Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a

sports league A sports league is a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other and gain points in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on wee ...

's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a

championship game In sport, a championship is a Competition#Sports, competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match sy ...

in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of

Australian culture The culture of Australia is primarily a Western culture, originally derived from Britain but also influenced by the unique geography of Australia and the cultural input of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and other Australian people. The Bri ...

. The earliest leagues to feature a grand final were in

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 ...

, followed soon after by

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

. Currently the largest grand finals are in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional sports, 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 ...

(AFL) and

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

(NRL). Their popularity influenced other competitions such as

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

A-League Men A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competi ...

and

A-League Women A-League Women (known as the Liberty A-League for sponsorship reasons), formerly the W-League, is the top-division women's soccer league in Australia. The W-League was established in 2008 by Football Australia (then known as Football Federati ...

, the National Basketball League,

Suncorp Super Netball Suncorp Super Netball is the top level netball league featuring teams from Australia. In 2017 it replaced the ANZ Championship, which also included teams from New Zealand, as the top level netball league in Australia. Since 2019, the league has ...

and European rugby league's

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of w ...

to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.

History

The

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 *Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature *Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 1066 ...

term "grand" to describe a sporting event, documented in England as "grand match" in 1836,Oxford English Dictionary 2nd. ed, grand (9A) was used in Australia from the 1850s. A

steeplechase Steeplechase may refer to: * Steeplechase (horse racing), a type of horse race in which participants are required to jump over obstacles * Steeplechase (athletics), an event in athletics that derives its name from the steeplechase in horse racing ...

in England has been called the "

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...

Steeple Chase" ("Grand National" alone for short) since at least 1839. Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between

Melbourne Grammar School (Pray and Work) , established = 1849 (on present site since 1858 - the celebrated date of foundation) , type = Independent, co-educational primary, single-sex boys secondary, day and boarding , denomination ...

and Scotch College on 7 August 1858 at

Yarra Park, Melbourne Yarra Park (35.469 hectares) is part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct, the premier sporting precinct of Victoria, Australia. Located in Yarra Park is the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and numerous sporting fields and ovals, in ...

(formerly Richmond Park). The game was advertised as the "grand football match" in the Melbourne Morning Herald and several other local newspapers. In 1859, a "grand football match" was advertised in

Richmond, Tasmania Richmond is a town in Tasmania about 25 km north-east of Hobart, in the Coal River region, between the Midland Highway and Tasman Highway. At the , Richmond had a population of 880. Richmond's most famous landmark is the Richmond Bridge, ...

for

St Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...

on Friday 18 March. In '' The Argus'' of 1861, the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne invited clubs to compete in a "grand football-match" which was to be football's first ever trophy, the Caledonian Challenge Cup, however the match did not proceed until the following year. The earliest known event described as "grand" in Sydney was a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

match in 1862. In the 1871 South Yarra Challenge Cup, Carlton and Melbourne drew their three matches, but both clubs had won their remaining matches against the other clubs, Albert Park and South Yarra, meaning the Challenge Cup's only tiebreaker, head-to-head record, was unable to separate them. Both teams' captains and the Cup organisers subsequently arranged a "grand match" (as advertised in ''The Argus'') at the Lake Oval to decide the premiership on October 7, a week after the season had finished: Carlton won the match by two goals to nil. Initially, a football premiership final appeared to be called a "grand final" only when the losers of a final were the minor premiers and they exercised the "right to challenge" the winners to a second premiership decider.

South Australian Football Association

Prior to 1889, the South Australian Football Association (SAFA, now SANFL) was awarded to the team that finished top of the end-of-season ladder placings. In 1889, Norwood and

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide city centre, Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is t ...

finished equal first with 14 wins and one draw, meaning a play-off was required to determine the premiership. In promoting the play-off, the local press referred to it as a "premiership match". This was played on October 5, and Norwood won the match 7.4 to 5.9. In 1894, Norwood and

South Adelaide The South Adelaide Football Club is an Australian rules football club that competes in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Known as the ''Panthers'', their home ground is Flinders University Stadium

Victorian Football Association

VFA_Grand_Final_1896_between_Collingwood_vs_South_Melbourne_at_East_Melbourne_Cricket_Ground_Weekly_Times_10_October_1896

In the Victorian Football Association, which was Victoria's top level of senior football from 1877 until 1896, the premiership was typically awarded solely on the basis of the rostered premiership matches (known today as the home-and-away season). However, the VFA's rules stipulated that where two or more teams finished equal on premiership points, a playoff match or matches would be scheduled amongst those teams to decide the premiership. This was required in

1896 Events January–March * January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers. * January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state. * January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that ...

