Thursday night football could spark a massive fight for TV rights.
In particular the AFL bosses will be keen to see some big figures as the Thursday night slot is set to be its jewel in the crown for the next TV rights deals which starts in 2017.
The grand plan is to have a second free-to-air network — Channel 9 or 10 — get involved with the Thursday night slot the perfect carrot and the vehicle to split up the rights.
With Monday night football sent to its death bed, Thursday will get plenty more opportunities next year — this is the fifth Thursday night game this season with one more to come on July 31 Fremantle v Carlton.
The bonus for Channel 9 is that Thursday night AFL doesn’t interfere with its rugby league commitments while Channel 10 is the wildcard given they’ve shown they want to get hold of more sport on the back of the success of the Big Bash.
They just missed on snaring the NRL and the worry for the AFL is they may turn their attention to the A-League whose rights are up from 2016.
Imagine if Channel 10 took over soccer and had it on free-to-air, prime time on Friday night’s up against the AFL.
That’s a scenario that the AFL doesn’t want to encounter which is why the negotiations, which will likely start at the end of the year, will be intriguing.
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