Australian rules football in Queensland

Australian rules football in Queensland
Australian football at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast 2011
Governing body	AFL Queensland
Representative team	Queensland
First played	Brisbane 9 June 1866; 158 years ago (9 June 1866)
Registered players	55,191[1]
Clubs	130 (10 competitions)
Club competitions
List Queensland Australian Football League AFLQ State Association AFL Cairns AFL Capricornia AFL Darling Downs AFL Mackay AFL Mount Isa AFL Townsville AFL Wide Bay
Audience records
Single match	37,473 (2019). AFL Second Qualifying Final Brisbane Lions vs Richmond (Gabba, Brisbane)[2]

In Queensland, Australian rules football dates back to the colonial era in 1866, with organised competitions being continuous since the 1900s. Today, it is most popular in South East Queensland and the Cairns Region. It is governed by AFL Queensland which coordinates 11 regional club competitions with more than 55,000 registered adult players.

Commencing in the capital of Brisbane, it was the first official football code and third jurisdiction after Victoria and New South Wales to take it up. For two decades it remained the premier code, however a strong desire for representative success against New South Wales saw its rapid demise as Queenslanders switched to British football variants. Existing in the shadow of three other football codes, and east of the cultural divide now described as the Barassi Line, it re-emerged mainly through its postwar re-appearance in schools and interstate migration. In 1986 it became the first state awarded a new license, and first privately owned club, in the national (AFL) competition. However the Gold Coast based Brisbane Bears' identity crisis, poor management and lack of success, compounded by the popularity of the Brisbane Broncos, were major setbacks to the code. The club's relocation in 1993 to the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba) and traditional membership-based structure, helped average AFL attendances and television ratings to triple from 1993 to 1996.^[3][4][5] The success that followed its merger with a Victorian club and entry into the national women's competition (AFLW) helped the code's participation to surge across the state in the early 21st century. According to Ausplay, player numbers are now third behind soccer and rugby league, surpassing rugby union for the first time in a over a century. Combined average AFL club membership, television audience and attendance, while growing, is the smallest of any state.^[6]

Queensland has two fully professional teams competing in the AFL: the Brisbane Lions (1996) and Gold Coast Suns (2009). These two teams compete against each other in the QClash. The Gold Coast hosted the inaugural AFLW Grand Final in 2017 and was the second state in history to host the AFL Grand Final (the 2020 held in Brisbane). AFL Premiership matches are now regularly played in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Cairns. The AFL began matches in Townsville along with AFLW matches in Moreton Bay, Mackay in the 2010s and the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich in the 2020s.

The state team, known as the "Maroons" debuted in 1884 against New South Wales and has been competitive against that state and the Australian Capital Territory however played their last senior match in 1988. The side's poor record contributed to the popularity of representative football in other codes, particularly the Queensland Reds (union) and later the Queensland Maroons (league). Despite its historical record, the team won Section B national titles in 1974 and 1979. Zane Taylor holds the record for the number of representative caps for Queensland. The underage team has been more successful with 4 Division 2 titles at the National Championships, the most recent in 2015. The AFL wound up Queensland's senior representation in 1993 and underage titles in 2019 in favour of club academies.

More than 100 male and almost 50 female Queenslanders have played at the sport's highest level (AFL/AFLW). Erwin Dornau became the first born and raised Queenslander in the AFL in 1948. Jason Dunstall was the first born and raised Queenslander to be inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame and sole Queenslander with Legend status. He holds the AFL record of most goals with 1254, the third most goals in league history as well as the most games (269). The state's 3 AFL Brownlow medallists include: Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis and Simon Black while these players were not both born and raised in the state all three are nonetheless multi-premiership players and Australian Football Hall of Famers. In the AFLW, the first Queensland born and raised player to win the league best and fairest is Ally Anderson (second Queenslander after Emily Bates) and shares the record for most games while Tayla Harris has the most goals.