Weekly Times | “KEEP Good Friday AFL-free.”
That is the message to the AFL from the Murray Football League, which fears the impact should the sport’s major code introduce another blockbuster across the Easter weekend.
The AFL kicked off this season the night before Good Friday and has so far avoided a Good Friday fixture.
The Murray league played its entire Round 1 on Good Friday. Five of six Round 1 matches last year were on Good Friday, up from four in 2014 (which was Round 2) and 2013.
League general manager Dale Norman said it felt if the AFL introduced a Good Friday game it would “have huge ramifications on community club revenue streams”.
“The Murray Football League has become synonymous with Good Friday football and netball,” Norman said.
“This is the one day where AFL does not saturate the market and we hope it stays that way.”
The league plans to make a submission to the AFL begging it to avoid scheduling football on Good Friday.
Norman said he believed the crowds would drop if there was another option available.
The league will present figures in its submission to show how much the Good Friday matches were worth to the clubs. Norman said one club reported turning over about $50,000 on Good Friday this year through food, drink and gate takings, equivalent to four or five regular home-and-away games.
Norman described that turnover as “very significant” to clubs’ overall finances.
“You take that away from the club, they have to find other revenue streams to raise that revenue to consolidate for the year,” Norman said.
“The pressure placed on all community clubs to survive is enormous so one little impact on a club’s revenue could have huge ramifications, not only on the club but on players, on the leagues, on the community.”
Norman expected to make the submission by next week.
The Murray league was the only competition this year to play an entire round on Good Friday but other leagues have done the same in previous years.
Other competitions and clubs spread games across the weekend, and others this year brought games forward from later rounds.
Ovens and Murray league general manager Aaron McGlynn said he would also prefer Good Friday remained free of an AFL game.
He said his competition used Easter matches to capitalise on an influx of tourists into the area.
McGlynn said the league restricted Good Friday matches to evening games “out of respect for the day” and only two venues are deemed suitable to host.
This year there were two Good Friday night matches, including a grand final rematch between Lavington and Albury, but last year there was one match and in 2014 there were none.
McGlynn said the AFL scheduling matches on Good Friday “certainly would have an impact to some degree” and it would be influenced by which AFL sides were fixtured to play.
“It would be something we would have to consider, whether we continue with it because it would I think have an impact, but to what degree,” he said.
“We would continue to trial it for the time being anyway, but you’d have to monitor what effect it did have.”
In the Warrnambool & District Football league Old Collegians has played Merrivale on Good Friday since 2011.
Old Collegians director of football Mark Toleman said the club’s takings overall were about $20,000 this year, where a normal game would be $7000-8000 depending on its opponent.
“I imagine (an AFL Good Friday match) would significantly damage the gate takings for us and our overall takings,” Toleman said.
But not everyone believed an AFL game on Good Friday would hit local football.
Woodside and District has played Yarram the past three Good Fridays since Yarram joined the North Gippsland league in 2014.
Woodside president Ivan Best said the club took about $7000 on the gate this year, including members.
Best said the “injection of cash at the start of the year certainly helps the year flow from then on”.
However, he did not think a clash with an AFL game would have an impact.
“A lot of people come to the area just for that Easter break ... I don’t think that would draw a lot of people away from our area to go watch an AFL game,” he said
“It’s a different atmosphere to being there instead of watching it on the telly ... and the clash between Yarram and ourselves, people want to get along and see how we shape up.
“The gates have been really good, better than your average gate through the year.”
AFL spokesman Patrick Keane said the AFL Commission had granted permission for the league to schedule a Good Friday match but it was not known yet if one would be scheduled next year.
“At this point we’ve chosen not to as we don’t believe it works well when Easter has been aligned with Round 1,” Keane said.
“A decision for 2017 hasn’t been made yet, but we are conscious of a range of views, including that of community football, as well as religious views, charity views and the general football public, all of whom either want us to play or don’t want to play.”
“Ultimately we would expect a decision late this year.”