[8] In 2021, another COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria led to the AFL moving the fixture to Optus Stadium in Perth, which also held the Grand Final that year.

[9] In 2024, it was announced that the 2025 edition would be held on a Friday night, in order to expand the game's importance and allow the Seven Network to continue to televise the match, as the network will not be televising any Saturday night matches from the 2025 AFL season onwards.

[10] The match is associated with the pre-game commemoration events organised by The Long Walk, a charity inspired by Indigenous former Essendon player Michael Long, who walked halfway from Melbourne to Canberra in 2004 to get the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people back on the national agenda.

Prior to the Dreamtime match, Long and several thousand other participants walk from Federation Square to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to promote reconciliation.

The walk has grown in stature and size, and in 2016 was attended by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten.

He won the 1976 best & fairest award, captained the club in 1978, was named on their Team of the Century at left back-pocket and inducted into the Richmond Hall of Fame in 2002.