A THURSDAY night final is seriously being considered as the AFL puts the finishing touches to its schedule for round 23 onwards.

The League is also thinking about playing a Monday night game on August 29 in the last home-and-away round ahead of an unprecedented weekend off from September 2-4 for the top eight teams before the finals begin.

"This is a really good opportunity to roll out a Thursday night final, it'd be a massive success I suspect, and so we'll give that some good thought," League general manager clubs and operations Travis Auld told AFL.com.au's Footy Feed.

"We haven't made any decisions just yet, but with the bye we've got an opportunity to spread out round 23 through until Monday night and then commence the finals on the following Thursday night," he said.

A Thursday night final would likely mean prime-time games would follow on the Friday and Saturday nights.

Under the scenario, the last of the weekend's four matches would likely be played on Sunday afternoon at 3.20pm as the only day game in the first week of finals.

It follows the success of the Thursday night timeslot, which culminated with a blockbuster crowd for the Sydney Swans-Hawthorn thriller last week.

"It's been a massive success," Auld said.

"That's the highest crowd that the Swans have had at the SCG, I think for 20 years now, and [the game] rated about 1.2 million viewers.

"They've been a real success story, we've had five of them his year, and they're continuing to grow.

The AFL is dubbing the weekend off a 'celebration of football' with a legends game and women's match to be played in prime time on the Friday and Saturday nights.

The League hopes state leagues, local and country competitions can take advantage of the footy free weekend to showcase the code at a grassroots level.