The premiership was won by the South Melbourne Football Club.
The three Ballarat-based clubs – Ballarat, South Ballarat and Ballarat Imperial remained senior clubs, represented on the Association Board of Management and contested the Ballarat premiership, but matches played against them by metropolitan clubs (which often occurred during bye weeks) no longer qualified for the premiership.
[1] University, after a winless 1888 season, dropped out of the Association and went into recess.
Teams did not play a uniform number of premiership matches during the season.
As such, in the final standings, each team's premiership points were adjusted upwards proportionally to represent a 21-match season – e.g., South Melbourne played 19 matches, so its tally of premiership points was increased by a factor of 21/19.