The depression of 1893–95 caused attendance at games to decline, and the VFA proposed a revenue-sharing scheme to assist struggling clubs. Leading clubs, which wanted more control over the game, opposed the scheme. In 1896 those eight leading clubs—Melbourne, Essendon, Geelong, Collingwood, South Melbourne, Fitzroy, Carlton, and St Kilda—came together to form the Victorian Football League (VFL). The VFL allowed open payment of players and reduced the number of competitors on the field from 20 per side to 18. With economic improvement, VFL clubs were able to pay most players by 1899. A national body, the Australasian Football Council, was formed in 1906 to regulate interstate player movement and develop contests on the national level, though it remained under the auspices of the VFL. As the council’s name suggests, efforts to keep the game alive in New Zealand were part of its mission.

While the VFL moved into the 20th century as the leading competition, the VFA remained nearly as strong into the 1920s. In 1925 the VFL added VFA clubs Footscray, Hawthorn, and North Melbourne, giving the league 12 teams.

After the South Melbourne club relocated to Sydney (in New South Wales) in 1982, the VFL sought further national expansion, founding teams in Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. In 1990 the VFL changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) to reflect its new national focus. In 2005 the AFL comprised 16 teams: the Adelaide (South Australia) Crows, Brisbane (Queensland) Lions, Carlton Blues, Collingwood Magpies, Essendon Bombers, Fremantle (Western Australia) Dockers, Geelong Cats, Hawthorn Hawks, (North Melbourne) Kangaroos, Melbourne Demons, Port Adelaide (South Australia) Power, Richmond Tigers, St Kilda Saints, Sydney Swans, West Coast (Perth, Western Australia) Eagles, and Western (Footscray) Bulldogs.

National expansion has not been easy, with large interstate clubs seen by Melbournians as a threat to their clubs and supporters of interstate teams arguing that the league is still too focused on Melbourne. Despite these problems, Australian rules football is the most popular spectator sport in Australia, and, with championships having been won by West Coast, Adelaide, and Brisbane by 2001, the AFL began the millennium its strongest ever. Australian rules football is also being played in leagues as far afield as Denmark, England, the Netherlands, and the United States, and AFL preseason matches have been played in Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Football and its fans

Australian rules football is woven deeply into the fabric of Australian society, particularly outside the rugby zones in New South Wales and Queensland. Until 1983 competitions remained state-based, with clubs largely forming in suburban areas that matched parliamentary electorates. Unlike American professional sports franchises, AFL teams are (and always have been) membership-based clubs rather than private franchises, which means that members control their club. When clubs have been threatened with mergers, as Footscray and Hawthorn were in 1989 and 1995, respectively, members were able to save their clubs from amalgamation. A brief flirtation with private ownership in the 1980s failed. In 1995, in order to prevent hostile takeovers, which had occurred in rugby league that year, the AFL amended its constitution to ban any one interest from controlling more than 5 percent of a club.

Early VFL teams developed loyal fans, known as “barrackers,” many of whom were club members. Unique among football sports, Australian football has always had a large number of female supporters who attend matches, and by 1900 women formed one-third or more of audiences. By the 1930s each team had theme songs, some derived from popular American tunes.

The league’s championship, known as the Grand Final, began in 1898 and starting in 1904 was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). It became, after the Melbourne Cup horse race, the most significant sporting and cultural event on Victoria’s annual calendar. The league’s popularity continued to rise, particularly with the advent of radio broadcasts of matches in 1925. Live broadcasts of Grand Finals began only in 1946, owing to reluctance of the cricket officials, who controlled the MCG, to allow them. After World War II, radio coverage expanded, and match attendance also boomed as nearly all workers had Saturday afternoons free by 1946. With the arrival of television coverage in 1957, radio stations intensified their coverage in order to compete. Seven stations covered matches that season. For many years television coverage was allowed for only the final quarter of a game or on delay.

In 1957 a record 2.5 million fans attended VFL matches (Melbourne’s population at the time was only 1.7 million), and 100,324 fans attended the Grand Final between Melbourne and Essendon. Final attendance peaked in 1970, when 121,696 fans showed up at the MCG to see Carlton defeat Collingwood. Concerns over the Melbourne Cricket Club’s control of the main stadium, the MCG, however, had led the VFL to buy land for its own ground in 1962. The league built a 70,000-seat stadium (an original plan called for 157,000 seats) in central Melbourne, which opened as VFL Park in 1970. The stadium proved unpopular with fans and was abandoned by 2001 for a new inner-city stadium. While most teams played at their own grounds before the mid-1960s, between 1965 and 2001 a process of stadium rationalization took place, with all games in Melbourne eventually held at two stadiums, the MCG and the Telstra Dome.