- published: 04 Oct 2015
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The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League (AFL) premiership champions 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 VFL 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 winner of the Grand Final is presented with the AFL Premiership Cup and the Premiership Flag.
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 nineteenth century, Australian football competition adopted the approach used by the Football Association in England – that is, the team on top of the table (or "ladder" in the Australian vernacular) 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.
Grand Final is a predominantly Australian sport term used to describe a match that decides a league champion, sysnonymous with North America's championship game. It originated in Victoria and South Australia and has become specifically significant Australian culture. Notable competitions which play a Grand Final include the Australian Football League (AFL Grand Final), the National Rugby League (NRL Grand Final), Europe's Super League, the A-League, the Women's National Basketball League, the ANZ Netball Championship.
The use of the Anglo-Norman term "grand" to describe a sporting event in Australia dates back to the 1850s. Its use may have been borrowed from the term "Grand Finale" which was used in Europe for centuries to describe the last and most exciting part of a play, opera, or other entertainment.
Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College on August 7, 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne (formerly Richmond Park). The game was advertised as the "grand football match" in the Melbourne Morning Herald and several other local newspapers.