The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition.

The Cats have been the VFL/AFL premiers ten times, with four in the AFL era (since 1990) in 2007, 2009, 2011, and most recently, 2022, to be the second most successful club over that period one behind Hawthorn.

[8] Geelong's traditional navy blue and white hooped guernsey has been worn since the club's inception in the mid-1800s.

[9] The team has worn various away guernseys since 1998, all featuring the club's logo and traditional colours.

[10] Geelong has been nicknamed the 'Cats' since 1923, when the Herald sporting local cartoonist, "Wells" (Samuel Garnet Wells), suggested that adopting a black cat as a mascot might bring a football club good luck in his Herald cartoon of 6 July 1923.

In the 1989 Grand Final, Geelong played the man, resulting in major injuries for several Hawks players, Mark Yeates knocking out Dermott Brereton at the opening bounce; Hawthorn controlled the game, leading by approximately 40 points for most of the match; in the last quarter, Geelong almost managed to come from behind to win, but fell short by six points.

In the 2008 Grand Final, Geelong was the heavily backed favourite and had lost only one match for the season, but lost by 26 points; Geelong then won its next eleven matches against Hawthorn over the following five years, under a curse, which was dubbed the "Kennett curse" which was attributed to disrespectful comments made by Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett following the 2008 Grand Final.

It was later revealed that after the 2008 grand final, Paul Chapman initiated a pact between other Geelong players to never lose to Hawthorn again.

In 1930, Collingwood defeated Geelong in the grand final making it four flags in-a-row for the Pies.

Geelong would later deny Collingwood three successive premierships in 1937, winning a famous grand final by 32 points.

In 1953, Collingwood ended Geelong's record 23-game winning streak in the home and away season, and later defeated them by 12 points in the grand final, denying the Cats a third successive premiership.

In 2008, Collingwood inflicted Geelong's only home-and-away loss, by a massive 86 points, but the teams did not meet in the finals.

[43] In 2017, following the inaugural AFL Women's (AFLW) season, Geelong was among eight clubs that applied for licenses to enter the competition from 2019 onwards.