The Australian Football League (AFL) is the elite Australian national competition in the sport of Australian Rules Football. The organisation that runs the league has become the de facto world governing body for the sport.

The AFL is the most attended professional sporting league in Australia: it is the most popular sport competition in terms of attendances and TV ratings of the nation. The previous three AFL Premiership Seasons have had a total regular season attendance of over six million (currently the 10th most attended professional sports league in the world) and the average attendance of over 36,000 (the second highest of any professional sports league in the world).

The AFL evolved from the Victorian domestic competition, known at the Victorian Football League (VFL), and retains much of its history and tradition. Over the past 25 years it has grown into a national competition with teams based in five of the six Australian states, although ten of the sixteen clubs are still based in Victoria. Since the move toward a national competition, the AFL has gained considerable media and financial strength. The expansion of the AFL in the 1980s effectively ended 70-year-long battle for supremacy with its rival leagues, the SANFL, the WAFL and VFA and since this time, some of these leagues and clubs have either sought or subsequently been granted licences to compete in the AFL and formed affiliations with the AFL to field its reserves sides and developmental players.

The 16 teams play against each other in 22 rounds between late March and early September in a non-divisional format. These matches are followed by a series of finals matches which culminate in the two best teams playing off for the Premiership in the AFL Grand Final, the best attended domestic club championship event in the world .