The AFL grand final is in danger of losing its coveted place as Australia's highest rating game of the year unless it moves into a new twilight time slot, according to Eddie McGuire.
The Collingwood president's warning came as club and broadcast bosses threw their overwhelming support behind a later start to football's biggest occasion.
And the AFL's grand final broadcaster, the Seven Network, has not only reinforced its push for a twilight or night play-off as part of the next media agreement, but also called for an extended half-time break to maximise a new focus on the mid-game entertainment.
With broadcast rights negotiations soon to resume, AFL chief Gillon McLachlan will return to work on Monday following his US trip strongly considering a twilight grand final that would prove a lucrative new part of the next TV deal, something the AFL has previously resisted against the trend in other sports and football codes.
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Channel Seven chief Tim Worner told Fairfax Media: "We shouldn't focus the thinking on the bounce time in isolation. Making sure we take into account player welfare, we should definitely be looking at every possible way we can to extend half-time.
"There is so much more we can do in that part of the telecast. And I don't mean Meatloaf. When we've suggested a slightly longer half-time break, it was like we were going to invite the collapse of modern society."
Describing new boss McLachlan as "a progressive thinker who is prepared to challenge convention", Worner said of mooted changes to the AFL grand final: "Let's hope the greatest game gets the sort of build-up and presentation it deserves on its most important day.
"There is no way you are not going to get a much better result. Not just a great deal, more tension and a much bigger audience, but a far better looking spectacle minus the shadows and the seagulls."
McLachlan returns from the US this weekend following a series of post Super Bowl meetings with American sporting chiefs. While the AFL CEO has in the past declared himself a traditionalist who preferred a day grand final, McLachlan has never ruled out a shift to a later start time, unlike his predecessor Andrew Demetriou.
McLachlan became more convinced after last week's audience and ratings spectacular that compelling half-time entertainment could only be achieved in darkness. While mindful the AFL does not become carried away by a once-in-a-lifetime Super Bowl event, Fairfax Media understands the AFL boss is now strongly considering a later start time.
The current AFL broadcast agreement with Seven dictates a traditional grand final start time for 2015 and 2016. However, the league has already shifted this year's final game to October to make way for World Cup cricket commitments and the grand final start time could be changed should both parties agree.
McGuire said he had been pushing for the change at club presidents' meetings for the past five years.
"From a TV point of view the AFL grand final is in grave danger of not being the highest rating game of the year," he said. "All the big soccer games are played at night, the final of The Voice could outrate us eventually because we don't play in prime time.
"We have to hold on to that and we have to jealously guard that and protect it. And while we're on the entertainment, it's all very well to laugh about it and make Meatloaf jokes but really it's embarrassing. If you're going to put on entertainment during the day you might as well march a pipe band up and down a couple of times and get them off.
"If we are putting millions and millions of dollars into New South Wales and Queensland - and I'm not just talking about academies - it doesn't make sense that we are not showing our proudest day into the two biggest states in prime time.
"These days I watch the NRL grand final because it's played at a time I'm sitting down. Why not make it the best possible spectacle it can be? Economically, for the fans, for families, for the players and as a spectacle it just offers far bigger opportunities. Let's think about fireworks, not confetti."
Various AFL club bosses and officials watching New England overcome Seattle in last week's thrilling NFL Super Bowl included chief executives Greg Swann (Brisbane) and David Matthews (Greater Western Sydney) along with a number of key recruiters including the Gold Coast's Scott Clayton and Collingwood's Matt Rendell. The viewpoint from Rendell was that players would have no issue with a later start.
"When you look at the NFL, it's a national obsession on Super Bowl Sunday," said Matthews. "We're not there yet but putting on your biggest event at a time when significantly more people can watch it would change that.
"For a town like Sydney it's just so exciting when you think what it would do for the audience. And I look at it from the point of view of what is the best start time all year round and we believe it's twilight."
Added Swann: "We've been talking for months about reconnecting the game with supporters and putting on an absolutely great show, and I would have thought this is just another part of that."
Seven boss Worner pointed to the success of the 2012 Hawthorn Adelaide preliminary final at the MCG. "We had a crack at it and it worked an absolute treat.
"We have always held the view the grand final should be played later in the day and not for any financial reasons, either. It is much more about the way the whole day can be organised in terms of the build-up and the aesthetics of the match itself.
"I get that the two sports are completely different in terms of their level of sustained intensity but when you see the Super Bowl you cannot help but wonder just what it could be."
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-to-consider-twilight-grand-final-20150207-138lji.html
