2025 AFL season

The 2025 AFL season is the upcoming 129th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest-level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season will feature 18 clubs and run from 6 March to 27 September.^[1]

In September 2022, the AFL announced a seven-year, $4.5 billion broadcast rights deal with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra, the biggest sports broadcast rights deal in Australian history, effective from the 2025 season.^[2] Key points of the deal included:

• Seven and its streaming service 7plus would broadcast Thursday night, Friday night, Sunday afternoon and all marquee matches, with the first 16^[a] rounds of the home-and-away season featuring Thursday night matches.^[3]
• Foxtel and its streaming service Kayo would broadcast every match of the season outside of the grand final,^[3] and would utilise its own commentary teams and graphics for all matches for the first time;^[5] another Foxtel streaming service, Binge, would also simulcast some matches and include other Foxtel football programs.^[6]
• All Saturday matches outside of marquee matches would be exclusive to Foxtel and Kayo for the first eight rounds of the season, while all Saturday night matches in the last eight rounds of the season would be exclusive to Seven.^[3]
• Seven would broadcast matches involving non-Victorian clubs live into their local markets, outside of select matches on delay.^[3]

Ahead of the season's fixture release in November 2024, the AFL further elaborated that the season would feature Thursday night matches in 23 of the 25 rounds, with each of the first 16 rounds plus seven other rounds, as part of a floating fixture to be determined later in the season, having matches on Thursday nights.^[4] The following day, the AFL announced the addition on Sunday night matches as a semi-regular fixture in 2025, with nine of the first 16 rounds featuring a Sunday night match.^[7] North Melbourne also announced that it would play two of its home matches each season in Western Australia from 2025 to 2027,^[b] as part of a deal with the AFL, Tourism Western Australia and the Western Australian government to provide financial security to the club, as well as its strategy to exit its existing deal to play home matches in Tasmania, where it had played at least two per season since 2012; in 2025, the club will play its Western Australia home matches consecutively, in rounds 13 and 14, and two matches in Tasmania as part of the final year of the club's deal with the state.^[8] In the same month, Adelaide^[9] and St Kilda unveiled new club logos,^[10] while Gold Coast unveiled a new logo and playing guernseys as part of a complete rebrand of the club.^[11]

The season will begin on 6 March with a match between reigning premiers the Brisbane Lions and Geelong, during which the Lions will unfurl their 2024 premiership flag.^[12] The match will be one of four played in Opening Round, an initiative introduced in 2024, where the New South Wales and Queensland clubs (Brisbane Lions, Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney and Sydney) would contest matches against four Victorian clubs (Geelong, Essendon, Collingwood and Hawthorn, respectively in 2025) to open the season; all eight clubs would then have a bye before round 5 so that all clubs would have played the same number of matches leading into Gather Round.^[13] The Western Bulldogs will host a match against Collingwood at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in round 2, its first home match at the venue since 2009, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of its entry into the VFL/AFL.^[14] In round 5, Gather Round, which will be played in South Australia for the third consecutive year, will feature matches in the Barossa Valley region for the first time, with two matches to be played at Barossa Park, a new $40 million recreational facility in Lyndoch, along with two matches at Norwood Oval and the other five at Adelaide Oval, including two separately ticketed matches on the Saturday.^[15] Hawthorn will also host a match to celebrate its 100-year anniversary in the VFL/AFL, against Richmond in round 8.^[16]

In round 11, during Sir Doug Nicholls Round, the Dreamtime at the 'G match between Essendon and Richmond was moved to the Friday night primetime slot for the first time, having traditionally been held on a Saturday night during the round;^[17] a double-header will be held the following day at Marvel Stadium, featuring several Sir Doug Nicholls Round activations in the Docklands precinct throughout the day.^[7]

All starting times are local time. Source: afl.com.au

The following table includes all home match attendance figures from the home-and-away season, excluding neutral matches (Gather Round).

The following table can be sorted from biggest winning margin to biggest losing margin for each round. If multiple matches in a round are decided by the same margin, these margins are sorted by percentage (i.e. the lowest-scoring winning team is ranked highest and the lowest-scoring losing team is ranked lowest). Home matches are in bold, neutral matches (Gather Round) are underlined and opponents are listed above the margins.

• 2025 AFL season at afl.com.au
• 2025 AFL season at Austadiums