Melbourne Demons Versus Western Bulldogs Seven’s Biggest AFL Grand Final In Five Years

Melbourne Demons Versus Western Bulldogs Seven’s Biggest AFL Grand Final In Five Years
B&T Magazine
Edited by B&T Magazine



Saturday’s AFL Grand Final brought in big numbers for the Seven Network as the Melbourne Demons beat the Western Bulldogs.

It is the first time the Demons had competed in the premiership for 57 years.

As well as a big night for embattled Melbourne supporters, it was also a significant night for the Seven Network, with OzTAM’s metro data showing that the match had a massive metro audience of 3,006,000 viewers.

The pre and post game broadcasts also performed well for the network, with the presentations scoring 2,667,000 viewers and the ‘on the ground’ reporting at 2,266,000.

The pre-match coverage had 1,464,000 viewers while the post-match coverage had 1,275,000.

It was the biggest AFL Grand Final since 2016, according to the Seven Network.

Seven Melbourne’s managinging director and head of network sport, Lewis Martin said, “the historic 2021 AFL Grand Final lived up to the hype and delivered extraordinary audiences on Seven.”

“The AFL is a vital part of Seven’s unrivalled sporting content and once again Australia’s number one winter sport has gripped the nation with another unmissable premiership decider.”

“Seven’s prime time coverage, underpinned by our expert commentary and insights, ensured more fans across Australia could enjoy the exciting Grand Final action, live and free. A huge thanks to the fans, players, clubs, AFL and the entire team across Seven Network for making 2021 so memorable despite another year of uncertainty.”

“It highlights once again how our shared love of Australian football continues to bring the nation together.”

The success of this year’s Grand Final has led some to call for it to always be scheduled in the evening.

While the Grand Final is usually played in Melbourne during the afternoon, this year it was played in Perth due to Victoria’s COVID-19 outbreak. It was played at around 5.15pm Western Australian time, so 7.15pm for the eastern states.

Speaking to the Australian Financial Review, managing director of media rights value at Global Media & Sports, Colin Smith said: ““If I was in the AFL I would certainly be thinking about making the switch to a night grand final permanent, and if I was the broadcasters I would also be thinking about that because there were 61,000 at the Optus Stadium but there was 3.9 million watching on television.”

“Do your maths on that.”




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