Grand Final Sprint

AFL Grand Final

Part of the pre-match entertainment at the 2006 AFL Grand Final. Giant banners were unfurled featuring the colours and emblems of (then) all 16 AFL clubs.
Locale	Melbourne, Victoria
First meeting	24 September 1898
Latest meeting	30 September 2017
Next meeting	29 September 2018
Broadcasters	Seven Network (1977–1986; 1988–2001; 2008; 2010; 2012–present) Network Ten (2002–2007; 2009; 2011) SportsPlay (1987) ABC (1987)
Stadiums	Melbourne Cricket Ground (1902–1941; 1946–1990; 1992–present) Waverley Park (1991) Princes Park (1942–1943; 1945) Junction Oval (1898–1899; 1944) Lake Oval (1901) East Melbourne (1900)
Statistics
Meetings total	121
Most wins	Carlton (16)
Largest victory	Geelong 24.19.163 def Port Adelaide 6.8.44, 2007

The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September or the first Saturday in October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, to determine the Australian Football League (AFL) premiers for that year. The game has become significant to Australian culture, spawning a number of traditions and surrounding activities which have grown in popularity since the interstate expansion of the Victorian Football League in the 1980s and the subsequent creation of the national AFL competition in the 1990s. The 2006 Sweeney Sports Report concluded that the AFL Grand Final has become Australia's most important sporting event, with the largest attendance, metropolitan television audience and overall interest of any annual Australian sporting event.

The winning club of the grand final receives the AFL's premiership cup and the premiership flag. All players in the winning team receive a gold premiership medallion.

Every club has played in the grand final, with the exception of the two recent expansion clubs, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, and two former clubs, the short-lived University and Brisbane Bears.

The concept of a "grand" final gradually evolved from experimentation by the Victorian Football League (VFL) in the initial years of competition following its inception in 1897. During the 19th century, Australian football competition adopted the approach that the team on top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away series was declared the premiers. However, the fledgling VFL decided that a finals series played between the top four teams at the end of the season would generate more interest and gate money. For 1897, the VFL scheduled a round robin tournament whereby the top four played each other once and the team that won the most matches was declared the winner.

However, this method had flaws, so the VFL continued to experiment, playing "section" matches after the regular season and then a finals series where first on the ladder played the third team and second met fourth. The winners of these "semi" finals then met in a final to decide the premiership. The first such final was contested in 1898 between the Essendon Football Club and Fitzroy Football Club at the St Kilda Cricket Ground, which Fitzroy won scoring 5.8 (38) to Essendon's 3.5 (23).