, when and finished level on top of the ladder with records of 14 wins and one draw. The

playoff match The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

between them, which is retrospectively treated as Victoria's first Grand Final (it was actually the first match referred to as such), saw Collingwood defeat South Melbourne by 6.9 – 5.10 to win the club's first ever premiership. While there had been one previous premiership playoff match during this time in the VFA, between and in

1878 Events January–March * January 5 – Russo-Turkish War – Battle of Shipka Pass IV: Russian and Bulgarian forces defeat the Ottoman Empire. * January 9 – Umberto I becomes King of Italy. * January 17 – Bat ...

, this match did not break a tie at the top of the ladder, as Geelong had a superior win–loss record to Melbourne: the match was organized to resolve a dispute between the two clubs.

Victorian Football League and Australian Football League

In 1897, when eight teams broke away from the VFA to form the VFL, the concept of finals football was high on the agenda, with teams buoyed by the success and attendance from the 1896 Grand Final. Over the following ten years, all top-level Australian football leagues adopted a finals structure. In 1931, the VFL adopted a system, the

Page–McIntyre system The McIntyre System, or systems as there have been five of them, is a playoff system that gives an advantage to teams or competitors qualifying higher. The systems were developed by Ken McIntyre, an Australian lawyer, historian and English lect ...

, which ensured a Grand Final, and the concept became entrenched.

New South Wales Rugby Football League

The

New South Wales Rugby Football League The New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and is a member of the Australian Rugby League Commission. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was ...

(NSWRFL) experimented with a finals system in 1908, its inaugural year, but abandoned it the following season. Finals were reintroduced in 1926, and the premiership decider appeared to only be called a "grand final" if it involved the minor premiers. By the 1930s, the NSWRFL adopted the term "grand final" to describe the premiership decider. Up until 1954 a 'grand final' match was only held if the minor premiers were beaten. The adoption of the VFL's Page–McIntyre system for the

1954 NSWRFL season The 1954 NSWRFL season was the forty-seventh season of the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership competition, based in Sydney. Ten rugby league football teams from across the city competed for the J. J. Giltinan Shield during the se ...

meant for the first time grand finals would become necessary every season, so the term grand final has become used to describe all premiership deciders. The tradition is maintained by the present-day NRL

Europe

The term "Grand Final" was introduced to Europe in 1995 in a completely different sport—golf. In that year, the

Challenge Tour The Challenge Tour is the second-tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European Tour and, as with on the main European Tour and the European Senior Tour, some of the events are played outside Europe. History T ...

, the official developmental tour for the

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fi ...

, launched its season-ending

Challenge Tour Grand Final The Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final is the season-ending tour championship on the Challenge Tour. The field currently consists of the top 45 players on the Challenge Tour rankings vying for fifteen European Tour cards. It has been played annually ...

. British rugby league would adopt the term in 1998, two years after the start of

. The

Super League Grand Final The Super League Grand Final is the championship-deciding game of rugby league's Super League competition. It is played between two teams who have qualified via the Super League Play-Off series. The winning team receives the Super League Trop ...

has now become an accepted part of the British scene, and the term 'grand final' is used to describe the final of leagues below Super League as well, such as the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

, Championship 1 and the

Conference A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...

. Prior to this, a ''Championship Final'' was introduced to determine the winner of the British

Rugby Football League Championship The Rugby Football League Championship First Division was the top division of rugby league in England between 1895 and 1996, when it was replaced by the Super League. History 1895–1904: Foundations The first season of rugby league (189 ...

in 1904, though it only became a regular fixture from 1906 onwards. In 1973, the competition format was changed so that the championship was won by the team finishing top of the league table, with an end of season knock-out competition for the top teams that became known as the '' Premiership'' being created. Starting in 2009–10, the

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

competition historically known as the

Celtic League The Celtic League is a pan-Celtic organisation, founded in 1961, that aims to promote modern Celtic identity and culture in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man – referred to as the Celtic nations; it places part ...

