Australian rules football, also called Australian 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 kicking the oval ball between the central goal posts, or between a central and outer post.
Cricket Australia (CA), formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the 'Australian Board of Control for International Cricket'. It is incorporated as an Australian Public Company, limited by guarantee.
Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club based at the University of Melbourne. The club fields two teams, known as the "Blacks" and "Blues", who both compete in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) in the William Buck Premier Division.
The Victoria men’s cricket team is an Australian first-class men's cricket team based in Melbourne, Victoria. The men’s team, which first played in 1851, represents the state of Victoria in the Marsh Sheffield Shield first-class competition and the Marsh One Day Cup 50-over competition.
Football in Australia refers to numerous codes which each have major shares of the mainstream sports market, media, broadcasting, professional athletes, financial performance and grassroots participation: Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union and soccer. There are four pre-eminent professional football competitions played in Australia: the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League, Super Rugby and the A-League (soccer). By most measures, including attendance, television audience and media presence across the most states, Australian football is the most popular nationally. However, in the states of New South Wales and Queensland, rugby football is overall the most watched and receives the most media coverage, especially the Rugby League State of Origin contested between the two states referred to as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry". In recent times, there has been an increase in popularity in Australian football and corresponding decrease in popularity of Rugby union in New South Wales and Queensland. Soccer, while extending its lead in participation rate, particularly in the large cities, and improving its performance at the FIFA World Cup and at the FIFA Women's World Cup, continues to attract the overall lowest attendance, as well as media and public interest, of the four codes.
NRL Victoria is responsible for administering the game of rugby league in the Australian state of Victoria. Victoria is an Affiliated State of the overall Australian governing body the National Rugby League. The VRL commenced in 1952 and has been running each year since.
Women's Australian rules football, is the female-only form of Australian rules football, generally with some modification to the laws of the game.
Lacrosse in Australia is a minor sport, with a long and proud history dating back to 1876, with a small but dedicated community of participants and volunteers. The established centres for lacrosse are in the greater metropolitan areas of Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. In these cities there are organised weekend field lacrosse competitions for men and women at senior and junior levels, played over the winter months. In the off-season, there are informal box lacrosse and sofcrosse competitions, though the majority of players in Australia are mostly of the field lacrosse type. Some lacrosse is also played in Sydney, South East Queensland, Canberra, Ballarat and Bendigo, it is very much at the developmental level.
The state of Victoria, Australia, has a strong sporting culture and includes many popular sports.
Soccer is the most played outdoor club sport in Australia, and ranked in the top ten for television audience as of 2015. The national governing body of the sport is Football Australia (FA), which until 2019, organised the A-League Men, A-League Women, and still organises the Australia Cup, as well as the men's and women's national teams. The FA comprises nine state and territory member federations, which oversee the sport within their respective region.
Australian rules football is the most watched and second most participated code of football in Victoria. Australian rules football originated in Melbourne in the late 1850s and grew quickly to dominate the sport, which it continues to. Victoria has more than double the number of players of any other state in Australia accounting for approximately 42% of all Australian players in 2023 and continues to grow strongly. Soccer is the only football code that is more popular than Australian rules in Victoria, though it has made up much ground lost to soccer over previous decades. Today, they have a similar number of players. The sport is governed by AFL Victoria based in Melbourne. The national governing body, the AFL Commission is also based in Melbourne.
Australian rules football in Ireland began in 1999 when clubs were simultaneously formed in Dublin and Belfast, however awareness of Australian rules football dates back to the 20th century due to similarities with Gaelic football and the country subsequently became a source of players for professional leagues in Australia, particularly the Australian Football League (AFL) and later the AFL Women's (AFLW) through the Irish Experiment which is ongoing. It attracts a television audience, particularly the AFLW competition. There are two governing bodies, AFL Ireland and AFL Northern Ireland, with teams and competitions in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Galway.
Rugby Victoria, formerly the Victorian Rugby Union, is a member and founding union of Rugby Australia. Within the state of Victoria, it is the governing body for the sport of rugby union.
Baseball Victoria is the governing body of baseball within Victoria. Baseball Victoria is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation.
The Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association (VSDCA) is a turf cricket competition based in Melbourne, Australia. There are 32 clubs each fielding four teams plus an under 15 team in the annual J.G Craig shield competition, which is regarded as the premier competition for the future of Victorian cricket. There are four divisions. In first and second grade these divisions rotate annually to ensure every club plays each other at least once every three years. In third and fourth division these do not change and the two 'leagues' are South-East and North-West.
The 1877 Victorian Football Association season was the first in which the Australian rules football competition in Victoria was run under a properly constituted administrative body. The Association was formed with the view to governing the sport via a collective body, made up of delegates representing the clubs. It was the second such body to have been formed; the South Australian National Football League having been formed just 17 days prior to the VFA.
Rugby union has a long history in Australia, with the first club being formed in 1863 at Sydney University. Today it holds tier one status with World Rugby and has over 82,000 players nationwide.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created.
The history of sport in Australia dates back to the pre-colonial period of the country.
Cricket in Victoria, Australia, has a rich and storied history, deeply ingrained in the cultural fabric of the state. From iconic cricketing venues to grassroots clubs nurturing future stars, Victoria has made significant contributions to the sport both domestically and internationally.
Victoria 
