The introduction of regular Monday night football seems a no-brainer to me. And if I were involved in the Gold Coast franchise, I’d be leaving no stone unturned to ensure the new side claimed Monday night as its own.

For a fledgling club there could be no greater opportunity that to have a night all to yourself, when people from all over the country could relax and check out your new talent, normally without their own side being involved.

It could see many fans embrace the Gold Coast as their ‘second’ team.

The Monday night timeslot is ideal for television viewers, and, if the Gold Coast struggled to attract fans to their games, then at least they could get maximum exposure on the box.

In the US, Monday night football started in 1970 when the New York Jets beat the Cleveland Browns, broadcast live on the ABC Network.

MNF soon became an institution, becoming the second longest running prime time show on network television (behind 60 minutes).

It switched to ESPN, which is, like ABC owned by Disney, in 2006. Its popularity has absolutely exploded around the world.

Other key sports have also embraced Mondays such as rugby league and soccer. I don’t think the AFL would opt out of the opportunity to spread the word even further and more often.

In fact, I’d suggest they go even further, making it a new platform to be bid on separately at the next television rights negotiations.

They could sweeten the deal by offering Monday games such as Queen’s Birthday and Easter Monday into the arrangement and sell off Mondays as a stand alone product.

Who knows, maybe we could get all three free-to-air networks involved in televising football from 2012.

I can almost hear Eddie (McGuire) now saying: ‘welcome to Monday night football on Channel 9’.

David Reed is an award-winning journalist who worked as a sports writer for major newspapers on both sides of the country and voted on the 2005 Norm Smith Medal. David will write extensively for geelongcats.com.au this season. The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.