There's certainly no post-COVID blues when it comes to AFL fans, with the league announcing a club membership record for the fourth consecutive year.
A total of 1,268,403 members have been signed up for 2024, and that number will rise some more given the cut-off isn't until August 31.
The figure represents about a six per cent increase on the previous record of 1,198,833 set last year.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit and the AFL were forced to play games with either no fans or reduced crowds, club memberships sat at 992,854, a 6.1 per cent drop on 2019.
But the AFL have set club membership records every year since then, culminating in the bumper numbers for 2024.
One out of every 22 Australians are a member of an AFL club. Three clubs - Carlton, Collingwood and West Coast - all have more than 100,000 members each.
All four northern market clubs (Brisbane, Gold Coast, GWS and Sydney ) have delivered double-digit membership revenue and growth.
“With more than 1.26 million members and so far, 6.45 million fans attending the matches around the country across the first 20 rounds of the home and away season, our fans are like none other in world sport,” AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said in a statement.
So far seven clubs - Brisbane, Carlton, Geelong, Gold Coast, GWS, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs - have announced all-time club membership records. Collingwood, Carlton, West Coast and Richmond lead the 2024 membership tallies.
The home-and-away attendance for 2024 is on record pace, with 6,458,859 fans attending the opening 20 rounds.
Participation in Australian Rules Football has also reached an all-time high, surpassing 530,000 nationally.
In 2024, the AFL experienced the top three highest attended rounds in its history.
Round one had 413,405 fans stream through the gates, while round seven (408,433) and round eight (403,452) also produced bumper numbers.
The only other time a round has featured more than 400,000 fans was in round one, 2017 (400,401).
This season also represents one of the tightest campaigns in AFL history, with only 10 competition points separating the second-placed Lions from the 12th-placed Magpies.
