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AFL sticks with arvo Grand Final

AFL Commission has rejected calls for a twilight Grand Final this year.

The AFL has confirmed this year’s Grand Final will be sticking with an afternoon playoff, despite pressure to move it to a twilight staging.

CEO Gillon McLachlan confirmed the Commission had rejected a twilight Grand Final when speaking at Thursday night’s season launch at Melbourne Town Hall.

“The Toyota AFL Grand Final is the highpoint of the Australian sporting calendar. A magical day for the competing clubs, footy fans and our industry as a whole,” he said.

“While we will continue to explore the possibility of a later start time in the future, it was recommended and ratified today that the traditional 2:30pm start time will remain for the 2019 Toyota AFL Grand Final.

The bounce of the ball will be at 2:30pm on Saturday 28 September.

Source: AFL

6 Responses

  1. I used to very traditional and believed it should always be played Saturday afternoon until one September I was on holidays in Europe. My team was playing in the finals on a saturday afternoon back home, which was roughly 6am where I was. No pub was open at that time, so I couldn’t watch the game anywhere.

    I then realised the biggest game of the year (Grand Final) wouldn’t be seen by Europeans and we’d miss our chance to show off what a great game we have to that part of the world. Many shops are open all day Saturday too, so it must be hard for some of those workers to watch the game.

    While I understand the traditional view, moving the game to the evening could give it a broader audience, which has to be a good thing. The NRL grand final is Sunday evening as they know people are generally not working and able to sit down and watch the game. I think we should move the…

  2. They definitely need to change it to a night GF. Football looks its best when played at night and you dont have to deal with the afternoon sun.

  3. AFL need to rip off this band aid, make twilight gf and cop the criticism for a few months. Then everyone will get over themselves and move on.
    I remember the outrage when the Australian open women’s final was moved to night. The event is now thriving and the critics are silent.

  4. Pressure to move it to twilight? Not sure there was much pressure, just a whole lot of talk around footy circles and then nothing happening. The pressure was all about keeping it as it is, tradition and not changing what works etc.

  5. I would love to see a night time GF – 7.30pm. It would be amazing to see a half time show put on with the full lights and concert like style. Assuming 7 would prefer the numbers which a night game could bring

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