The league has enjoyed a long weekend full of bumper crowds with 304,295 fans witnessing the first eight games at an average of 38,037.

The rounds which have attracted the two biggest all-time attendance figures are round one this year (400,401) and round 15, 2013 (371,212).

Given the Melbourne Cricket Club is anticipating an attendance of 85,000 at the MCG on Tuesday for the Anzac Day blockbuster between Essendon and Collingwood, season 2017 looks set to claim the top two attended rounds in history despite only being five rounds old.

Monday night's Anzac Day eve clash between Richmond and Melbourne at the MCG was a smash with the match drawing the biggest ever crowd for a Tigers-Demons match in 188 meetings over 110 seasons - an incredible feat given they played each other in a grand final in 1940.

85,657 people packed into the home of football on Monday night which was not only the biggest crowd Melbourne have played in front of since the 2000 grand final, but also their biggest home-and-away crowd since 1964.

It was also Richmond's biggest home-and-away crowd in eight years.

The game was televised on Channel Seven's HD multi-channel 7mate and drew a combined average national audience of 630,000.

Reality show My Kitchen Rules was screened on Channel Seven instead and it had a combined average national audience of 1.602 million.

If the Essendon-Collingwood match fails to top the Richmond-Melbourne attendance, it would mark the first time since the inception of the traditional Anzac Day fixture 22 years ago that it wouldn't be the highest-attended match of the round.

There are still roughly 1000 public tickets up for grabs for the Bombers-Magpies blockbuster, but the MCC has put out a notice that all of the MCG's car parks will be closed due to the wet weather.

Meanwhile, Friday night saw the third-biggest crowd (43,120) to attend a Port Adelaide-Carlton match, the Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions played in front of the fourth biggest home-and-away crowd (31,822) between the two clubs on Saturday and, on Saturday night, Sydney and GWS played in front of the third-biggest home-and-away crowd (34,824) in a match between the two sides.