AFL expects northern clubs to earn their keep but familiar problems remain

The Guardian

05-03-2025

The answer was obvious but telling. As Andrew Dillon prepared for his second season as AFL chief executive, he was asked by a reporter who he thought would win the premiership this year, as he launched the 2025 season in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Monday. 'I think it's hard to go past the two teams in Sydney,' the trained lawyer said.
Brisbane won last year's premiership, perfectly complementing the AFL's national growth strategy. The northern clubs have been given a leg up by hosting opening round matches – despite Tropical Cyclone Alfred's interruption this year – and hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested into programs in non-traditional markets. Yet as the most recent two expansion sides enter their adolescence in 2025, it's starting to sound like Dillon wants them to earn their keep.
'We want to grow our crowds to over 10 million [within three years], we want to grow our participation from 600,000 to a million by 2033, so we've got a lot of work to do,' Dillon said this week, reiterating that AFL in NSW and Queensland is – rather than matches in New Zealand, China or, heaven forbid, Las Vegas – the league's focus.
Gold Coast are expected to compete for their first finals berth this season, as observers closely monitor what a successful Suns side can do for the long-derided franchise. But Greater Western Sydney – as 2019 grand finalists and the team which should have knocked out the Lions in last year's finals series – have long been competitive. Yet western Sydney, the home of one-tenth of Australia's entire population, remains largely foreign territory for the native game.
The capitulation by the Giants against the Lions last September, after they lead by as much as 44 points before losing in the final minutes, was made worse by the empty seats at Engie Stadium behind the goalposts laid siege by Joe Daniher. The Giants are expected to sell out this year's opening round clash at Engie Stadium against major drawcards Collingwood, as they did last year, but their fate in 2025 – already 17 years after the AFL decided to push into rugby league heartland and as head office doubles down on local growth – serves as one pivotal moment among many for the national game in 2025.
The illicit drugs policy remains in negotiation between the league and the AFL Players Association after the scandals of last year. Performance-enhancing drugs have emerged as an issue too, after an Auditor-General report into Sport Integrity Australia's management of the National Anti-Doping Scheme was released on Monday. It stated the AFL provided a list of 51 'target athletes' for drug testing, 'that did not include information on the reason', and also criticised the AFL for not having plans to test AFL players out of competition or in pre-season.
Integrity concerns have been heightened by the growing normalisation of betting, as the AFL seeks to have gambling companies pay for a system to improve oversight and address the kind of bet-fixing that was alleged last year in the A-League Men and is still working its way through the courts.
Class actions around both racism and concussion remain on foot, and this week St Kilda great Nicky Winmar added his name to the suit alleging the AFL failed to protect players from racist abuse. There are also outstanding issues outside the courtroom on how the game deals with head injuries. Oversight of the AFL-supported brain injury initiative remains in limbo three years after it was announced, and 12 months after the Shane Tuck inquest concluded the league is yet to progress a recommendation to consider guidelines that limit the number of contact training sessions.
On the field, players will be judged harshly on homophobia as the game still grapples with outdated views. No male player has come out as gay in AFL history, and head office issued a succession of suspensions for homophobic slurs last year in a blunt attempt to bring about cultural change, including a three-week ban for Port Adelaide's Jeremy Finlayson and a five-match sanction for Gold Coast's Wil Powell.
The slow growth of the AFLW remains a headache for officials, and the league appears committed to a late winter/spring women's season for the foreseeable future. Yet Adelaide star Ebony Marinoff has recently called on the league to bring AFLW forward to the start of the year, and help female players harness the footy enthusiasm earlier in a season that by December struggles to keep many fans engaged.
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The AFL has said it plans to use scheduling, marketing, and the match-day experience to drive attendance at women's matches this year as it chases a double-digit percentage increase in AFLW crowds, which currently average less than 3,000.
This year will also provide an early indication about the impact of the new broadcast agreement, which has scrapped Saturday live matches on free-to-air in Victoria and Tasmania. Responding to the backlash this week Dillon highlighted that, although Saturdays were largely behind a paywall, there will be more Thursday night football on Seven than before. 'The amount of games on free-to-air nationally this year will be exactly the same as what it's always been, but what we have done is listen to the fans,' Dillon said.
One outcome of that decision – apart from an increase in Kayo sign-ups – might be that more fans are compelled to get to games on Saturdays, helping Dillon's organisation reach its annual attendance goal of 10m. An alternative is the breaking of weekend traditions in the AFL heartlands leaves a giant scar on the game's long-term health, that even the best efforts in Campbelltown and Carrara cannot heal.