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Sport Nation
Fixture analysis: Missed opportunities, disrespect and dissatisfaction
Ashley Browne • November 13th, 2025 5:00 pm
Too many teams for not enough timeslots. And that’s where the dissatisfaction starts following Thursday’s release of the 2026 AFL fixture.
The fixture release is one of the highlights of the off-season. For AFL club social media teams, it is their Christmas Day. And let’s be clear, fixture boss Josh Bowler faces one of the most unenviable jobs in the game, fitting square pegs into round holes.
A pass mark for the fixture release is pleasing most of the stakeholders – players, clubs broadcasters and supporters – most of the time.
But the initial question is why so many Friday double-ups? We’re not calling them double-headers because in any other sport that would mean one match finishing and then the next one commencing.
Between rounds six and 11 we have five Friday nights featuring two games apiece. Perhaps the view of the AFL is that it is better to split the TV audience when it is at its largest – Friday nights – while the better weather over the first months will likely maximise attendances. The 7.20 start will appeal the fans who have repeatedly called for earlier starts (no longer called the opening bounce) on Friday nights.
There are some juicy matchups among them – Geelong v Western Bulldogs and especially Sydney-Collingwood – but the quibble here is the insistence by the AFL and we suspect, Channel Seven, that Victorian teams need to feature heavily in these double-up games.
The national appeal of derby games, especially those in Adelaide and Sydney, continues to be underestimated by the AFL. Showdowns don’t just leave South Australians on tenterhooks, they’re beloved by all football fans. They deserve a standalone timeslot – Thursday or Friday night, it doesn’t matter - but starting one hour after the Dogs-and Dockers get underway in round eight isn’t good enough.
The same with the Sydney derby, which is just about in the top three of the AFL’s most heated rivalries. The Swans and the Giants get underway at the SCG only 30 minutes after the Cats and Dogs in round six. The stands will be packed, but it is almost an unfair ask for TV viewers to have to choose.
The flipside of the Friday double-ups means some Saturday nights with just one game and Carlton-St Kilda in round eight has some appeal and there are some Saturday twilight double-headers as well.
More disrespect? How about dual reigning premier Brisbane again being consigned to the picturesque, but totally off-Broadway Barossa Valley locale for their Gather Round game yet again. Surely the Lions could be squeezed somewhere into the five showpiece Adelaide Oval games. The Lions against anyone would be a better spectacle at Adelaide Oval than Essendon-Melbourne once again (yawn!)
Geelong will grace Norwood Oval during Gather Round, and the quaint old venue will be bursting at the seams as the Cats and their large traveling support converge.
Opening Round returns and there are no issues here with giving the northern clubs the chance to start their seasons at around the same time the NRL clubs are starting theirs. Those in Victoria have no understanding of just how tough it is for the Swans and Giants, Lions and Suns to get clean air at that time of the year.
And with no late summer concerts planned for the MCG, it will stage one of its earliest games in history. The March 8 St Kilda-Collingwood game matches the 2000 Olympics season opener when Melbourne played Richmond. The combination of the hype around the Saints and the 60th anniversary of their solitary flag and they should surpass their record home and away crowd – 81,136 in 2010.
Carlton and Richmond fans will have to comfort themselves their clubs will no longer kick off the season in Victoria, but on recent form, they don’t really deserve to.
We won’t enjoy such an early start to the AFL season in 2027, with the one-off Australia-England Test match scheduled for the MCG in early March. A talking point will be whether that entire AFL season gets delayed to accommodate that celebration of 150 years of Test cricket.
The AFL has tidied up some things. No team that has had two byes (due to Opening Round) will play a team that has yet to have its bye. And they have persisted with a five-week bye period between rounds 12 and 16, but there will be a minimum of seven games a weekend through that time, addressing concerns about the paucity of games through that time.
Arguably the biggest home and away game next year will be when Collingwood icon Scott Pendlebury breaks the AFL’s games record. The Pies have some conveniently scheduled home games in and around the time it could happen. It could share equal billing with Big Freeze on the King’s Birthday against Melbourne, but subsequent home games against either Port Adelaide or Richmond seem more likely.
As pointed out by Kane Cornes, North Melbourne fans will need a Foxtel or Kayo subscription. Their only free-to-air game for the first 15 rounds is the Good Friday clash with Carlton. The Kangas remain a long way from the limelight.
The Bombers got their wish and largely avoid prime-time footy, save for round one against the Hawks at the MCG, which will be their home game. What an occasion that promises to be with all the new-found angst to put on top of an already heated rivalry.
Carlton was equally disappointing in 2025 but get still get seven marquee games. The Blues will be compulsive viewing, win or lose. Opening the season with a Charlie Curnow reunion (as well as Ollie Florent and Will Hayward) at the SCG is a masterful move by the AFL.
A missed opportunity? How about Adelaide opening the season away to Collingwood, the week before Izak Rankine returns from suspension? Noteworthy is that both SA teams open the season in Victoria and both play at Adelaide Oval the following week.
The AFL is happy for a prolonged wait for the Grand Final replay, with the Lions and Geelong not slated until round 10 at the Gabba. They play each other twice, but if you’re looking for a premiership contending team with a pleasing draw, consider the Hawks, who only play those two clubs once.
The beaten preliminary finalists have been slated for 11 MCG games, just two at Marvel and of their four games in Tasmania (where they are riding a 10-game winning streak) they play fellow flag aspirants Gold Coast and Adelaide, which tip the scales in their favour, Melbourne which has never travelled there, as well as lowly North.
And they have an 18-day break heading into their Easter Monday home game against the Cats courtesy of their Opening Round bye. All up the Hawks have eight Thursday and Friday night games plus Easter Monday. Their sponsors will be pleased.
