Speaking on the ABC radio’s Grandstand Program on Saturday, Demetriou said he was determined to experiment with the fixture in 2010 to assure the AFL was well prepared to accommodate the extra game from the introduction of the Gold Coast and West Sydney sides’ in the competition.
“I think you will see probably at least two Monday night fixtures next year, Thursday night and we will definitely try a 5pm ‘Super Saturday’ concept in anticipation of what might happen in the future,” he said.
Demetriou said one of the main reasons the AFL has decided to experiment with the fixtures next year was to obtain feedback from the most important people in the game – the supporters.
“We have been pleased with the attendances for the Thursday night and Monday night fixture trial but we need to do it for more than a year,” he said.
“It’s good for us to get feedback from our supporters on that.”
Demetriou also offered insight to the research work currently being conducted by the AFL, which consists of analysis on which games are attended better and at what venues and what times are more popular for clubs and their supporters.
The league boss acknowledged this research would play a major role in how the AFL fixtures games in the distant future.
“What we’ve done (in the past) is we’ve compromised our draw particularly from the attendances prospective,” he said.
“It will give us a much better indication of where we should be playing games and not do it in an ad-hoc fashion - the early work I’ve seen on that is really encouraging.”
However Demetriou admitted the shaping of the fixture for season 2010 may work against clubs and their fixture preferences.
“We’re all about maximising attendances and we will have to say to the clubs we won’t be able to accommodate (their requests) as we did in the first year or so.”
While stating it was not on the agenda for next year, Demetriou did not rule out the possibility of reverting back to the concept of each club playing each other once before round 15 in the distant future.
“It’s not in our thinking for next year – we’re pretty comfortable with the system we have got this year, but we can improve it” he said.
“If that means we go back to playing everyone once before round 15, that may form a part of it.”
