The AFL Grand Final: Tickets, Traditions and the Week

The AFL Grand Final is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on the last Saturday in September, in the afternoon, in front of a crowd of about 100,000. In 2026 that is Saturday 26 September. The ground is contracted to host the match every year until 2059 under a three-way agreement between the AFL, the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Victorian Government, so the venue question, unlike in most sports, is settled for a generation.

The honest answer to the question most people arrive with is that you probably cannot buy a ticket. There is no meaningful general public on-sale for the AFL Grand Final. The 100,000 seats are allocated to members of the two competing clubs, to Melbourne Cricket Club members through a ballot, to AFL members, to the other sixteen clubs, to contractual and broadcast partners, and to hospitality packages. Everything else is somebody's spare, and reselling one for more than ten per cent above face value is an offence in Victoria.

What you can do without a ticket is quite a lot. Grand Final week is a public event in its own right, running from the Brownlow Medal on the Monday through a free festival at Yarra Park, a public holiday on the Friday and a parade that draws crowds into six figures. This page covers the week, the ticketing reality in detail, what the day itself involves, and the traditions that structure it.

What the Grand Final actually decides

The Grand Final is a single match that decides the premiership. There is no series, no aggregate, no second leg. The two clubs that survive the five-week finals series meet once, and the winner is the premier.

That structure is older than the competition's national era. The first Grand Final was played on 24 September 1898 between Essendon and Fitzroy at the St Kilda Cricket Ground, and Fitzroy won. It has been held every year since with one exception in 1924, when the finals were decided by a round-robin instead. It was the VFL Grand Final until the competition renamed itself the AFL for the 1990 season.

Because it is one match, it is unusually unforgiving. A club can be the best team in the competition for six months and lose the premiership in two hours. That is the design, and it is why the day carries the weight it does.

When it is played, and why September

The Grand Final sits on the last Saturday in September in most years, occasionally slipping to the first Saturday in October when the calendar demands it. The earliest it has been played is 2 September, in 1916 and again in 2000. The latest is 24 October, in the disrupted 2020 season.

Under the finals format introduced for 2026, the series runs five weeks: a wildcard round involving the clubs finishing seventh to tenth, then the qualifying and elimination finals, the semi-finals, the preliminary finals and the Grand Final. The pre-finals bye that previously separated the home and away season from the finals has been removed, so the series begins the week after the last home and away round. The finals system guide sets out how clubs reach the final week.

The traditional 2.30pm AEST Saturday afternoon start has held despite the commercial pull of a night slot. The AFL has deliberately kept the timing decision as an annual choice rather than contracting it away in the broadcast agreement, which means it can be argued about every year without ever being locked in.

The MCG contract to 2059

Most sporting finals move. The AFL Grand Final does not, because it is contractually fixed.

A deal struck in 2018 between the AFL, the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Victorian Government committed the match to the MCG until 2057, in exchange for a very substantial government and MCC contribution towards ground redevelopment. That arrangement has since been extended, and the ground is now contracted to host the Grand Final every year through to 2059.

The commercial logic is straightforward. No other Australian ground holds 100,000 people. The Victorian Government values the week as a tourism and hospitality event worth a great deal to the state economy. And the MCC has an interest in keeping the competition's largest day inside its own gates. Governments in Western Australia and Queensland have made public overtures about hosting the match; the contract, and the capacity gap, have ended the conversation each time. The MCG guide covers the ground itself, its stands and how to get there.

The four times it moved

The Grand Final has left the MCG on a handful of occasions, and every one had a specific cause.

During the Second World War the MCG was requisitioned for military use, and the match was played at Princes Park in 1942, 1943 and 1945, and at the St Kilda Cricket Ground in 1944. In 1991 it went to Waverley Park because MCG capacity was roughly halved by construction of the Great Southern Stand. In 2020 it was played at the Gabba in Brisbane and in 2021 at Optus Stadium in Perth, both because of pandemic restrictions in Victoria, and both outside the traditional afternoon slot.

Notably it has never been played at Marvel Stadium, the AFL's own Docklands ground, despite that venue hosting finals and a large share of the Victorian home and away season. Capacity is the reason: Marvel holds a little over half what the MCG holds.

• 100022Crowd
• 47Winning margin
• 32Ashcroft disposals
• 2Consecutive Brisbane premierships

Reported figures for the 2025 AFL Grand Final at the MCG on 27 September 2025. The crowd figure is the official attendance, two short of the ground's stated capacity of 100,024.

Grand Final week, day by day

Grand Final week is a Melbourne institution that operates whether or not you hold a ticket. The shape of it is consistent from year to year.

