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The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent 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.
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence.
The AFL then began work to establish a club on the Gold Coast as a new expansion team; the Gold Coast Suns were established, and they joined the AFL in 2011 as the 17th team; they finished last on the ladder. The same year, Collingwood played Geelong in the 2011 grand final. Collingwood had only lost to one team all year, Geelong, and now faced ...
The NFL consistently outdrew the AFL at the gate, especially in the AFL's first few seasons, thus ensuring that the older league's franchises remained considerably more lucrative enterprises compared to their AFL rivals. Nevertheless, NFL owners knew they did not have unlimited resources to wage a protracted bidding war with the AFL.
The AFL also hope to develop the game in other countries to the point where Australian football is played at an international level by top-quality sides from around the world. The AFL has hosted an International Cup regularly every three years, beginning in 2002, with the third game in 2008 corresponding to the 150th anniversary of the code. [167]
After an inaugural season that saw the Bills finish 5–8–1 (third in the four-team AFL East Division), the Bills gained four of the first five picks in the 1961 AFL draft, including the top slot, which they used to draft offensive tackle Ken Rice. They also drafted guard Billy Shaw in the same draft. Success did not come overnight.
The plaque reads that Wills "did more than any other person – as a footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game – to develop Australian football during its first decade." [1] The origins of Australian rules football date back to the late 1850s in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.
AFL Premiership matches are now regularly played in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Cairns. The AFL began matches in Townsville along with AFLW matches in Moreton Bay, Mackay in the 2010s and the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich in the 2020s. Combined average AFL club membership, television audience and attendance, while growing, is the smallest of any ...