Afternoon Kickoffs

[Jetmaster]

While watching the crap that is occurring in Perth I thought I'd do a bit of statto work on afternoon kickoffs. It was mentioned in David Lowe's column last week so I thought it worth investigating.

This is what I have found...

Mariners and Perth started their seasons with six and seven consecutive afternoon games respectively - both started poorly.

WSW had a mid season run of 10 consecutive evening games - the longest run and coinciding with a great run of results. Melbourne Victory have had three good runs of consecutive night matches.

The longest run of afternoon games is the Jets, who finish their season with eight consecutive games at 5pm.

Based on the whole draw this is how the table stands based on night games v afternoon games, with night games being positive.

1. Melbourne Victory (22/5) 81%
2. Melbourne City (21/6) 77%
3. Adelaide United (20/7) 74%
4. West Sydney Wanderers (20/7) 74%
5. Sydney FC (19/8) 70%
6. Brisbane Roar (18/9) 66%
7. Wellington Phoenix (16/11) 59%
8. Central Coast (11/16) 40%
9. Perth Glory (10/17) 37%
10. Newcastle Jets (7/20) 26%

Make of it what you will but I believe that teams that play more afternoon games are at a decent disadvantage and on the whole the stats back that up.

Discuss.

[boz-monaut]

the better teams get evening games as they get better ratings

correlation does not equal causation

[q-money]

the better teams in the competition on a whole will drag more TV viewers...maybe if the jets were worth watching they'd get more night games

clearly an FFA conspiracy

[Jetmaster]

I understand it is done because of the ratings....what this causes is a vicious circle that will be hard to get out of.

[q-money]

like most leagues everywhere really. who says that the a-league isn't anything like europe? it's exactly like europe!

few decent teams and a backlog of cloggers.

[Hunter403]

Send those figures to the FFA and Fox. Bet they never give them a mention.

[Superdylan]

At least with the season coming to an end aswell as daylight savings your 5pm starts will become more so twilight fixtures.

Should they consider pushing kickoffs to 6pm on Saturday's for 6/8pm starts. And 5:30pm for Sunday games? Bit stupid how victory hardly get any day games having said that with daylight savings down in Melbourne it doesn't get dark till nearly 9pm in January so they would still be playing some 7:30pm games in direct sunlight for at least the first half.

[plague]

who cares about the Jets, my curtains get super faded due to daylight savings.
and don't even get me started on the cows........

[BodyNovo]

who cares about the Jets, my curtains get super faded due to daylight savings.
and don't even get me started on the cows........

The cows are I reckon the first thing any Queenslander says to me at work when they ring up at 4.55pm every afternoon and I tell them I'm leaving in 5 minutes.

so yeah think about them.



On the main topic. We play in the Australian summer, if coaches and players can't prepare for this then they really don't deserve to be in the finals etc. The jets knowing 3-4 months from the season that they will play the majority of there games in the afternoon should be a motivation to be fitter then the other teams to cope with the heat. We have got the rough end off the draw to the bigger teams for years and you can complain all you want about it but fox aren't going to change there minds.

[pv4]

Actual table // Jmasters interesting table

1. Adelaide United // Melbourne Victory
2. Western Sydney Wanderers // Melbourne City
3. Brisbane Roar // Adelaide United
4. Melbourne City // Western Sydney Wanderers
5. Melbourne Victory // Sydney FC
6. Perth Glory // Brisbane Roar
7. Sydney FC // Wellington Phoenix
8. Newcastle Jerks // Central Coast
9. Wellington Phoenix // Perth Glory
10. Central Coast // Newcastle Jets

Roar and Perth are the only teams I'd really say are breaking the code, per say.

No doubt about scheduling, shit teams not deserving prime time, etc.

But I'd love to see the season ladder if an experimental reverse-fixturing was done - and say Victory were given the most afternoon games and we were given the most night games. I wonder how much it would affect general performance and results..

Anyone got the motivation to do a season ladder of night games vs afternoon games? Similar to a home & away one? I cbf but am interested.

[RAM]

The cows are I reckon the first thing any Queenslander says to me at work when they ring up at 4.55pm every afternoon and I tell them I'm leaving in 5 minutes.

so yeah think about them.