1. 1MondayThe Brownlow Medal count is held in Melbourne and televised live, awarding the season's best and fairest player. The 99th count is set for Monday 21 September 2026.
2. 2WednesdayThe free AFL Footy Fest opens at Yarra Park beside the MCG and runs through to Grand Final day, with entertainment, exhibits and activities open to anyone.
3. 3ThursdayBoth clubs hold their main captain's run at the MCG, media commitments peak, and the city fills with interstate supporters if a non-Victorian club has qualified.
4. 4FridayA Victorian public holiday. The Grand Final parade runs from about 9am, finishing at Yarra Park where both teams are introduced on stage.
5. 5SaturdayGates open several hours before the 2.30pm bounce for pre-match entertainment, the motorcade of retired players and the anthem, then the match and the presentations.

The 2026 schedule as published. Exact times and the parade route are confirmed each year in the weeks beforehand, and the Brownlow date shifts with the finals calendar.

Monday: the Brownlow Medal

The Brownlow Medal count opens the week. It is the award for the fairest and best player of the home and away season, voted by the field umpires after each match on a three-two-one basis, and it is counted live on television round by round, which turns an administrative process into several hours of genuine suspense.

The 2026 count, the 99th, is scheduled for Monday 21 September, five days before the Grand Final. Players attend with partners, the vote count is read out in order, and the leaderboard shifts through the evening. The medal is not connected to the Grand Final result in any way, but it has occupied the Monday of Grand Final week for decades and functions as the opening ceremony of the week.

Wednesday to Saturday: the Footy Fest

The AFL runs a free festival at Yarra Park, the parkland immediately beside the MCG, from the Wednesday of Grand Final week through to Grand Final day itself. In 2026 that means Wednesday 23 September to Saturday 26 September.

It is genuinely free and genuinely open. There is entertainment, food, club merchandise, kicking activities for children and a large screen. For a family visiting Melbourne during the week, or for a supporter who has come to the city without a ticket, it is the part of the week that requires no membership, no ballot and no money.

Friday: the parade and the public holiday

The Grand Final parade has run on the Friday before the match since 1977. Players from both clubs travel in open vehicles along a route through the city, and the crowd is enormous; the 2015 parade, the first under the current route, drew a reported 150,000 people.

The 2026 route starts at Melbourne Park Oval, travels through the sporting precinct to Birrarung Marr, passes the MCG and finishes at Yarra Park, where both teams are introduced on stage. Recently retired players, the Brownlow Medallist, the Coleman Medallist and the Rising Star winner typically join the procession. Best viewing is at the three staging points rather than along the middle of the route.

Since 2015 the Friday before the Grand Final has been a gazetted public holiday in Victoria, falling on 25 September in 2026. It is not a holiday in any other state. Business groups have opposed it consistently on cost and productivity grounds, and it has survived every review, largely because the parade and the surrounding events have become a substantial tourism draw for the state.

Tickets: the honest position

There is no general public on-sale for the AFL Grand Final in any ordinary sense. The ground holds about 100,000 people and the published allocation scheme accounts for essentially all of them before a member of the public without an affiliation gets near a queue.

Allocation category	2026 published range
Competing club members	16,000 to 40,000
MCC Members' Reserve	16,000 to 26,000
AFL members	13,000 to 18,000
AFL entitlements and contractual obligations	5,000 to 30,000
The other eighteen clubs	Up to 7,000
Competing clubs themselves	Up to 5,000
AFL and Medallion Club members	3,000 to 5,000

The ranges are wide because the AFL sets the final split once it knows which clubs have qualified. In 2024 the actual distribution came out at about 35,000 tickets split between the two competing clubs' members, about 23,000 to MCC members, about 17,000 to AFL members and about 25,000 across stakeholders.

Collectively, members of the competing clubs, the AFL and the MCC receive close to 75,000 of the roughly 100,000 seats. Membership is not one route to a Grand Final ticket. It is very nearly the only route.

Competing club members35000

Stakeholders and entitlements25000

MCC members23000

AFL members17000

Reported actual allocation for the 2024 Grand Final, in tickets. The published scheme sets ranges rather than fixed numbers, so the split differs between years depending on which clubs qualify.

Show the numbers

Grand Final ticket allocation as it landed in 2024

Item	Value
Competing club members	35000
Stakeholders and entitlements	25000
MCC members	23000
AFL members	17000

If your club makes it

Competing club members receive the largest allocation, but not automatically. Once a club qualifies, it opens a registration window, usually within hours of the preliminary final, and members register their interest through the club's ticketing system.

Priority is then applied. The exact formula varies between clubs but the common factors are membership category, with full home game reserved seat members ahead of general admission members and non-attending members behind both, and length of continuous membership, which is why supporters who have never missed a renewal in twenty years hold an advantage that cannot be bought in September.

