Crows and Port Adelaide get six Friday Night Football assignments, but not together with Showdowns
PORT Adelaide and the Crows will have major exposure on the AFL’s national stage with six Friday Night Football games - but not together in a Showdown - next year.
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SHOWDOWNS still cannot make it to the AFL’s premier Friday night national stage, but derby rivals Port Adelaide and the Crows are not being ignored in the league’s most-popular timeslot.
Despite two cracking derbies last year - and Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight leading the appeal for a Friday Night Football Showdown - the 46th and 47th Crows-Power derbies are to be Saturday events next season.
Port Adelaide will host Showdown 46 in the Power fans’ most popular timeslot - Saturday night - in Round 8, May 11.
Adelaide has home rights to the return bout - in Round 16, July 6.
The disappointment at Alberton and West Lakes at missing out on the big commercial exposure from national free-to-air television coverage from Channel Seven is tempered with the Crows and Power each scoring three Friday Night Football (FNF) appointments next season.
Port Adelaide has three in a row, rolling from coast to coast from Perth to Melbourne in April and May. The sequence starts with the historic first Good Friday double-header on April 19 in Perth. The Power then has the “FNF” game in the Anzac Round and finishes the triple-run with an away clash with Collingwood in Melbourne.
Crows chief executive Andrew Fagan and Port Adelaide executive general manager Matthew Richardson recognise Channel Seven’s wish for at least one Victorian-based club to appear on FNF - to deliver big ratings in the game’s biggest television market, Melbourne - holds again.
“It is incredibly rare for two non-Victorian clubs to be on Friday night,” Fagan said. “But that doesn’t mean we stop asking ... we would love to see the Showdown in a prime-time slot.
“We might be swimming upstream, but we - and it would be the same with Port Adelaide - won’t stop asking.”
Adelaide has three FNF games next season - Sydney at the SCG in Round 2 on Friday, March 29; Geelong at Kardinia Park in Round 15 on June 28 and Essendon at Adelaide Oval in Round 18 on July 19.
Richardson does not consider a Saturday night Showdown a “second prize” for Port Adelaide - or the derby.
“National free-to-air television coverage for the Showdown would be great for our club commercially,” Richardson said. “But giving the members and fans what they is important.
“Our members’ No. 1 timeslot is Saturday night, so we are delighted to have a home Showdown then. It is the timeslot that repeatedly delivers more than 50,000 fans to the Showdown.”
The 2019 AFL fixture - released on a 24-hour delay after some of the 18 national league clubs sought last-minute changes - does have significant notes for both SA-based AFL clubs.
The critical football note is the “double-up” games - the five “extra” matches each team plays to lift its home-and-away quota to 22 games.
Adelaide, which ranked 12th this season, faces just two of this year’s top-eight clubs - AFL premiers West Coast and eighth-ranked Geelong. From the bottom-10 also-rans, the Crows get Port Adelaide, Gold Coast and St Kilda.
AFL statisticians Champion Data rate Adelaide’s fixture as the 17th (from 18) for degree of difficulty - in effect, the second-easiest draw. Port Adelaide is at 10th. The Power’s double-up games involve just one of this year’s finalists, Richmond. The other games are against 2018 also-rans Adelaide, North Melbourne, Fremantle and Brisbane.