Emma Kearney isn't sure she'll get much sleep on Friday night but says that won't matter if her Melbourne Stars can clinch a place in the Women's Big Bash League finals.

With only eight teams taking part in the upcoming AFLW season, many footy fans are going to have to pick a new team to support. But don't panic - we're here to help. By answering a few brief questions, you can find out just who to back in the 2017 season.

It's a brave new world for the AFL, but it's likely to start in a very old-fashioned way.

Former Canberra Capital Jess Bibby is the "wise, old head" that's played two games.

A midfielder nicknamed "Juddy" has been appointed captain of Fremantle for their inaugural AFLW season, with Kara Donnellan handed the responsibility of spearheading the franchise's premiership hopes.

Fairfax Media's top 10 people of the football year aren't necessarily the most popular, or the most successful, but each left a sizeable imprint on the game's landscape in the past 12 months.

Three of the greatest players of their generations will be part of The Age's footy coverage in 2017.

The Outer Sanctum, the unconventional footy podcast that broke one of the biggest stories in the game this year, has struck a partnership with The Age for the historic first AFL Women's season. 

Fox Sports announced on Monday that experienced and revered sports broadcaster Kelli Underwood would spearhead its commentary team for the inaugural AFL Women's competition. The term "comeback" was bandied around after that disclosure.

Canberra United's code-hoppers Ellie Brush and Jenna McCormick might square off in opening round.

The AFL now looks highly unlikely to expand its eight-team national women's competition until at least 2019 in a move which has placed it at odds with a number of losing bidder clubs who believe they have been misled.

The first AFL Women's grand final has won a prime-time Saturday afternoon schedule in round one of the AFL season.

Round 1

GWS Giants schedule a blockbuster against the Western Bulldogs in the final round of the AFL Women's season.

The AFL will on Wednesday unveil its newly named pre-season competition as the JLT Community Series after striking a three-year deal with its insurance broker JLT Sport.

The hole in the lives of the Riewoldt family where their daughter and sister should be is more noticeable this time of year.

Kicking goals – 100 of them in one Victorian Women's Football League season, to be precise – was just one part of Hope's stellar year.

When the new AFL women's league kicks off next year, it will be more than just something to fill the off-season void.

Other secondary school graduates headed off on schoolies, but as soon as Katherine Smith finished her last exam she threw herself into life as an AFL footballer.

Working out in the gym next to Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury, rising football star Moana Hope says she has to pinch herself.

The number of girls and women playing Australian rules football has soared, according to figures released by the AFL.

Most women who play in the AFL's new league will earn $8500 in their first season of football, a boost from the $5000 originally offered by the league.

The AFL's failure to place a woman at the helm of its new national women's competition represents for the game a practical and symbolic opportunity lost.

• COMMENT

The AFL has upped its pay offer to female players, but equal pay and opportunities for women remain a long way off.

First hurdle for women's footy league, the fixture, will not be published until November..

Elite midfielder Nicola Barr became the No.1 pick in the first AFL women's draft when Greater Western Sydney called her name.

She is a star footballer, a leading advocate for the game and has delivered nearly 150 babies - and on Thursday afternoon, Daisy Pearce added AFL Football Woman of the Year to her list of achievements.