384,000 people registered to play junior and senior community club football in 2023, beating the previous high set in 2019

[The_Wookie]

As the season concludes and premierships have been won, it’s worth recapping how many people have been associated with community football in 2023 because the game is about so much more than on-field success:

• More than 200,000 volunteer roles have been taken on in the name of driving community football forward
• A record 384,000 people registered to play junior and senior community club football, beating the previous high set in 2019
• A record 125,000 kids signed up for NAB AFL Auskick, eclipsing the previous high also set in 2019
  • Girls participation in Auskick continues to grow with girls making up one in four Auskick participants
• Between club football and Auskick, that’s more than half a million people pulling on the boots to play our great game
• More than 27,000 coaches registered via Coach AFL
• Nearly 18,000 umpires registered, a 12 per cent increase on 2022
• More than one million students have been engaged in our schools programs and a further 200,000 are expected to take part before the end of the year

To put some perspective on the scale of our game, in 2023 there were around 230 leagues, 2,600 clubs and 17,500 teams involved in Australian rules football right across the country, from Preston to Perth, Darwin to Devonport, Mackay to Morphett Vale.

This year there have been more than 6,300 finals played in junior and senior community club football competitions across the country and since the start of August, more than 1,260 Grand Finals have been contested.

To everyone involved in community football… Thank you!

An open letter from AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan and CEO Elect Andrew Dillon to everyone involved in community football around Australia

www.afl.com.au

 

[Shane Heard]

Jesus f n Christ almighty..does that mean we have beaten the endless juggernaut of popularity where the young kiddies of the round ball game have apparently overtaken the participation numbers of the great Australian game of Australian Rules Football ?

 

[Aristotle Pickett]

I would say the increased numbers hsve come from the girls.