Australian sport, all of it.

Cricket in summer, and four football codes in winter. Cricket is the national summer sport and Australia has won more men’s and women’s World Cups than any other country. Australian rules football and rugby league are the two largest winter competitions by crowd and by television audience, split roughly along state lines, with rugby union and association football alongside them. Tennis, swimming, netball and motorsport all carry major annual events as well.

It divides almost exactly in half. Cricket owns October to February, with the Test summer from November to January and the Big Bash over the Christmas holidays. The football codes own March to September, ending with the AFL and NRL grand finals a week apart. January is the densest month of the year: the Australian Open, the Sydney Test and the Big Bash finals all fall inside it.

The Big Bash is Australia’s domestic men’s T20 competition, contested by eight city franchises — two each in Sydney and Melbourne, one each in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. It is played from December to late January, deliberately across the school holidays, with a group stage followed by a finals series. The Women’s Big Bash uses the same eight clubs and runs in the weeks before and alongside it.

The Sheffield Shield is Australia’s first-class competition, played over four days by the six states — New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. It has run since 1892-93, which makes it one of the oldest continuous first-class competitions anywhere, and it remains the selection filter for the Test side. The season is split either side of the Big Bash, with a final between the top two.

The Boxing Day Test starts on 26 December every year at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It is the single largest fixture of the Australian sporting calendar by attendance, regularly drawing more than 80,000 on the first day, and it is followed a few days later by the New Year Test in Sydney. Both slots are effectively permanent, whoever is touring.

Australia host England for the Ashes roughly every four years, across a five-Test series running from late November to early January. The home summer always includes the Boxing Day Test at the MCG and the New Year Test at the SCG; the other three rotate among Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and occasionally Hobart. The away legs in England fall in the intervening period, so the urn is contested about every two years overall.

Five grounds carry the bulk of it: the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, Adelaide Oval, the Gabba in Brisbane and Optus Stadium in Perth. Bellerive Oval in Hobart and Manuka Oval in Canberra have both hosted Tests in recent years when the schedule allowed. Each behaves differently — Perth is the quickest, Sydney turns, Adelaide holds the pink-ball day-night Test.

They are two different sports. The AFL plays Australian rules football — 18 players a side on an oval field, no offside, scoring through four posts. The NRL plays rugby league — 13 a side on a rectangle, six tackles then a handover. Both run March to September and both finish with a grand final in late September, the AFL’s at the MCG and the NRL’s in Sydney. Support splits geographically: Australian rules dominates Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, rugby league dominates New South Wales and Queensland.

State of Origin is a three-match rugby league series between New South Wales and Queensland, played mid-season in May, June and July. Players are picked for the state where they played their first senior football rather than where they play now, which is where the name comes from. It regularly draws the largest television audience of any Australian sporting event outside a grand final or a World Cup.

The Australian Open is played over a fortnight in mid to late January at Melbourne Park, on hard courts. It is the first of the four majors each season, and the only one with retractable roofs on three show courts — a response to Melbourne heat, which also has its own formal extreme-heat policy that can suspend play on the outside courts.

Home internationals and the Big Bash are covered by a joint broadcast deal, with a portion of matches free to air and the remainder on subscription. Anti-siphoning rules mean Test cricket cannot be moved behind a paywall in full. Radio coverage of every home international runs on the ABC. The country guide on this site sets out the current arrangement, the streaming options and how tickets go on sale.

Cricket Australia sits above six state associations. The men play the Sheffield Shield in first-class cricket and the Marsh Cup over 50 overs; the women play the Women’s National Cricket League. The Big Bash and Women’s Big Bash sit outside that structure as eight city franchises. Central contracts are held nationally, which is why the Australian board can restructure its domestic game far faster than a federated one can.

Bounce. Australian pitches — Perth and Brisbane in particular — reward length hit into the surface rather than fullness, and the reward for pace is visible from junior cricket upwards. The line from Ray Lindwall through Dennis Lillee, Craig McDermott, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee to Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins is a surface producing the same bowler repeatedly, backed by a state system that gives quick bowlers first-class cricket early.

January, without much argument. The Australian Open, a Test match in Sydney, Big Bash matches most nights and the Tour Down Under all fall within a few weeks, in the middle of the Australian summer. If the football codes are the priority, come in September for the two grand finals, and if you want one fixture above all others, book the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.