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Following their embarrassing 108-point loss to Hawthorn last Friday night, debate has emerged as to whether Essendon should continue to be placed in the AFL’s premium timeslot in the seasons to come.
Just 27,567 fans turned up to Etihad Stadium to watch the Bombers cop their heaviest defeat for the year, with the fear among the fans of a humiliating defeat and the Queen’s Birthday long weekend contributing to the disappointingly low turnout.
This was for a match-up between two teams that have some history against each other, such as the Line in the Sand match in 2004 and Matthew Lloyd’s crude bump on Brad Sewell in the final round of the 2009 season.
By contrast, the match between St Kilda and Carlton, the two most recent wooden spooners, attracted nearly 48,000 fans on the Sunday, to the point that fans were still lining up to get into the ground by the time that match had started.
Broadcaster Channel Seven also suffered as a result of the Bombers’ poor form this season, with just 652,000 tuning in nationwide with a peak audience of 931,000. In Melbourne alone, these figures were 306,000 and 374,000 respectively.
All four figures were down from the previous week when the top-of-the-table North Melbourne thrashed Richmond by 70 points in Hobart.
This has led to calls for Essendon to be stripped of its place on the Friday night stage for the 2017 season, and possibly beyond.
Western Bulldogs legend Brad Johnson, whose side had to contend with playing in the low-drawing Sunday timeslots when they were not performing, was among one to criticise the AFL for fixturing the Bombers in the league’s premium timeslot.
“Starting the round with Essendon at the moment is not the right way to go about it and I think the AFL will look at that closely,” he said on radio recently.
“For the next couple of years, I don’t think they will get a Friday night game.
“They had a chance there … they’ve got a young side, a developing side.
“They get some stars back next year no question, but I think from that performance, that’s just hurt them for Friday nights for a couple of years.
“You’ve got sides that are going a lot better than Essendon are at the moment that can’t get a Friday night game.
“They’ve got a big supporter base and all that sort of stuff, but at the end of the day, if you’re not performing, you don’t get Friday night footy.”
Already the Bombers had lost to Port Adelaide by 61 points at the Oval in their only other Friday night match in Round 3. That came six days after they extinguished any prospects of a winless season by upsetting Melbourne at the MCG.
But while they have no more matches in the timeslot this season, they will travel to Perth for what looms as a Thursday night fizzer against the West Coast Eagles in a fortnight’s time, while the Round 23 match against Carlton, which is still to be scheduled, is all but likely to be the free-to-air match on the Sunday.
This season was always going to be a challenging one for the Bombers and coach John Worsfold, who had 12 of his best players wiped out for the year as the fallout from the club’s 2012 supplements program continued.
Among those sidelined for the season include captain Jobe Watson, whose 2012 Brownlow Medal continues to hangs in the balance, as well as Brent Stanton, who would’ve played his 250th game against Melbourne in Round 2, reigning best-and-fairest Cale Hooker, and ruckman Tom Bellchambers.
In their absences, the team, led in the interim by Brendon Goddard, has suffered on the field as a result, with their loss to Hawthorn being their 10th in a row since they upset the Dees in Round 2.
It is their longest losing streak since 2006, when they lost a club-record fourteen in a row (they actually went fifteen matches without a win, if you include a draw against Carlton in Round 16), and it remains unknown when their next win will come.
But even when the Bombers get their banned players back for the 2017 season, whether they will be fixtured on Friday nights next year will remain to be seen.
In recent years the AFL has made Friday nights their own, making it very clear that clubs had to consistently perform and draw huge crowds in order for them to gain a place in the league’s premium timeslot.
Their point couldn’t be made any clearer this season, especially after Carlton suffered six humiliating Friday night defeats last year, including a record 138-point loss to Hawthorn at Etihad Stadium in Round 17.
As a result, the club was removed from the timeslot this season, with their place being taken by up-and-coming teams such as North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, who met in a Friday night blockbuster earlier this season in Round 6.
