This translated also to a significant increase in home attendances for the club's matches on previous years.
[5] Brendon Bolton commenced the year as the club's senior coach for his fourth season in the role.
However, after the team's 1–10 start to the season, punctuated by a heavy round 11 loss to Essendon, Bolton was dismissed, bringing an end to his Carlton coaching career after 77 games and a win–loss record of 16–61.
The club paid out the balance of the protected period in Bolton's open-ended contract to the end of the 2020 season.
[9] With no formal vice captains appointed, Murphy, Kade Simpson and Ed Curnow formed the rest of a leadership group which was reduced in size from 2018.
It was the first live trade in AFL Draft history after rule changes for this season allowed the practice.
[13] For the early part of the season, the bold decision looked likely to backfire badly, and as late as Round 13, Adelaide was sitting in the top four while Carlton was on the bottom of the ladder, opening the possibility that it would lose the 2019 No.
[14] The club played two full-length practice matches as part of the JLT Community Series.
2018 leading goalkicker Charlie Curnow finished third despite playing only eleven games due to injury.
For each of the AFLPA awards, one or three Carlton players were nominated by an internal vote of Carlton players; Patrick Cripps and Sam Docherty were also nominated for the Best Captain award by default (despite Docherty not having played a game due to injury).
Patrick Cripps won the Leigh Matthews Trophy as AFLPA Most Valuable Player for the first time in his career, finishing 313 votes ahead of Geelong's Tim Kelly; he also placed second in the Best Captain award with 128 votes, behind only West Coast's Shannon Hurn who polled 171.
Sam Walsh was a runaway winner of the Best First Year Player award, polling more than three times as many votes as runner up Connor Rozee (Port Adelaide).
[79] Brianna Davey remained captain of the club for the second consecutive season; Katie Loynes was vice-captain.
This saw Carlton finish atop the ladder within Conference B, and saw the team qualify for the finals for the first time.
Finishing first in Conference B, Carlton qualified for the preliminary finals, hosting Fremantle, who had finished second in Conference A. Carlton dominated the preliminary final throughout, gaining a strong lead with a four-goals-to-none second quarter and maintaining that advantage to victory.
Carlton-listed player Hugh Goddard won the Laurie Hill Trophy as Northern Blues' best and fairest.