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 kicking the oval ball between the central goal posts, or between a central and outer post.
The Seven Network is a major Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by Seven West Media Limited, and is one of five main free-to-air television networks in Australia. The network's headquarters are located in Sydney.
Garry Peter Lyon is a former professional Australian rules football player and was captain of the Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Since his retirement from football, he has been mainly an Australian rules football media personality, featuring on television, radio and in newspapers. He has also coached during the International Rules Series. He is the most recent VFL/AFL player to kick ten goals in a finals match, having done so in the 1994 Second Semi-Final against Footscray, and the first since Geelong's George Goninon in 1951, 43 years prior.
Auskick is a program designed to teach the basic skills of Australian football to boys and girls aged between 5 and 12. Auskick is a non-contact variant of the sport. It began in Australia and is now a nationwide non-selective program. It has increased participation and diversity in the sport amongst children, and is now being run in many countries across the world.
The Geography of Australian rules football describes the sport of Australian rules football played in more than 60 countries around the world. By 2017 more than 26 nations had contested the Australian Football International Cup, the highest level of worldwide competition.
The AFL Grand Final is an Australian rules football match to determine the premiers for the Australian Football League (AFL) season. From its inception until 1989, it was known as the VFL Grand Final, as the league at that time was the Victorian Football League. Played at the end of the finals series, the game has been held annually since 1898, except in 1924. It is traditionally staged on the afternoon of the last Saturday in September, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. As the premier match of the AFL season, it attracts one of the largest audiences in Australian sport and is always sold-out attracting a capacity crowd of up to 100,000.
Fox Footy is an Australian rules football subscription television channel dedicated to screening Australian rules football matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited, operated out of their Melbourne based studios and available throughout Australia on Foxtel, and Optus Television. The channel is a revival of the former Fox Footy Channel, which was in operation between 2002 and 2006. The channel recommenced prior to the 2012 AFL season after a new broadcast agreement was reached between the former Premier Media Group, Austar, Foxtel and the Australian Football League (AFL).
Australian rules football in Canada is played in seven provinces - Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The Ontario league, centred on Toronto is a nine-team league, including sides from cities as far afield as Guelph, Hamilton and Ottawa. In western Canada, there are clubs in Edmonton, Calgary and a six-team league in the Vancouver area. There is also a number of junior and women's clubs across Canada.
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent and only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition from the Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season in 1897. It changed its name to Australian Football League in 1990 after expanding its competition to other Australian states in the 1980s. The AFL publishes its Laws of Australian football, which are used, with variations, by other Australian football organisations.
Australian rules football is the most watched and attended sport and the second most participated code of football in Australia. Since originating in Victoria 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.
Australian rules football in Oceania is the sport of Australian rules football as it is watched and played in the Oceanian continent. The regional governing and development body is AFL South Pacific it is affiliated to the AFL Commission and was formed in 2008.
Variations of Australian rules football are games or activities based on or similar to the game of Australian rules football, in which the player uses common Australian rules football skills. They range in player numbers from 2 up to the minimum 38 required for a full Australian rules football.
AFL Game Day was an Australian television program broadcast on the Seven Network in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania and on 7mate in all other states. In Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania it aired following Weekend Sunrise.
American Football League (AFL) on ABC is a television program that broadcast professional football games of the then fledgling American Football League on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), then itself a less established player in American network television. ABC broadcast AFL games from the league's first season in 1960 until the 1964 season, when NBC took over as the league's primary network television broadcaster.
Eureka Stadium, known commercially as Mars Stadium, is an oval-shaped sports stadium located in the Eureka Sports Precinct of Wendouree, 2.9 km (1.8 mi) north of the CBD of the city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
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, 14 teams in 2020 and 18 teams in 2022. The league is run by the Australian Football League (AFL) and is contested by each of the clubs from that competition. The reigning premiers are Melbourne.
Since the 1960s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. When the rival American Football League (AFL) began in 1960, it signed a 5-year television contract with ABC. This became the first ever cooperative television plan for professional football, through which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs. ABC and the AFL also introduced moving, on-field cameras, and were the first to have players "miked" during broadcast games. As the AFL also had players' names stitched on their jerseys, it was easier for both TV viewers and people at the games to tell who was who.
The 2020 AFL season was the 124th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eighteen clubs.
