Australian Football League

The Australian Football League (AFL) is the highest-level professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body, and is responsible for controlling the Laws of the Game. The league was founded as the Victorian Football League (VFL) as a breakaway from the previous Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season commencing in 1897. Originally comprising only teams based in the Australian state of Victoria, the competition's name was changed to the Australian Football League for the 1990 season, after expanding to other states throughout the 1980s.

The league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australia's six states (Tasmania being the exception). Matches have been played in all mainland states and territories of Australia, as well as in New Zealand. The AFL season currently consists of a pre-season competition (currently branded as the "NAB Challenge"), followed by a 23-round regular (or "home-and-away") season, which runs during the Australian winter (March to September). The top eight teams then play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final, which is held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year. The winning team in the Grand Final is termed the "premiers", and is awarded the premiership cup. The current premiers are Hawthorn.

AFL

AFL may refer to:

Sports

Arena Football League

The Arena Football League (AFL) is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster, making it the third longest-running professional football league in North America, after the Canadian Football League and the National Football League. It is played indoors on a 68-yard field (about half the distance of an NFL field), resulting in a faster-paced and higher-scoring game. The sport was invented in the early 1980s and patented by Foster, a former executive of the United States Football League and the National Football League.

For its 2015 season, the league consisted of 12 teams, all from the United States; however, upon the completion of the regular season, the league announced that the two teams it had assumed operation of during the season would cease all operations effective immediately; a regular season game slated between the two had previously been canceled and declared a tie. Subsequently, one of the remaining teams, the Spokane Shock, severed its ties with the league to join the competing IFL. The AFL is divided into two conferences  – the American Conference and National Conference. Starting 2016, each conference will have only four teams as the champion San Jose SaberCats announced in November 2015 that they were ceasing activity for "reasons not associated with League operations."