Two practical points. Register in the window, because clubs do not chase members who miss it. And make sure your membership contact details and payment method are current before the preliminary final, because the turnaround between qualifying and the ticket purchase deadline is measured in days.

The MCC ballot

Melbourne Cricket Club members have their own path. Approximately 14,500 reserved seats in the Members' Reserve are allocated through a random ballot, entered through Ticketek, with a current membership card or annual guest card required for entry on the day.

The ballot is genuinely random among entrants, so seniority in the MCC queue does not help once you are a member. Members who win a reserved seat cannot access the Members' Reserve until an hour after gates open, an arrangement designed to stop a single crush at the members' gates on the morning of the match.

MCC membership itself is not a solution to the problem of wanting a Grand Final ticket this year. The waiting list is measured in decades.

AFL members and the sixteen other clubs

AFL membership is a separate product from club membership, sold by the league rather than by a club, and its principal attraction is exactly this: a place in the Grand Final ticket queue. Between 13,000 and 18,000 tickets go to AFL and Medallion Club members under the 2026 scheme, allocated by seniority within the membership tiers.

The other sixteen clubs also receive an allocation, up to about 7,000 tickets in total, which they distribute to their own members through their own processes. This is the least publicised route to a Grand Final ticket and the one most supporters forget: a member of a club that finished thirteenth can still, occasionally, end up at the Grand Final.

What tickets cost

Face value is more modest than the scarcity suggests. For 2026 the cheapest reserved seat is about 172 dollars and the dearest about 536. In 2025 the cheapest reserved seat was about 195 dollars, which was roughly four per cent above the 2024 scale, and 2024 tickets ranged from about 155 to about 422 dollars.

Face value in dollars of the lowest-priced reserved seat category in each year. Hospitality packages and premium categories are excluded, and the 2026 reduction reflects a repricing of the entry-level category rather than a general fall.

Show the numbers

Cheapest Grand Final reserved seat, by year

Item	Value
2024	155
2025	195
2026	172

The AFL has separately frozen entry-level ticket pricing for the first three weeks of the finals series for more than a decade running, which keeps a floor under access to the earlier finals even as demand for the last Saturday in September does not respond to price at all.

Resale, scalping and the law

The Grand Final is a declared major event under Victoria's Major Events Act 2009, and that declaration carries real consequences.

It is an offence to advertise or resell a ticket for more than ten per cent above face value. Penalties scale with the seriousness of the conduct and reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for organised offending. Authorised Ticketing Officers hold enforcement powers under the Act and work alongside Victoria Police, and in recent finals series Victorian authorities have had tickets pulled from online resale platforms while investigating.

Separately, on-selling without AFL authorisation breaches the ticket conditions, and a ticket identified as having been resold outside the rules can be cancelled. A buyer who paid several thousand dollars for a cancelled ticket has no practical remedy. The AFL operates authorised resale channels; anything else is a risk taken with a very expensive piece of paper.

Getting to the ground and getting in

Gates open several hours before the bounce, and unlike an ordinary home and away match there is a reason to be early. Pre-match entertainment, the motorcade and the anthem all happen inside the ground, and a supporter arriving at 2.15pm has missed most of what distinguishes the day.

Public transport is the only sensible approach. Richmond and Jolimont stations both serve the ground, trams run along Wellington Parade, and Yarra Park is closed to general parking. The city is unusually busy, with the parade crowd from the previous day replaced by a Grand Final day crowd that starts drinking early. The guide to attending an AFL game covers general match day logistics that apply here as well, with everything scaled up.

Before the bounce

The pre-match program is a fixed sequence. There is entertainment, generally a major Australian or international act, and the traditional football songs including "Up There Cazaly" and "One Day in September" still get an airing. There is a motorcade of recently retired players, taken around the boundary in open vehicles, which is the part of the afternoon that reliably produces the loudest response from a neutral crowd.

Then the teams and umpires line up on the wing for a live performance of the national anthem, the banners go up at each end, and the clubs run through them. The AFL Grand Final Sprint, a foot race among non-playing squad members, has been part of the day on and off since 1979.

The match, under 2026 conditions

The football itself is played under the rules the competition has used all season, and 2026 brought two structural changes worth knowing about if you have not watched for a while. The centre bounce has been abolished in favour of a throw-up, removing a long-standing piece of theatre and a long-standing source of unpredictability at every restart. And the medical substitute has been removed: clubs name 23 players with five on the bench, so an injury now costs a team a rotation for the rest of the day.

Both changes matter more in a Grand Final than in a home and away match. A five-man bench with no substitute means an early injury in a tight game is a genuine tactical crisis, in a match no club can afford to manage conservatively.

