yankeeboy said:
I would expect them to take away one of the Saturday 7:30 games for the bye, not the Monday night game.
Which game do they take away now when there is the triple bye?
And giving away free tix doesn't help...teams need to know if Perth is profitable, not if people will go to see free footy.
And I don't see why families wouldn't take their kids to the footy on Monday night...we do it in the states all the time.
No saturday games will be taken away because it's part of the Super Saturday juggernaut on FoxSports 1. If not MNF, it'll be Sunday as it has been the last few years.
The triple bye is usually around origin time. IIRC, the most recent one was before Origin 2 in round 14, Panthers, Dogs, & Roosters. They could easily have a split round where no football is being played before Origin.
The NFL has had MNF since 1969 but it's always been reserved for the best teams that will attract the most fans. The NRL's scheduling have always been dictated by Channel 9 who gets to pick the games they show on Friday nights and Sunday afternoon.
I don't know how the NFL scheduling works, but 9 picks teams that they think will draw the best ratings five weeks in advance, so for example, in 2004, we got the Broncos, Roosters, Panthers, and Eels every other week on Friday, the Cowboys only had their first ever game on channel 9 since 1995 and the Raiders, despite having performed strongly in the competition, had less than a handful of games on free-to-air.