On the main topic. We play in the Australian summer, if coaches and players can't prepare for this then they really don't deserve to be in the finals etc. The jets knowing 3-4 months from the season that they will play the majority of there games in the afternoon should be a motivation to be fitter then the other teams to cope with the heat. We have got the rough end off the draw to the bigger teams for years and you can complain all you want about it but fox aren't going to change there minds.

It does actually affect dairy farming.

[pv4]

Daylight savings ffs.

Can we just pick one, either for it to be on or off, and just stick with it forever?

[plague]

Daylight savings ffs.

Can we just pick one, either for it to be on or off, and just stick with it forever?

Agree, having 12 months of the year at 24 hours a day then the other half at only 24 hours a day is difficult to deal with.

[plague]

It does actually affect dairy farming.

So now we've got daylight savings upsetting the Jets, the cows and the curtains.

If the pollies were serious they'd add this referendum in with the one for the homosexual people next election.

#MAKEAUSTRALIASUNSHINECONSTANTAGAIN

[MFKS]

Simple issue easy to fix

The NSL had it right the HAL has it wrong.

Games need to be played in evening times


A few years ago we had a Saturday 5:30 arvo ko for some reason it has been pushed forward to 5 pm


Reality is it should have went the other way to 6pm

Taking it to 5 you get the entire game in the heat.

Taking it to 6 and you limiting the amount of game effected by heat significantly.

The night game can KO at 8pm

Considering you have Perth and Wellington in different time zones it allows a hell of a lot of flexibility

It ain't like all 10 teams are on same time zone

It is not the hardest problem to work out.

The FFA and Foxtel can easily fix

It is actually ****ing both of them as it is watering down the quality of product

[stopper2]

Simple issue easy to fix

The NSL had it right the HAL has it wrong.

Games need to be played in evening times


A few years ago we had a Saturday 5:30 arvo ko for some reason it has been pushed forward to 5 pm


Reality is it should have went the other way to 6pm

Taking it to 5 you get the entire game in the heat.

Taking it to 6 and you limiting the amount of game effected by heat significantly.

The night game can KO at 8pm

Considering you have Perth and Wellington in different time zones it allows a hell of a lot of flexibility

It ain't like all 10 teams are on same time zone

It is not the hardest problem to work out.

The FFA and Foxtel can easily fix

It is actually ****ing both of them as it is watering down the quality of product

I think we've been in agreement on this topic a few times now Member and once again In my opinion you are 100% right.

The clueless comments above from some saying that the shit teams deserve the arvo timeslot is not the point here. Don't we all....the stakeholders of the game and FFA want our A League product to achieve it's maximum potential? Playing in 35 degree heat in the late afternoon is not doing our product any favours, it actually looks poor from a TV perspective as well since most of the crowd sit in the shaded side where the cameras are also.
When you work in the heat, your productivity drops too and you are probably only working at 70% capacity, same goes for professional sportsmen and women.
Why is the FFA allowing the players to play in conditions year after year where they know they are unable to play at full capacity?

As Member mentioned it only requires a simple fix too, pushing the starting time back to 6pm would make a big difference.

[q-money]

how are the comments clueless?

our club is such a massive bunch of peasants we even asked for afternoon games back in the day because we didn't want to pay the electricity bill for the lights.

[Jetmaster]

In NSL days nearly all games were at night, but they were the days when there would be 5-6 games at the same time. The original move to summer football had to guarantee night games in the interest of player safety - Fox has thrown that out the window.

Agree with Stopper - think of productivity in hot conditions. I reckon that Nobby of the last 2 weeks in the heat was good but not as good as the previous in cooler conditions.

The crowds are lower and the atmosphere is far less electric at a day game.....for example, look at the 2007 semi against Sydney v the 2008 semi v CC and compare the atmospheres with the crowd suffering a hot one in 2008.

[MFKS]

8pm ko Friday
6pm Saturday
8pm Saturday
6 pm Sunday
8pm Sunday

East Coast time

There's 5 ****ing slots fixed

Add in you can get Perth to play after the 8pm game and Nix to play at 4pm Saturday Sunday

Throw in possible Thursday night Monday night fixtures and problem is solved

Even if you leave out the Thursday or Monday night options you have uncluster ****ed the thing big time


Put me in charge of running the League.

Not ****ing hard

[Nou Camp]

no games in Aust should be on before 6 on Saturdays in summer not just for the heat but for that's its summer, daylight savings and people do more in the summer months
beach, cricket etc
the later the game the more its gives people a chance to get to the game