, at the time involving teams from Ireland,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, introduced a playoff system to determine its champion. (Although the league conducted a knockout competition in its early years, it was a parallel cup competition instead of a championship tournament.) The final match was branded as a grand final. This usage continued for the 2010–11 season, the first that included teams from Italy. Starting with the 2011–12 season, the league's first as Pro12, the "Grand Final" terminology was scrapped; the final match of the competition now known as the United Rugby Championship is simply called the "Final".

Philippines

In the Philippines, the term "grand finals" (pluralized) usually refer to a final of TV series competition. Notable series that had a "grand finals" are ''

The Voice of the Philippines ''The Voice of the Philippines'' is a Philippine reality television singing competition on ABS-CBN. It is based on the reality singing competition ''The Voice of Holland'', which was originally created by Dutch television producer John de Mol ...

'' and ''

Idol Philippines ''Idol Philippines'' (known as ''Search for the Idol Philippines'' in the first season or better known as ''Philippine Ido''l) is a Philippine reality singing television competition broadcast by Kapamilya Channel, A2Z, and TV5. As part of t ...

''. It was used as early as 1994 for the ''

Battle of the Brains Battle of the Brains is a quizbowl show in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas of Virginia. It currently airs on WTVR in the Richmond area, and WTKR in Hampton Roads. The current show began in Richmond in 1975, and it originally aired on a lo ...

'' quiz show.

List of current notable competitions with grand finals

Sport

Grand Finals in television

The Grand Finals are also adopted in numerous

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1 ...

and even

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...

s. In reality television, a number of selected finalists after surviving a pre-determined number of elimination rounds moved on to compete in the finals. Some shows, such as the earlier seasons of ''The Voice (franchise), The Voice'' (notably the first two The Voice (American TV series), American seasons) and ''Project SuperStar'', adopted a group-type format with an equal number of finalists from each group eliminated and advancing each show until one such finalist remain, at this point these finalists compete head-to-head for the champion. Taiwanese show ''One Million Star'' (and its sequel successor ''Chinese Million Star'') uses a cumulative point system and the scores are progressively added until at one point the contestant with a lower score is eliminated; in the final round, these scores are converted as a percent weightage and the champion is decided based on the weighed scores. In game shows, notably ''Jeopardy!'' (such as ''Tournament of Champions'' and ''Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time, The Greatest of All Time''), these finalists compete in a Two-legged tie, two-legged round, based on the combined scores from both games, to determine the winner. From 1996 to 1998, ''Wheel of Fortune (American game show), Wheel of Fortune'' have a ''Friday Finals'' system where the three top-scoring contestants from the first four episodes that week returned again on a Friday for one more game; the winner in that episode will play for an extra prize package (in addition to the current prize the contestant chose) during the bonus round.

Grand final replays

A grand final replay is a method of deciding the winner of a competition when a grand final is drawn by replaying the entire match the following week, rather than playing Overtime (sports), overtime or extra time on the same day. It is commonly used in

and most notably in the

, where it has been used three times, most recently in 2010 AFL Grand Final, 2010, however the AFL decided that replays will no longer decide grand finals that end as a draw, rather replacing it with extra time.

Grand final breakfast

Most sports leagues in Australia have a grand final breakfast to mark the beginning to grand final day. It is a social highlight on the Australian sporting calendar. Watching the event is a ritual for many footy fans and the function plays a huge role in the pre match build up for the grand final. The North Melbourne Football Club host the North Melbourne Grand Final Breakfast and the

host the NRL Grand Final Breakfast at Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour normally.

Footnotes

* Ross, J. (ed), ''100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported'', Viking, (Ringwood), 1996.

References

External links

FullPointsFooty – The First Grand Final
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060511185304/http://www.rl1908.com/clubcomps/grand-final.htm , date=11 May 2006 Grand finals, Australian rules football Rugby league terminology Sports terminology Championships, *