After extensive deliberation and public discourse, the AFL will expand its September spectacle, ushering in a 10-team finals system that draws heavily from American sports blueprints. This move is poised to ignite commercial opportunities, amplify fan engagement, and fundamentally alter the path to premiership glory.

The New Finals Blueprint: What You Need to Know

From 2026, the traditional eight-team finals series will be augmented by a wildcard round. This extra stage will effectively serve as a playoff qualifier, creating two additional sudden-death matches:

• The team finishing seventh on the ladder will host the tenth-placed team.
• The team finishing eighth will host the ninth-placed team.

Crucially, these wildcard fixtures will be played during what is currently the pre-finals bye week. This tactical scheduling resolves the long-standing criticism of the bye week creating a lull before the traditional September campaign, while also providing a fresh dimension to the race for finals positions.

The Americanisation of Australian Football

The introduction of a wildcard round is the latest and arguably most overt example of the AFL’s increasing embrace of elements found in major US sports leagues. While traditionalists might grumble, the trend is undeniable:

• Entertainment Focus: Think live music and extensive entertainment during games, transforming match day into an event.
• Player Movement: Increased flexibility with trades, free agency, and potential mid-season exchange windows mirror the dynamic player markets of the NBA or NFL.
• Themed Rounds: Concepts like Opening Round and Gather Round are designed to create specific marketing hooks and broader appeal, akin to NFL’s Thanksgiving games or MLB’s Opening Day.

This strategic pivot acknowledges a demographic shift; younger generations are increasingly exposed to and engaged with international sports, particularly from the US. The AFL’s leadership is clearly aiming to broaden its appeal beyond the ‘footy in winter, cricket in summer’ adage, catering to evolving audience preferences and securing the game’s future viability in a competitive entertainment landscape.

Restoring the Top-Four Advantage and Finals Integrity

One of the most significant impacts of the wildcard round will be the restoration of a distinct advantage for teams finishing higher on the ladder. The pre-finals bye, introduced in 2016, inadvertently diluted the value of a top-four finish, allowing lower-ranked teams a crucial week’s rest before the main finals series.

Statistical analysis highlights this shift:

• Straight-Sets Exits: Between 2000 and 2015, only five teams exited the finals in straight sets. Since 2016, this figure has soared to nine.
• Grand Final Qualifiers (Outside Top Four): Before 2016, no team outside the top four made a grand final between 2000 and 2015. In the decade since, four teams have achieved this feat (Western Bulldogs 2016, 2021; GWS 2019; Brisbane 2024), including two premierships.
• Home Semi-Finalists: Since 2016, home semi-finalists hold a marginal 11-9 win-loss record, indicating a near coin-flip scenario for teams benefiting from the bye.

With the wildcard round occupying the pre-finals bye, teams finishing seventh and eighth will no longer get an automatic week off. Instead, they face fresh opponents after having played a wildcard game, and must win five consecutive finals (potentially with extensive travel) to lift the premiership cup. This significantly heightens the challenge for lower-ranked qualifiers, reaffirming the importance of securing a top-six, and particularly a top-four, position.

The Cost of More Football: Injuries and Quality Concerns

While more football invariably excites fans, concerns regarding player welfare and the overall quality of the later finals rounds cannot be overlooked. The AFL’s demanding calendar already sees clubs play 23 home and away games. The wildcard round introduces the potential for players to participate in up to 28 matches in a single season.

This increased workload, particularly during the physically gruelling September period where many players carry niggles, raises questions about:

• Injury Risk: Could the added games lead to a higher incidence of injuries for teams forced to play through the wildcard round?
• Finals Quality: Will teams entering the semi-finals or preliminary finals after two or three arduous finals matches be genuinely “cherry ripe,” or will fatigue diminish the spectacle and competitive balance of the sport’s showpiece events?

The pre-finals bye, for all its drawbacks, did ensure that all teams entered the traditional finals series fresh. The wildcard round trades this guaranteed freshness for extended engagement, a trade-off that will be keenly observed.

A Natural Evolution for an Expanding League

Beyond the immediate impacts, the wildcard round aligns with the AFL’s broader expansion strategy. With the planned entry of Tasmania in 2028 bringing the league to 19 teams, and further expansion to 20 teams a likely prospect, an eight-team finals system would see a declining proportion of clubs qualify (42% of 19 teams). A 10-team model ensures a healthier percentage (52% of 19 teams) participate in the post-season, bringing the AFL more in line with other major sports codes globally where roughly half the teams earn a playoff berth.

This expansion provides public interest context: the AFL, as a major national institution, is adapting its core competition structure to accommodate growth, ensuring that a reasonable proportion of its member clubs have a chance at post-season glory, even if it’s through a challenging wildcard route. The 2025 season itself, a ‘unicorn year’ with 14 wins needed to make finals, illustrated a growing pool of competitive teams, suggesting that clubs like the Western Bulldogs (14 wins, third-best percentage) or Sydney may have been worthy of an extended opportunity.

The Semantics of a “Finals Win”

Perhaps a more nuanced, yet culturally significant, debate will centre on whether a victory in the wildcard round truly constitutes a “finals win” in the traditional sense. For clubs like Essendon, grappling with a notorious finals win drought, or Gold Coast, yet to secure their first-ever finals victory, the symbolic weight of such a win will be immense.

However, the argument remains: if it’s a “finals qualifier” rather than a true finals match, does it dilute the historical records and benchmarks? Should individual coaching records in September, or club runs without finals victories, be re-evaluated? The AFL’s decision will inevitably lead to an asterisk in some historical contexts, prompting a redefinition of what it means to succeed in September.

AFL boss Andrew Dillon has already faced critics of the historic move, defending the wildcard round as a progression for the sport. Ultimately, the wildcard round embodies a bold step for the AFL: a calculated gamble to modernize, engage new audiences, and streamline its post-season structure for a growing league, while navigating the inevitable challenges to tradition and player welfare.