Channel 7 keen for more Thursday night footy as AFL ratings pip NRL in 2024
Thursday night AFL games are done until finals but the success of 2024 could see more midweek games in 2025. Especially given the AFL’s success over its biggest rival in the Thursday night slot.
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Channel 7 is salivating at the prospect of more Thursday night football next season, with the AFL to consider adding to its planned increase of midweek games.
Thursday night games during the home-and-away wrapped last week with Adelaide hosting Richmond and Channel 7 just pipped the NRL on Channel 9 in the free-to-air ratings contest.
Where 7 averaged just under 606,000 viewers for the 14 Thursday night AFL games, Channel 9 drew in 589,000 for NRL on the same nights
But women’s State of Origin rugby league matches blew both NRL and AFL out of the water, with Channel 9 boasting they were the top two most-watched Thursday games in either code.
Channel 9 then boasted to the Herald Sun that by including those two matches, its rugby coverage hit an average of 650,000 and topped Channel 7.
Channel 7 will gain at least one extra Thursday night game next season under its broadcast agreement with the AFL, with the league to decide whether to add more Thursday games.
The difficulty in scheduling Thursday matches is that it infringes on breaks between games for clubs, which can limit the quality of match ups.
Head of sport and managing director for Channel 7 in Melbourne, Lewis Martin said his network is all in on Thursday games and he said the network would work with the AFL to keep fans in mind in any negotiations.
“At Seven, we absolutely love Thursday night footy and the opening half of the 2024 season has proven that the fans do too,” Martin said.
“In every decision taken together with the AFL, the fans remain at the forefront of everything we do. The passion and loyalty shown by the fans in every corner of the country is what makes the game so great.”
Channel 7 returned to non-footy programming on Thursday night, with Home and Away shown in Melbourne at from 7-8pm, followed by Britain’s Got Talent, while the NRL continued over on Channel 9.
Sunday afternoon games will return to the network from this week.
It is expected a Thursday game will feature in the first week of finals, as it has since the introduction of the pre-finals by in 2016.
The highest rating Thursday game of the season on Channel 7 was round 1’s clash between Carlton and Richmond with a viewership of 713,000, while the top NRL game on Channel 9 clocked in at 721,000, when the Melbourne Storm hosted the Brisbane Broncos.
Free-to-air AFL ratings jumped drastically from an average of just over 404,000 for Thursday’s last year.
Crowd attendances slightly rose, from an average of 39,937 last year to 41,878 in 2024.
AFL fixturing boss Josh Bowler said last month the league was “very mindful” of the quality of games on Thursdays as it considered the 2025 draw.
“Contractually we are required to deliver 15 rounds of Thursday nights in succession and then we will make a determination on what is best for the fixture,” he said.
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Originally published as Channel 7 keen for more Thursday night footy as AFL ratings pip NRL in 2024
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