The NRL’s experiment with the traditional time-slot produced some interesting – and low – viewer and attendance figures.

Back in July, the National Rugby League announced it would be experimenting with Saturday afternoon regular-season competition matches, heralding a return to the traditional 3pm timeslot, when even the code’s grand final was staged for many years. At the time, NRL general manager of football operations, Nathan McGuirk, stressed the game’s rulers intended to use the brief shift to Saturday arvos merely to gauge interest in the move. “At this stage, we are not considering making Saturday afternoon football an ongoing part of the NRL match schedule,” McGuirk said … After Inside Sport analysed both the attendance figures and Fox Sports’ television ratings for the three Saturday afternoon matches staged throughout the final rounds of the 2013 season proper, we can see why.

According to figures sourced from the television ratings website aupaytv.com, the Round 23 clash at Canberra between the Raiders and the Bulldogs attracted 122,000 viewers. Whether that’s an average, or the total amount of viewers for that match, we couldn’t track down; regardless, we have a starting point. This figure was less than that for the 5.30pm game between the Cowboys and Titans (225,000) and also the 7.30pm match-up between the Dragons and Sharks later that night (261,000).

The Saturday arvo game the following week also struggled against later league fixtures, which is interesting because the St George-Illawarra vs Wests Tigers game was a highly publicised match in which the league headed back to the spiritual home of the code, the SCG, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “Gladiators” grand final between the Dragons and the Magpies. This match scored just 182,000 on the viewer scoreboard, compared to the 5.30pm match-up between the Titans and Warriors (219,000) and the 7.30pm hit-out featuring the Cowboys and Knights (246,000). The trend continued two weeks later in Round 26 action between the Dragons and the Warriors, which attracted just 147,000 viewers on a Saturday afternoon.

Sure, that’s the TV figures sorted out, but what about the footy-going public’s reaction to the return of its beloved 3pm timeslot? The Raiders/Bulldogs game attracted 11,847, the SCG heritage match 15,016, and the Dragons/Warriors game just 9,022. Admittedly, none of the selected Saturday afternoon matches for 2013 were top-billing affairs, and if the NRL/Fox Sports had used, perhaps, the on-fire Rabbitohs in any of those experiments, some of those TV/attendance figures would be a lot higher. But at least all concerning parties are aware now of the pulling power – or lack thereof - of regular home and away Saturday afternoon rugby league.

In saying all this, it’s interesting to see a Saturday 4pm semi-final being scheduled for this weekend, bought forward from last year’s 5.45pm corresponding fixture. Channel Nine’s head of sport, Steve Crawley, said earlier this year that a 4pm Saturday week one final was, in fact, part of the discussion during the negotiations for the latest TV rights deal, and that it was something the league’s free to air TV broadcaster was only too happy with …