Australian rules football is the most watched and attended sport and the second most participated code of

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

in Australia. Since originating in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

in 1858 and spreading elsewhere from 1866, it has been played continuously in every Australian state since 1903 plus the two major territories since 1916. The highest participation rates (players per capita) can be found in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

(5%),

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

(4.8%),

(4.3%),

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

(4.2%) and

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

(3.3%). Unlike other football codes which are strongest in urban areas, Australian rules football has the highest participation in regional and remote areas. Nationally this rate is 5.7% almost double that of any other code. It is also fast growing in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

and

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, though with participation rates of 1.3% and 1.1% respectively lags behind soccer and rugby league in overall interest. South Australia is the only state or territory where it is the most participated code of football. The national professional competitions are the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(men's) and

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, 1 ...

. The AFL governs the code nationally through the

AFL Commission The AFL Commission is the official governing body of the Australian Football League Limited (AFL), its subsidiaries and controlled entities. Richard Goyder has been chairman since 4 April 2017, replacing Mike Fitzpatrick. It was formed in 1985 ...

. The AFL originated in Victoria and changed its name in 1990 after a successful program of national expansion. While the AFL phased out state and territory representative matches as it expanded nationally (with the exception of occasional matches featuring

), players can still represent their states up to the age of 19 through the AFL Under 16 Championships and AFL Under 19 Championships or through their lower tier (semi-professional) state competitions. Australia competes internationally mainly against New Zealand. Australia's men's team is currently undefeated. The underage men's team competes annually against New Zealand as the AFL Academy. Australia has also in the past fielded amateur teams against South Africa, Papua New Guinea and the United States but remains undefeated. Sides representing

Indigenous Australia Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

have competed against Papua New Guinea and South Africa.

History

It began in the

Colony of Victoria In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

in 1858, followed by the

Colony of Queensland The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day State of Queensland, t ...

(1866) and

Colony of New South Wales The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New ...

(1866);

Colony of South Australia In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

(1877);

Colony of Tasmania The Colony of Tasmania (more commonly referred to simply as "Tasmania") was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealt ...

(1879); and,

Colony of Western Australia In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

(1881). The first intercolonial representative match was

Victoria vs South Australia (1879) The 1879 Victoria v South Australia involved a series of two matches with teams representing Victoria and South Australia. The matches were played in Victoria at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground The East Melbourne Cricket Ground was a grass o ...

. Delegates representing the football associations of South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland met in 1883 in order to standardise the rules across the colonies. The earliest governing body, the Australasian Football Council (later Australian National Football Council) dates back to this time. Following a hiatus in Queensland (1892-1903) and New South Wales (1893-1903) it was revived after the

Federation of Australia The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Western A ...

and expanded to the territories of the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

(1911) and the

(1916).

In Australian popular culture

The sport has had a significant impact on popular culture in its native

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, capturing the imagination of Australian film, art, music, television and literature.

Audience

Attendance

Football is the most highly attended spectator sport in Australia. Government figures show that more than 2.5 million people (16.8% of the population) attended games in 1999. In 2005, a cumulative 6,283,788 people attended

(AFL) premiership matches, a record for the competition. A further 307,181 attended

NAB Cup In the Australian Football League (AFL), previously the Victorian Football League (VFL), the pre-season competition, known during its history by a variety of sponsored names and most recently as the NAB Cup, was an annual Australian rules foot ...

pre-season matches and 117,552 attended Regional Challenge pre-season practice matches around the country. As of 2010, the AFL is one of only five professional sports leagues with an average attendance of over 30,000 per game. As well as the AFL attendances, strong semi-professional state and local competitions also draw crowds. The South Australian

SANFL The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport. Originally formed as the ...

drew an attendance in 2008 of 362,209 with an average of 3,773 per game, while the Western Australian WAFL drew an attendance of 219,205 with an average of 2,332 per game.

Television

According to

OzTAM OzTAM is an Australian audience measurement research firm that collects and markets television ratings data. It is jointly owned by the Seven Network, the Nine Network and Network Ten, and is the official source of television ratings data for al ...

, in recent years, the AFL Grand Final has reached the top five programs across the five biggest cities in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

and

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

. Australian rules football has achieved a #1 rating in the sports category in both

and

Participation

Ausplay Sports Report 2022 - Soccer, Australian Football
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Structure and competitions

The most powerful organisation and competition within the game is the elite

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

(AFL). The AFL is recognised by the

Australian Sports Commission The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) is the Australian Government commission responsible for supporting and investing in sport in Australia. The Commission incorporates the Australian Institute of Sport. From 2018 to 2022, it was known as Sp ...

as being the National Sporting Organisation for Australian rules football. There are also seven state/territory-based organisations in Australia, most of which are affiliated to the AFL. Most of these hold annual semi-professional club competitions while the others oversee more than one league. Local semi-professional or amateur organizations and competitions are affiliated to their state leagues.

National championships

Senior

The last senior national carnival was held in 1993 and the last match between interstate senior sides was held in 1999. Senior interstate competition is no longer contested by players from the Australian Football League. A one-off exhibition match featuring

and a "

dream team Dream Team may refer to: Sport Basketball * Dream Team, the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team in Barcelona * Dream Team II, the 1994 U.S. men's national basketball team at the FIBA World Championship * Dream Team III, the 1996 ...

". However, the state leagues continue to compete in inter-league matches.

Under 18

The AFL Under 18 Championships are the annual national

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

championships for players aged 18 years or younger and includes teams from each Australian state or Territory. The competition is monitored by AFL recruiters and frequently seen as the second biggest pathway for junior players to the fully professional

. The competition is currently sponsored by the

National Australia Bank National Australia Bank (abbreviated NAB, branded nab) is one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia (colloquially referred to as "The Big Four") in terms of market capitalisation, earnings and customers. NAB was ranked 21st-la ...

(NAB). The competition receives an increasing amount of coverage in the media, however still lags behind the TAC Cup in terms of interest in Victoria.

Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Rules Football in Australia