Thursday night football set to dominate 2025 AFL fixture

Thursday night football is set to dominate the new AFL fixture.

The increasingly popular time slot is poised to feature in record numbers in 2025, coinciding with the first year of the league’s historic broadcast rights deal.

While the exact number is yet to be locked in, industry sources said the AFL was planning on as many as 21 weeks of Thursday night football next season after years of cautious increases. Thursday night football was played in the first 14 weeks of the 2024 season before surprisingly being put on ice until the first week of finals.

In 2023 it featured 12 times across two home-and-away blocks and a final, while 2022 had nine regular season Thursday night games and one final.

But 2025 could see it played most weeks of a 24-round campaign.

Thursday night football has proven to be a raging success in recent seasons, both in attendance and TV ratings numbers.

Both AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and head of football Laura Kane have spoken in favour of the concept.

The Thursday night footy explosion coincides with the first year of the league’s $4.5 billion broadcast rights deal – the biggest sports rights deal in Australian history – which runs until 2031.

Separately, it’s understood Channel 7 is pushing for several Sunday night games at the start of the season. The network will broadcast games on Thursday nights, Friday nights and Sundays next year, but would like a collection of Sunday night games in the first third of the season.