2016 AFL finals series

2016 premiership season
Date	8 September – 1 October 2016
Teams	8
Premiers	Western Bulldogs (2nd premiership)
Matches played	9
Attendance	558,343 (62,038 per match)
Highest attendance	99,981 (GF, Sydney vs Western Bulldogs)
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The 2016 Australian Football League finals series was the 120th annual edition of the VFL/AFL final series, the Australian rules football tournament staged to determine the winner of the 2016 AFL Premiership season. The series ran over four weekends in September and October 2016, culminating with the 2016 AFL Grand Final, between the Sydney Swans and the Western Bulldogs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 1 October 2016. The Western Bulldogs defeated the Sydney Swans by 22 points to end a 62-year premiership drought, becoming the first team in AFL history to win the premiership from seventh place. The match was played in October.

The top eight teams from the 2016 AFL Premiership season qualified for the finals series. AFL finals series have been played under the current format since 2000. The qualifying teams were Hawthorn, Sydney, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney, Adelaide, West Coast, Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne.

Reigning premiers Hawthorn and perennial finalists Sydney each qualified for their seventh straight finals appearance, the latter a club record. Two clubs that had reached the finals the previous year, but failed to qualify this year, were Fremantle and Richmond; Geelong returned to the finals after missing out the previous year, while Greater Western Sydney contested its first finals series since entering the AFL in 2012.

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