do a deal we need to value Monday night footy and say 'is it worth it'?

"We're doing some work at the moment to assess the value of that and weighing that up with the impact that it has on home crowds.

"There's no doubt Monday night has worked really well on television, so it's clearly going to have a bearing on our rights fee."

Gallop said he understood the frustration of clubs over low Monday night crowds.

The NRL gives clubs $40,000 for every Monday night home game.

 

[BunniesMan]

Monday is a ridiculous spot for so many reasons. Moving it to Saturday afternoon would be ideal. It will come down to weighing up how much money it would cost us to get rid of the Monday night game and then deciding if the benefits are worth it.

 

[Johns Magic]

It's not great in terms of crowds and stuff, but from a selfish fan perspective, at least it gives me something to look forward to on Monday nights.

 

[DC_fan]

Monday is a ridiculous spot for so many reasons. Moving it to Saturday afternoon would be ideal. It will come down to weighing up how much money it would cost us to get rid of the Monday night game and then deciding if the benefits are worth it.

Saturday afternoon football is dead and buried. It was put to death a long time ago. Should be marked never to be resurrected.

 

[Packy]

I love it... As logn as my team isn't playing.

 

[BunniesMan]

Saturday afternoon football is dead and buried. It was put to death a long time ago. Should be marked never to be resurrected.

Well that's stupid. And if not Saturday there is a sunday timeslot as well but Saturday arvo would be better.

At the next negotiations we should just go to them and see how much money we got for Monday, Saturday arvo and another Sunday game. Compare and then make a decision. If it's not a huge amount of money we definetley should go to a Friday-Sunday round.

 

[Bulldog Force]

Monday is a ridiculous spot for so many reasons. Moving it to Saturday afternoon would be ideal. It will come down to weighing up how much money it would cost us to get rid of the Monday night game and then deciding if the benefits are worth it.

Saturday afternoon footy wasn't much better. Stacks in the target market work Saturday so that's another financial loss. I personally liked it at the time, but I understand why it was canned. Just move the game to Sunday afternoon. 3 Sunday afternoon games has been done before, and that will also be happening this coming Sunday. do it again. FFS why can't we have another one? Why does it have to be Sunday twilight or early Sunday afternoon???

 

[taxidriver]

keep it but only of the tv deal makes it worthwhile.

if they try and screw us with the deal, ditch it

 

[carcharias]

ask me tomorrow.

 

[Godz Illa]

I love it. MNF is way underrated. In my opinion, it's the best tv game of the round for a number of reasons

- it is the only game of the day, unlike Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So it has the complete attention of the RL community.
- there is virtually zero 'social' alternatives on a Monday night. Friday night and Saturday night games have competition from restaurants, bars, movies, weddings, bar mitzvahs whatever. On Monday it's just my Kitchen Rules or porn.
- the coverage by Fox is obscenely extensive. An hour pre-game, halftime panel, post-game panel, press conference etc etc. It's a feast. Again - not what you'd see with any other games of the weekend

Obviously the lower crowds are the major cost of MNF, but the NRL just needs to kick back a few extra dollars compensation to the home side and that should shut the CEO's up.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

What's the guess for tonight's crowd, Monday night, pissing down rain.... 5k?

If it's monetarily worth the hit for the clubs, not just the NRL, then it should stay. If not, f**k it off.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

What's the guess for tonight's crowd, Monday night, pissing down rain.... 5k?

If it's monetarily worth the hit for the clubs, not just the NRL, then it should stay. If not, f**k it off.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

The only reason MNF ever came along is because the NRL try to copy the NFL in everything

 

[Red Bear]

MNF is rubbish cant stand it.

Would rather we got another 2pm Sunday Afternoon game, best time slot to watch footy in the winter.

Saturday afternoon doesnt work because many people are working and many people, both juniors and seniors, are playing various sports at that time.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

I like having a game to watch on Monday nights and it's actually perceivably the only game I could go to if I wanted to make the effort.

Also, Fox loves it. It's one of the reasons RL is so dominant on Pay TV. I don't get the clubs. They want to get the biggest TV deal they can to raise their grant but they whinge about stuff like this which boosts the deal.

And it's not as if crowds are signifcantly down in most cases. Firstly, it's impossible to know how many fans are missing out and even by comparing regular crowds with Monday night games I doubt the figures for most clubs are that bad. In fact offering more, different time slots actually might allow more, different people to attend games or watch on TV. We all have different timetables and obligations.

When we have 18 or more clubs it's going to be difficult to fit all games into the available timeslots without doubling up even more. Even if fans have a choice, like on Saturday nights, it dillutes the potential TV audeinces to have multiple live games on at the same time. The only other potential slot at the moment is Saturday afternoons or Sunday nights, neither of which are desirable for verious reasons, so there aren't many other options for when we have 9 or more games per week if we cut Monday nights.

 

[Jobdog]

I've been an outspoken critic of Monday Night Football and this won't change. It's a ridiculous time to have it. Sunday night would be ideal.

 

[Timmah]

Haynetrain, f**k off.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

Haynetrain, f**k off.

Did you enjoy the extra try opportunity in the Allstars game last season? i wonder where the NRL got that idea from,cough cough 2 point conversion NFL cough cough:lol:

 

[cleary89]

I love it. MNF is way underrated. In my opinion, it's the best tv game of the round for a number of reasons

- it is the only game of the day, unlike Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So it has the complete attention of the RL community.
- there is virtually zero 'social' alternatives on a Monday night. Friday night and Saturday night games have competition from restaurants, bars, movies, weddings, bar mitzvahs whatever. On Monday it's just my Kitchen Rules or porn.
- the coverage by Fox is obscenely extensive. An hour pre-game, halftime panel, post-game panel, press conference etc etc. It's a feast. Again - not what you'd see with any other games of the weekend

Obviously the lower crowds are the major cost of MNF, but the NRL just needs to kick back a few extra dollars compensation to the home side and that should shut the CEO's up.

This...

Everyone looks forward to Monday night games, because there is nothing else on. f**k, I even enjoy watching Manly and Melbourne play on a Monday night.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

And what a terrible idea it is to copy the biggest, most successful sporting competition in the world.