Monday Night Football - stay or go?

[Red Bear]

no .. only the juniors are on Sundays
the seniors can be either day ...& the day senior games are played in Canberra is usually depedant on when the Raiders play so as not to clash
but even this is changing .....
the Raiders next home game V the Titans 5.30pm Saturday April 2nd also coincides with the Start of the local senior comp , & 3 games are scheduled for this same day in town ...

That's how league works in Wolongong, no games clash with any Dragons game.

But also in Wollongong (and all over Sydney) is Soccer, which is 11, 1, 3pm kick off (youth reserve first grade) plus a shedload of amateur teams playing at 1/3pm, not to mention up to about under 14's soccer in on the saturday as well as most junior rugby league that is a huge proportion of people who might otherwise go to the footy playing their own sport. Saturday Arvo's just dont work in Sydney/Wollongong at least (there might be options in Canberra as said earlier, and im not sure how it all works in other states).

 

[AlwaysGreen]

It's a stayer. I hate it as a fan because it drags out the weekend but it rates and it puts an NRL game on the box 4 days out of seven. A set season draw will assist clubs in promoting monday night games.

 

[Red Bear]

Sure. I removed finals matches as an added bonus:

Friday: 18,942 (443 games)
Saturday: 13,576 (982 games)
Sunday: 14,373 (960 games)
Monday: 13,888 (140 games)

Given that the Monday game is the '3rd' best match of the weekend, it'd probably do better on the Sunday or Friday night than Monday.

Saturday seems to get the sh*tter games of the weekend.

 

[Russell Crowe's Band]

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

its not the same though is it?

MNF is prestigeous to american fans, and the teams that play in them.

MNF here = bad gate receipts, not on free to air, shortened week the next week.

its crap

 

[gUt]

It's pretty much got to stay, it's good for the financial health of the code. You can bet that sooner or later the AFL will have a Monday game too so it would be a doubly bad tactical move if the code were to bow once again to the pissing and moaning of the clubs.

One thing I agree with though is the bad look of all those empty seats. Got me thinking that if MNF continues to be such a winner, Fox and the NRL could either build or upgrade an existing small ground into a "studio" ground, maybe even indoors with an artificial surface. The clubs that are selected to play there would be paid in lieu of gate receipts but if it was purpose built the TV product could potentially be amazing.

Don't shoot me down, just an idea.

 

[Azkatro]

its not the same though is it?

MNF is prestigeous to american fans, and the teams that play in them.

MNF here = bad gate receipts, not on free to air, shortened week the next week.

its crap

It takes time to build credibility. Ever since Monday night gained the 3rd best game of the week status, people have slowly realised it is a game worth watching. It is only going to continue improving ratings-wise.

 

[no name]

Another reason Saturday arvos won't work is the races. Don't want to go up against the punt.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

its not the same though is it?

MNF is prestigeous to american fans, and the teams that play in them.

MNF here = bad gate receipts, not on free to air, shortened week the next week.

its crap

It's prestigious, to use your word, in the USA because it's so popular among viewers. It was a revolutionary idea to broadcast a game on Monday night and it was presented in a revolutionary way. The only thing lacking from ours is it's not on free to air, but even so it still rates better than any other Pay TV game. And there is no evidence the crowds are significantly lower. They might be a bit, but not as much as some people seem to be suggesting.

 

[Cletus]

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.

Richardson just wants compensation for it. Basically if Foxtel pay for it they'll get it, and you'd think that they'd want it with the figures they get for it. It would have to be the highest rating weekly show for them.

 

[johns_reds]

love Monday night footy, gives me something to watch! I hope they don't get rid of it, surely it is a major bargaining chip for the NRL when negotiating $$$

 

[Newcastlerabbit]

As Gallop said,if MNF is withdrawn,it would have an adverse effect on the new rights to cover games.

 

[GongPanther]

Richardson just wants to deflect attention away from his teams crappy start to the season.

Come on..you think he would give two sihts about Monday night football if Souths were on top of the table?

 

[Sleep]

I'm not much of a fan of it. More often than not it seems like a pretty ordinary game to me.

I don't know when they'd re-slot the game in though. Maybe Sunday night?

 

[Noa]

Can see why fans dont like it but Id prefer it to stay as long as we get more money and the team that play on Monday can only play Sunday the following round. A set in stone draw should help to achieve this

 

[Tonearm Terrorwrist]

The second friday game should be the first to go or Nein should give us the option to watch both games.

 

[Timmah]

Richo's whinging about MNF and his team don't have it til round six anyway! What a moron.

 

[BuffaloRules]

I think its here to stay...

I would like to see it on FTA though as opposed to Foxtel, and also the clubs getting compensation from the NRL ( how much though? 75K? more?)

I could see one of the free TV Networks having MNF as there only involvment in Rugby League..

Need to ensure though that the games get shared around evenly with no team having more than 3 home MNF games every 2 years...

Would also mean that the Warriors & ( when they are admitted) Perth need to have their turn as well...

 

[Jono1987]

It will all come down to Fox. And I do believe they will pay for what it's worth this time around. There are a few things they could do to make it a better product for those interested in attending;

1) Start the game at 7:30. I would hazard a guess and say people are more concerned with getting to the footy for the start of the game then having to get home 30 minutes later.
2) Slash ticket prices. Most expensive single seat should be no more than $15. Kids up until 16 get in for free and family tickets are $25.
3) Initially don't schedule games at the big stadiums. Start out at surburban grounds and if the concept is starting to draw increasing crowds move it to the larger stadiums.

 

[to_ddeath]

Sunday nights. 7.30 instead of 7.
Mondays are a pain in the arse, & half the time you forget the game is on until roughly about half time. Plus in Sydney the Triple M coverage is sh*t & filled with 5-minute blocks of ads at half time when all you want is the f**kin score.


T.

 

[ouwet]

1) Start the game at 7:30. I would hazard a guess and say people are more concerned with getting to the footy for the start of the game then having to get home 30 minutes later.

Agree with that! Bulldogs V Tigers game last week at around 6.55pm maybe had around 15K in the stadium! By around 7.15pm (After kick off) it almost doubled to just under 27K.