The presentations

The sequence after the final siren has barely changed in decades. The Norm Smith Medal, awarded since 1979 to the best player on the ground and voted by a panel during the match, is presented first. Then the premiership cup, made new each year since 1959, is handed to the winning captain and coach together. The Jock McHale Medal, introduced in 2001 and applied retrospectively to premiership coaches from 1950, goes to the winning coach.

A lap of honour with the cup has been customary since 1966, and the winning club's song is played repeatedly, on the ground and then in the rooms, for as long as anyone is still standing.

In 2025 that ceremony belonged to Brisbane, who beat Geelong by 47 points in front of 100,022 people on 27 September to go back to back, with Will Ashcroft taking his second consecutive Norm Smith Medal after 32 disposals and a goal.

The banner, the song and the small traditions

Two club rituals survive at the Grand Final in exactly the form they take in round three. The cheer squads at each end build a crepe paper banner carrying a message to the players, and the team runs through it on the way onto the ground. Nothing about the occasion changes that; the banner is still made by volunteers in a suburban clubroom during the week.

The club song is the other. Every AFL club has one, most of them adapted from marching tunes or music hall numbers of the early twentieth century, and the winning song is played on the ground immediately after the siren and then, by tradition, sung in the rooms until the words stop being recognisable. The losing club's song is not played at all.

Travelling to Melbourne for the week

If a non-Victorian club qualifies, tens of thousands of supporters move on Melbourne inside six days, and accommodation and flights price accordingly. Booking after the preliminary final is expensive; booking before it is a gamble.

The practical advice is to sort the ticket first and the travel second, because the ticket is the constrained resource and the flights are not. Club member registration windows close quickly, and there is no point holding a Melbourne hotel booking with no way into the ground. Interstate supporters should also check their own club's travel packages, which sometimes bundle a ticket allocation with flights and accommodation and are worth comparing against buying the components separately.

The AFLW Grand Final

The women's competition runs its own Grand Final at the end of a season played in the second half of the calendar year, and it operates on a different model: the highest-placed qualifier hosts, so the venue changes from year to year rather than being contractually fixed at one ground.

It is a genuinely different day. Crowds are smaller, tickets are available to the general public, prices are far lower and the atmosphere is closer to a large finals crowd than to the MCG on the last Saturday in September. AFLW premiership finals were added to the Commonwealth anti-siphoning list in the 2024 reforms, which means the decider is protected as a free-to-air event in the same way the men's Grand Final is.

Crowds, records and the sell-out

The MCG's stated capacity is now 100,024, and the Grand Final sells out in essentially every year. The 2025 crowd of 100,022 was two short of that figure.

The all-time record is older and larger: 121,696 at the 1970 Grand Final, before seating replaced standing terraces and before safety standards reduced the ground's capacity by roughly twenty per cent. That record will not be broken at the MCG in its present form. Even so, the Grand Final routinely ranks as the world's best-attended domestic sporting championship match.

Watching without a ticket

Most people watch the Grand Final on television, including most Melburnians. It is broadcast live and free to air, and its position on the Commonwealth anti-siphoning list means it cannot be sold exclusively to a subscription service without free-to-air rights having first been offered. The broadcast rights guide explains how that protection works.

Every club runs a Grand Final day function for members, pubs across Melbourne and every other capital open early, and the Footy Fest at Yarra Park operates on the day itself. Being in Melbourne without a ticket on Grand Final day is not the disappointment it sounds like.

The economics of the day

The Grand Final is the single largest revenue day in the Australian football calendar, and none of it belongs to the competing clubs directly. Finals gate revenue flows to the AFL, which pools it with broadcast and league sponsorship income before distributing to clubs under the model set out in the club finances guide.

For the state of Victoria the week is a tourism event, which is why the government has been willing to pay to keep it. For the competing clubs the lasting benefit is not the day's takings but the following season's membership renewals, which is where a premiership actually shows up in a set of accounts.

A first-timer's checklist

If you have secured a ticket, five things are worth knowing. Arrive at least two hours before the bounce. Take public transport and expect it to be full. Bring layers, because a late September afternoon in Melbourne can be anything. Check the specific conditions of entry on your ticket, because they are stricter than for a home and away match. And do not buy a ticket from a stranger online, because a cancelled ticket at the gate is a wasted trip and there is no recourse.

Where to go next

For how the two clubs got there, read the finals system guide. For general match day advice at any AFL ground, see attending an AFL game. For the ground itself, read the MCG guide and, for the other side of its calendar, the Boxing Day Test.

For the money behind the day, read how AFL clubs make money. For the wider Australian sporting calendar, start at Australia.