Braden Quartermaine: Twilight starts are a simple answer but the MCG’s 2059 contract will be tougher to resolve

The first question to resolve is when. The longer term issue is where. Triumphant Melbourne skipper Max Gawn said “It’s coming home”, and while he was talking about the cup, the grand final itself should finally return to the MCG next season for the first time in three years. The smart money would be on an immediate return to the traditional 2.30pm start time, allowing the league to ride popular sentiment and respect tradition. There is no doubt the vast majority of Victorians want the decider to stay in the day. But it’s equally clear the issue of timing won’t go away on the back of strong TV ratings and a dazzling show at Optus Stadium on Saturday night. The league had already confirmed the 2021 decider for the normal day slot at the MCG before COVID-19 intervened, allowing them to cheekily ditch the 2.30pm start time along with the venue as if the two were tied. For the second year running, Victorians complained about the late start. It was too long to wait all day, too dark to have a kick outside at half-time and too late for kids to watch the finish. The AFL, financially hammered by pandemic disruption, is eventually going to have to balance goodwill with other practicalities and stage its biggest match at a time when more people will watch it. Balance is the key word here because the answer is compromise. Twilight. For the past two years the grand final has started at 7.30pm and 7.15pm in Melbourne. A bounce at 4.30pm or 5pm is the solution. Only a couple of hours more to wait and kids can watch the cup being presented. The earlier the better as far as most fans are concerned, though the AFL is increasingly drawn to Superbowl-style half-time shows under lights and the TV ratings speak for themselves. Audiences are bigger in prime time, particularly in the key growth market of Sydney where more casual viewers tune in. The more significant issue is where to play the grand final. Despite a couple of hiccups, Perth’s historic decider at Optus Stadium was utterly spectacular. Even the rain held off until the delirious Demons were in the centre circle with cigars belting out an awful rendition of Lady Gaga’s Shallow. Despite the circumstances that brought the grand final here, it felt no less than a seismic moment in the evolution of the national competition. It put last year’s Gabba decider in the shade, with the fervour of a genuine footy State setting the scene before the breathtaking series of aerial shots during the broadcast underlining that former premier Colin Barnett’s decision to put the stadium on the banks of the Swan River was the right one. The crowd of 61,118 was more than double the restricted attendance of 29,707 fans that watched Richmond defeat Geelong last year. The elephant in the room is the controversial – not to mention short-sighted – deal between the AFL and the Victorian Government to lock the grand final at the MCG until 2057, now extended to 2059. If last year’s Gabba finale felt like a stop-gap measure, this weekend’s Burswood extravaganza – on the back of the successful Dreamtime showcase earlier in the season – felt like the sport scratching at its full potential. If the AFL is truly a national competition and not just a rebadged VFL, why would only 10 of the 18 teams have the opportunity to play in grand finals in their home State? Who knows what proportion of teams will be based in Victoria by 2059. By selling four decades of opportunity for an up-front sugar hit, the league also did themselves a disservice. With State of Origin and even the pre-season grand final having fallen by the wayside, the premiership decider is the single jewel in the crown and could have been auctioned off to events hungry State governments. The argument about the MCG fitting nearly 40,000 more bums on seats is valid to a point, but only a point. Only a small proportion of that crowd are genuine fans of the competing clubs anyway and it’s the total revenue take from tickets that really matters. Given Optus Stadium’s modern and vast corporate facilities and function rooms, it’s understood a significant amount of that revenue shortfall is closed anyway. They say never waste a crisis and this one might just open the AFL’s eyes. Contracts have been overcome before. Non-Victorian teams were once forced to ‘host’ finals at the MCG to satisfy them. The grand final contract will take more time, money and goodwill to bend. But anything’s possible. We saw that on Saturday night with our own eyes.