The AFL’s recent confirmation that the Grand Final will remain in the traditional 2:30pm timeslot for the next two years has been met with gratitude from fans, but as pressure continues to mount following the NRL’s rare ratings win last year.
Debate around the competition’s showpiece start time has reignited in the wake of the announcement, with growing sentiment from experts that the league is holding firm on tradition in the short term, while inching towards an inevitable twilight fixture.
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Speaking on Fox Footy on Monday night, AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley believes that evolution is simply a matter of time, despite the league’s current stance.
“It’s fans over television, but still, the misnomer in that is television actually brings the game to the fans. You do get more fans in television, in prime time, than you do in the middle of the afternoon,” Whateley said.
“That’s just a convention of the way it works.”
The backdrop to the AFL’s decision is a changing broadcast landscape though, is a rare defeat on the biggest stage.
Only last year, the AFL Grand Final was eclipsed in the ratings by the NRL decider, marking the first time in a decade rugby league had claimed the title over their rival code.
“Where it ratchets up the stakes, is here where the NFL out-rated the AFL grand final last year, which is a rarity,” Whateley added.
“The AFL I think would take the view that there was a Brisbane team and a Melbourne team … we’ll see. There have been all sorts of combinations that have played both grand finals, and haven’t delivered that result previously.
“Staying in the afternoon makes it a contest, and if it loses for the next two years to the NRL grand final, it would have been a mistake.
“This is a battle we haven’t really seen before, I think people have been asleep to it.”
GRAND FINAL TELEVISION BATTLE
2025 NRL GF: 4.46 million viewers (6.4m reach)
2025 AFL GF: 4.18 million viewers (6.4m reach)
Melbourne great Garry Lyon added: “It’s postponing the inevitable. I think it should go to twilight. I’d love the grand final if it was on at 8:30am in the morning; it doesn’t upset me — I just think the right call would’ve been to do it.”
“It’s going to happen. It’ll happen in two years time by the sounds of it … but 2:30pm is fine by me, it’ll be a ripping day.
The 2025 NRL Grand Final was the highest-rated TV program of the year, with the most recent instalment also the first time in a decade where its rating usurped that of the AFL Grand Final.
Intriguingly, the 2025 AFL Grand Final was the highest rating of its kind for two decades, with numbers not seen since the 2005 thriller between Sydney and West Coast.
Originally published as ‘Lose to the NRL, it’s a mistake’: AFL’s risky Grand Final gamble