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The NRL has a crisis on their hands, and that is crowd numbers. Even though the NRL are claiming that the crowd numbers so far for 2014 are actually up on those of 2013, it isn’t fooling too many people.
To get to that conclusion those behind the NRL headquarters desks have had to use a bit of creative counting.
Even the crowd numbers they have managed to come up with for the 2014 season to date are still down on numbers from what the sport of AFL gets in its Melbourne heartland.
Now this of course is understandable as a number of NRL games are played in suburban grounds that can normally house between 20,000 and 25,000 at the most, whereas most AFL games are played in big stadiums such as the MCG.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for suburban grounds and their longevity in the game and really giving teams a chance to call a ground home. But these grounds should be nearly filled out every time a game is played, especially when the game has two Sydney teams in it.
So what is stopping these grounds from being filled out week-in week-out? Game times.
Some of the game times are absolutely ridiculous. No fan wants to sit in the freezing cold and watch the footy when they could be sitting at home on the couch in the nice warmth and watch a movie afterwards.
They don’t want to be battling the crowds and the traffic to get home after the game finishes as late as 9:30pm. It isn’t fun sitting in the freezing cold at those times, particularly when your team isn’t going so well.
So, I propose a complete overhaul of the current schedule for each weekend. The NRL has to do something to bring the fans flocking back to the footy and getting close to sell-outs for the majority of games.
Firstly, cut the amount of games on Friday to one and get rid of Monday matches. Monday nights regularly have the lowest crowd attendance out of all the time slots and Friday is still a work and school day.
That leaves seven games for the space of Saturday and Sunday. I think a good idea could be to bring back the “game of the round” at the SCG on a Sunday afternoon, kicking off at 3pm.
The game would have to feature two teams that are based in Sydney, but it could be a real winner. With seven games to play in the two-day space I would have four games on a Sunday, with another starting at 3pm, keep the current 2pm time slot and have the first game of the day starting at 12pm.
That leaves three timeslots on a Saturday. Keep the 5:30 time slot, have a game kicking off at 3pm and have the other timeslot as a midday kick off.
By playing the games with these timeslots it allows the best chance of getting reasonable weather and not finishing too late. By doing this the games will appeal to the fans more.
Here is my proposal for new game times.
Game 1 – Friday night 7:30pm
Game 2 – Saturday afternoon 12:00pm
Game 3 – Saturday afternoon 3:00pm
Game 4 – Saturday evening 5:30pm
Game 5 – Sunday afternoon 12:00pm
Game 6 – Sunday afternoon 2:00pm
Game 7 – Sunday afternoon 3:00pm
Game 8 – Sunday afternoon 3:00pm (Game of the Round at the SCG)
Surely the NRL has to take on board something like this to get more sell-outs and better revenue for the game. What do you think Roarers, what would you like to see happen in the NRL in reference to game times?