With regular Thursday night football confirmed, hopefully this all but surely spells the end of Monday night football on Fox. It's going to really suck for the fans to have 5-day rounds, with two of those matches occurring at night during the working week. Crowds are and were always going to be difficult to attract at 7pm on the first weekday of the week (given some of the venues are away from the CBD), and the compensation the NRL offers home teams is nothing compared to the amount they lose in potential revenue had the match been on Friday/Saturday/Sunday.
Thursday night is much preferable to Monday night, providing the game doesn't kickoff after 8pm (like it did during the first few rounds of 2013). 7:45pm kickoff at the latest (leading into The Footy Show at approx. 9:30pm). Whether or not Thursday night becomes the marquee match of the round in place of Friday night remains to be seen, but hopefully with the NRL wrestling power of scheduling back into their hands (like the AFL does) means less Friday nights where the Broncos feature.
A big bonus having FTA on Saturday night, breaking Fox's Super Saturday monopoly. About time, the NRL has given the AFL a free kick in that timeslot for so many years. As Beau Ryan would say in Bunji's voice, "Sucked in, Fux Spurts!"
Regarding what happens to Fox' Monday night timeslot, most likely it will be shifted to Sunday evening (in which case, it would be preferable if kickoff was approx. 6pm, finishing at approx. 7:50pm) in preparation for the possibility of a Perth NRL side being admitted to the comp sometime down the track. Anything later than that on a Sunday will be tough on the fans.
