AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan today said last night’s round 15 Collingwood v Carlton match at the MCG had now completed the AFL’s six-match trial for the 2014 season of Sunday night match broadcasts, with a clear position laid out for the competition going forward.

Mr McLachlan said the AFL had trialled both Thursday night (six) and Sunday night (six) matches during the 2014 Toyota AFL Premiership Season to assess their worth before discussions began for the next broadcast rights agreement.

He said the results had been mixed, with the AFL pleased with the response to Thursday night games but also aware the football public had rejected Sunday night matches.

Last night’s match drew a crowd of 40,939 – well below both club and AFL expectations – and had total television ratings of 1.019 million viewers across free to air and subscription television partners, Mr McLachlan said.

“It is the AFL’s view that the trial in 2014 has shown us that there is a place for Thursday night matches as event games in our schedule but there is not the same appetite for Sunday night in the fixture,’ Mr McLachlan said.

“Sunday night matches have drawn strong viewer numbers on both the Fox Footy Channel and the Seven Network but crowd numbers have been strongly impacted, particularly in the games played in this timeslot in Melbourne in rounds one, three, 12 and last night.

“We will always look at new initiatives – just as we have done in the past with Friday night and Saturday twilight football – but match-day attendance is a core ingredient of the success of our game and, in this instance, we acknowledge the very strong feedback from our fans and our clubs in relation to Sunday night football, particularly in Victoria.

"While the two national Seven/Fox Footy Sunday night matches (Rounds 3 and 15) have drawn comparable television viewers to a Friday night game, the impact on attendance does not justify moving matches into this new timeslot and the AFL remains committed to attendances at the ground as critical to our game,” he said.