The three clubs who could be the AFL’s ‘prime time darlings’ in 2025

The 2025 AFL fixture is set to be released next month and with that in mind, SEN’s Sam Edmund pondered who next year’s ‘prime time darlings’ will be.

With the way the AFL fixture now works, the league will release the first 15 weeks of the season before releasing the rest of the schedule as the top eight begins to take shape and the best and most watchable teams emerge.

Leading into the 2024 AFL season, the league scheduled 2023 Grand Finalists Collingwood and Brisbane seven times on Thursday and Friday nights, while Carlton, who made a Prelim that year, and Adelaide, who played some seriously exciting footy the year prior, were scheduled in eight prime time slots.

With that in mind, Edmund asked his SEN Breakfast co-host Kane Cornes who he thinks should be looked after when the first part of the 2025 AFL fixture is released in November.

Edmund: “The fixture is going to come out soon. Who should be the prime time darlings next year? 

“Thursday night football is back, Friday night football is the commercial holy grail.

“Let's rope them (Thursday and Friday) together under the umbrella of prime time darlings. 

“So of the first 15 rounds in the 2024 fixture, the Blues featured eight times across Thursday and Friday, Collingwood and Brisbane featured seven times, and the league this time last year fell completely head over heels in love with the Adelaide Crows, and they scheduled them for eight across the two nights as well - that was of only the 15 weeks that are scheduled. 

“So this year, who should be the prime time darling?”

Cornes: “Well, it’ll be the Hawks. I'm pretty certain that it'll be the prime time Hawks, which is hilarious because they have been shunted for a couple of years, they hardly played a night game in 2024.

“So I’m going to go with the Hawks and I'm going to go with the Pies.”

Edmund: “They (Collingwood) are always thereabouts.”

Cornes: “I mean, we just were interested in them and I think this trade period says that they're all in. I think that they're going to be the story of the year.

“So I’m going to go Hawthorn one, Collingwood two … and I’m happy with the Blues (third).

“I think the Blues will be there (in prime time fixtures).”

According to the AFL, the fixture will be released in late November.