‘Big winner': AFL chief doubles down on Thursday football despite criticism
League chief executive Andrew Dillon on Tuesday defended the key slot but promised he would push for a wider spread of teams playing on Thursday nights next season.
Thursday night football was embraced for a full season for the first time this year. Declaring that move a success, Dillon said the timeslot had delivered an average TV audience of 1.06 million viewers – up one per cent on last year – and average attendance of 40,000 – four per cent lower than last year's 42,000.
'Thursday nights have averaged above the season average, so that's a tick. Thursday nights have rated extremely well, but what I think is important is that we have a spread of teams that play through those different slots, so absolutely we will take that on board,' Dillon said from the sidelines of the inaugural AFL industry summit at Marvel Stadium.
'We have evolved the fixture over the last couple of years with the floating fixture, which is not always as popular with all of our fans. But we think that is one important part.
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'Maybe this year is a bit of an outlier in terms of the teams that were selected earlier on, some big Victorian teams, who were in pretty solid form at the time the floating fixture was put in. That hasn't come to fruition.
'Again, the games are still rating pretty well, are still pretty well attended, but we will take on the feedback from fans, broadcasters and our clubs as we look to the 2026 fixture.'
The past two months in the heart of winter and the school year have been a hard sell for the timeslot, broadcasters Seven and Foxtel not helped by the disappointing campaigns of power clubs Carlton (six Thursday night games so far this season) and Essendon (five). The two clubs are also likely to meet on a Thursday night in round 24.
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