Opening Round is finished. The AFL confirmed on Wednesday that round one of 2027 will be a traditional nine-game round involving all 18 clubs, ending a format that ran for three seasons.
Opening Round began in 2024. It put four games in Queensland and New South Wales in the week before the main round, involving eight clubs, with the stated aim of building the game in rugby league states. The other ten clubs waited. Teams that played in it then carried a bye into the following weeks, and the competition started its season on two different dates.
“We have been working through alternative options to deliver the start of the AFL season," chief executive Andrew Dillon said. "After important feedback from fans and stakeholders, and consultation with clubs and broadcasters, round one will see the return of a traditional nine-game round played across the country.”
Dillon had defended the format as recently as March. "What we've found in the last couple of years is that focus on NSW and Queensland is helping to grow awareness in NSW and Queensland and at the same time it hasn't taken away from our round one," he said then.
What changed in between was the cricket. The MCG hosts the 150th anniversary Test between Australia and England from 11 to 15 March 2027, which pushes the football season back by a week and forced the AFL to reopen the question of how it starts.
Round one will run from Wednesday 17 or Thursday 18 March through to Sunday 21 March. Gather Round returns to South Australia from 8 to 11 April. The 24-round home-and-away season ends on Sunday 30 August, the finals series opens with the wildcard finals in the first week of September, and the Grand Final is on Saturday 2 October.
The wildcard round survives, then. The AFL introduced it this season and it delivered the first wildcard finals at the MCG in August. The difference between the two experiments is that one asked eight clubs to run a different fixture from everybody else and gave them a bye the rest of the competition did not get, while the other applies to all 18 the same way. Competitive fairness was the objection clubs kept raising about Opening Round, and it is the objection the new structure answers.
The 2027 fixture itself has not been released. The AFL has confirmed the dates and the shape of the opening round, not the matches. The 2026 finals series is still running, with the Grand Final at the MCG later this month.
