The Footy Show was an Australian sports and variety entertainment television program which aired on the Nine Network.
Under the show's initial format, which ran from 1994 to 2018, The Footy Show was variously hosted by Eddie McGuire, Billy Brownless, Sam Newman, Trevor Marmalade, Garry Lyon, James Brayshaw, Rebecca Maddern and Craig Hutchison, with changes to the line-up throughout, and won eight Logie Awards for Most Popular Sports Program.
[3][4] The Footy Show had its origins in 1993 when a special Grand Final edition of The Sunday Footy Show aired on the Thursday night before the AFL Grand Final (the name deriving from the diminutive form of the word football commonly used in Australian English).
The show was broadcast live from Melbourne with a large studio audience "warmed up" each week by MC and comedian Michael Pope.
Over the years, the show has also broadcast special live episodes from various locations, including Geelong, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, London (2001 and 2004) and Munich (2006).
In a bid to reinvigorate the show[citation needed] in 2009, Trevor Marmalade was cut from the program to make way for former footballers Shane Crawford and Billy Brownless.
In 2008, the AFL version of The Footy Show could be seen live into most New South Wales and Queensland TV markets via the Nine HD channel.
In 2018, on the last live episode for that year, Newman made a nine-minute farewell speech at the top of the show with no one else on set to the audience.