Some people start political parties to change the world; Jeff Purser just wants to change the last Sunday night in September.
Purser wants nothing left that night other than burnt chops and a warm fuzzy glow. Play the NRL grand final in the afternoon, he argues, and Australia will be a better country, families will come together and little kiddies will learn to love the league.
In three days, Purser has managed to garner 100 signatures for his Have-the-Grand-Final-at-3pm-on-a-Sunday Party (
www.gf3pm.com). Four hundred more and then he'll be named on the Senate ballot paper for this year's election.
"All my friends hate it. The grand final used to be our number one day of the year. Every grand final you'd have a barbecue and it was just an iconic Australian day. It was more than just watching a game of footy on TV," he said.
"We've just noticed in the last four or five years since it went to a night-time game people stopped socialising. It's just become a TV event, another football game."
Purser, a film producer and former marketing director for South Sydney, estimates TV ratings are 10 per cent higher at night. "The networks like it, the NRL likes it, the sponsors like it," he said. "News Ltd [half-owner of the NRL] seem to know the cost and the price of everything but sometimes they don't understand the value of what they've got.
"People can ask me how long I've been watching football for and I can say, 'Well, my first memory is the 1975 grand final'. That's when it all starts for me and I can still remember Mum and Dad had a barbecue, my relatives came over. It had such an impression on me."
The NRL swung their season-decider to the night-time slot in 2001 but spokesman John Brady insists it's a year-by-year decision. "The night grand final was something we always wanted to try .. But there's a lot of people who don't like it," he acknowledged.
Brady wished Purser well in his campaign, suggesting a voice for league in the Senate would have advantages: "It would be a statement of just how passionate people are about rugby league."
