By Leaping Larry
Bam! Out of a clear sky, there it was – the yammering clamour for a twilight grand final.
The purported arguments to back this viewpoint were arguably more diverting than anything that's been staged as entertainment on grand final day.
Illustration: Matt Golding
One knit-browed concern was that the daytime grand final won't remain the top-rating match of the year.
This is a thing now?
The grand final has one job – to sort out the champion team of the season. TV ratings are for TV folk to fret over.
However, without further tampering, it does clear an average viewership of over 10 per cent of the national population throughout a long day's play. It goes along OK.
The presumption that the AFL's big game can be a Super Bowl-like "national obsession" ignores the good fortune of our US cousin in not having to deal with rival codes.
For putative half-time entertainment, installing Katy Perry (or equivalent) upon a giant robot marionette tiger (or similar) here – as actually occurred at Super Bowl XLIX – won't be the magic pill that, in itself, makes rugby folk loiter around their home screens for three hours of unmitigated Australian rules football.
Like the significant proportion of hardened sport-avoiders among Australian viewers, they might tune in for 15 minutes at half-time. But spiking a figure for that quarter-hour would be barely a pimple on average viewing figures over three hours of match broadcast time.
Also, to achieve Super Bowl-level entertainment, the "spend" is around the gross national product of Australia for a quarter-century, except they do it every year.
We've all seen the show the AFL puts on. They've got a club-lock on their purse that even Superman's heat vision couldn't cut through.
Is TV going to pony up the remainder?
Is TV going to also throw – just to name a fun figure – say $100 million a year to the AFL for a timeslot shift to one game?
Regardless, we probably need a little more in the way of persuasive argument than, "It'll sure look mighty purty in the dark."