AFL Team Rivalries

AFL team rivalries are matches in the Australian Football League which typically draw large crowds and interest regardless of both teams' positions on the ladder. The AFL encourages the building of such rivalries, as a method of increasing publicity for the league, to the point of designating one round each year as Rivalry Round where many of these match-ups are held on the one weekend. Whilst some rivalries, such as between teams from adjacent areas, are still strong, the designation of an entire round of fixtures as Rivalry Round is often criticised due to some arbitrary match-ups, or ignoring stronger, more recent rivalries.

With a 22 game season and 18 teams (16 teams from 1995 until 2010 with the introduction of the Gold Coast Football Club and the Greater Western Sydney Football Club in 2011 and 2012 respectively), the AFL fixtures are not equal with each team playing seven other teams twice and eight teams once. Choosing to play certain games twice, such as the local derbies and blockbusters (games between the Big 4 Victorian clubs of Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon and Richmond, are known as blockbuster games), results in a skewed fixture which is rarely evened out over time.