Melbourne is another club that has suffered from a lack of prime-time exposure in recent years, with the Dees having played just one match in the timeslot since 2012, and that was when they beat Richmond by 32 points in Round 4 last year.
But their resurgence and exciting brand of play under Paul Roos and soon-to-be coach Simon Goodwin could mean that they are overdue for a Friday night match in 2017.
Once they used the timeslot to make a statement against Essendon in 2011, defeating the Bombers by 33 points at the MCG seven nights after they were accused of playing ‘bruise-free football’ against Carlton at the same venue.
But the matter of the fact remains that it hasn’t won a Friday night home match since Round 6, 2006, when it defeated Geelong by six points (the aforementioned wins against Essendon and Richmond were both away games for the Demons).
The current AFL television rights that commenced in 2012 and expires at the end of this season, which allows matches to be televised live on 7mate in New South Wales and Queensland regardless of which teams were playing, has also allowed these teams to feature prominently.
Of these clubs, the Sydney Swans have featured the most times with fourteen Friday night matches (not including finals) since the start of 2012 (they still have one more match in the timeslot this year, against Geelong in Round 16), while the Brisbane Lions have featured twice, including once in New Zealand.
In addition, the Swans also played one Friday night match against Carlton in 2011; prior to that, their last match in the timeslot was in Round 5, 2003.
The reason given to the Swans’ absence from Friday nights during that time was due to the fact that it would have had to go up against the NRL, both for fans attending the games, and on television.
In particular, between 2002 and 2006, the Nine Network had the rights to both the AFL and NRL, which meant they had to televise one after the other on the Friday night (the NRL first in the northern states and the AFL first in the southern states).
But the club appears to be making the most of its exposure in the timeslot, drawing nearly 38,500 to its recent home match against North Melbourne, while a 2014 match against Essendon at the SCG attracted 36,804 fans, outdrawing the two NRL matches that were played in Sydney on the same night.
There is also the possibility that their intracity rivals, the GWS Giants, could also feature in the Friday night timeslot next season, or even as early as Round 23 this season, when they face North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium.
While the schedule for the final round is still to be released, on the basis of the current ladder it’s a sure bet that the North Melbourne versus GWS game could be given the Friday night timeslot, or at worst Saturday night.
The key to the scheduling for Round 23 will be the Essendon versus Carlton and St Kilda versus Brisbane Lions matches, which at this stage appear very likely to be played on the Sunday, with neither of these teams likely to finish in the eight.
If the Giants were to be scheduled to play their match against the Kangaroos, against whom they have an average losing margin of 74.8 points, on the Friday night, then it would give them the chance to showcase their exciting brand of football which has taken the AFL by storm this season.
It could also serve as a trial run as to whether Leon Cameron’s men, who copped plenty of heavy defeats in their infancy years, should feature regularly (or at least once) in the AFL’s premium timeslot for seasons 2017 and beyond.
Meanwhile, the Bombers will face another massive challenge in attempting to attract a huge crowd for their match against the Giants at Etihad Stadium this Sunday afternoon.
On the back of its recent low turnout for last Friday night’s match against Hawthorn at the same venue, a crowd of no higher than 20-25,000 is expected for the visit by the AFL’s youngest club, which despite its low drawing power in Victoria are starting to perform on the field, as illustrated by their 8-4 record for the season.
While the only previous meeting between the two clubs at Docklands in 2013 attracted 30,143 fans, it was the lowest home attendance for the Bombers that season, and it’s all but certain a lower figure will be recorded this Sunday.
In addition, the Giants’ second-most recent match at Etihad Stadium, in Round 23 last year against Melbourne, attracted just 8,974 fans – it was the lowest ever crowd for an AFL match at the venue since it opened in 2000 and the lowest attendance for any AFL match in Victoria since 2002.
It will now remain to be seen just how many turn up for the Sunday twilight fixture, whether the Bombers fans will continue to stick by their club as they face the prospect of a first wooden spoon since 1933, and whether they will continue to be seen on Friday nights next season and beyond.
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