North Melbourne, the pioneer of Friday night football, will be seen in that coveted time slot only twice in 2015, despite finishing fourth. This week is the first of those two Friday night encounters with Essendon.

Carlton, which finished 13th and was viewed as a slider, was given a surprising six Friday nights this year. Richmond, which had more reason for optimism, has seven Friday slots, plus the established Good Friday eve season-opener against the Blues.

If North has headed south for Friday nights, it has fared significantly better than the season's Cinderella (thus far), the Bulldogs. They don't have a single Friday night.

Given that they reached a preliminary final and play an attractive brand, the Roos are somewhat miffed that their exposure on the weekend's most coveted – and lucrative – stage has been halved. Last year they had four Friday nights.

Their disappointment, though, has been salved by the fact that the AFL compensated with seven Saturday night games, five of them on Channel Seven. Saturday night ratings have closed the gap on Friday nights, and have become steadily stronger, in relative terms, though Friday has the significant advantage as a stand-alone game.

The reasons the AFL hands Carlton and Richmond upwards of half a dozen Friday nights, North a pair, and the Dogs zilch, are based upon the broadcaster's requests and the view that the bigger clubs draw more people. It is the same premise that locks Collingwood, Essendon and Carlton into permanent twice yearly encounters, with Geelong and Hawthorn earmarked for Easter Monday.

As the AFL considers radical options for the fixture, and the player's union advocates further taxing of the well-off clubs, the AFL ought to consider how more modest changes to the fixture – such as giving the Dogs a presence on Friday nights, and upgrading North, too – would enhance both spectator interest and the ever thorny issue of equalisation.

That the Blues have landed on Friday nights six times, North twice and the Dogs not, is neither fair to those clubs nor advantageous to Channel Seven, which will be hoping that Carlton defies its present trajectory. The Blues are to play Sydney, Hawthorn and Fremantle on Friday nights – on current form and capabilities, those games are hardly appetising for the neutral spectator who forms the majority of the armchair audience.

The decision to invest Friday shares in Carlton and Richmond and none in the Bulldogs, while divesting some of North's, also demonstrates that the competition's unpredictability has to be factored into the fixture. Assumptions about how teams will fare are often contradicted – this season has been notable for the legion of upsets.

The Dogs had lost their captain, coach and Brownlow medallist in the post-season. Perceptions were negative, but these have proven completely erroneous, to the point that Channel Seven, if given a chance, would surely rather the Dogs v Hawthorn, Essendon or Collingwood. If that stirring victory over the Swans had been played on a Friday night, who wouldn't have been riveted?

In the long term, the advantages of prime-time slots for big clubs become a generational disadvantage for the small ones, who become stuck in an AFL version of welfare housing – and thus more reliant upon re-distribution to remain financially competitive.

The long-term fixturing handicap – as seen through the prism of Friday nights – is not lost on the AFL Players' Association, whose chief executive Paul Marsh called for a fairer fixture for the smaller teams.

One reform that could be considered is that every club – possibly exempting the expansion teams  – receives a minimum number of multiple Friday nights, assuming that's possible in the complicated fixturing arrangements.

This would safeguard the AFL against an over-investment in a struggling team with a large following. If the AFL give North and the Dogs more prime slots, it might be surprised by the numbers