[2] It is governed by AFL Tasmania and according to Ausplay there are 13,927 adult players with a participation rate of 2.5% per capita about a quarter of which are female[1] playing across 12 competitions.

Today the Tasmanian State League continues to plays inter-league representative matches and defeated Queensland in 2024.

[8] Australian Football League (AFL) premiership matches have been played every year except 2020 since 2001 with the first held at the North Hobart Oval in 1991.

However, after 30 years of campaigning, the league's 18 clubs unanimously approved a 19th license to the state on 1 May 2023, and it is expected to debut in 2028[9] along with the construction of the new Macquarie Point Stadium to be completed by 2029.

[10][11] Until the 2010s, Tasmanian television audiences for the AFL were also among the highest per capita, consistently drawing bigger ratings than both Queensland and New South Wales.

Over 300 Tasmanians have played the game at the highest level and the state has traditionally supplied the AFL with a disproportionately high number of players.

Tasmania has four Australian Football Hall of Fame legends: Darrell Baldock, Peter Hudson, Ian Stewart and Royce Hart.

The Essendon Football Club visited in 1882 playing against a combined Tasmanian side in front of more than 3,000 spectators.

The consequences of this on Tasmanian football history are three-fold: firstly, a strong intrastate rivalry not noted in any mainland state; secondly, three different top-level football leagues in different regions of the state; and thirdly, the ability for teams representing very small towns to be competitive in the top leagues.

In 1929, Victorian club Collingwood FC again visited both Launceston and Hobart, playing against the NTFA and SFA respectively.

[citation needed] The NWFU expanded from six teams to as many as fourteen, with a short-lived incorporation of four Circular Head-based clubs, but eventually contracted back to eight.

[citation needed] The next attempt at statewide competition was the Winfield Statewide Cup, a seven-week tournament played prior to the 1980 season amongst all twenty teams in the TANFL, NTFA and NWFU, plus one team from the Circular Head Football Association (Smithton, who would join the NWFU that season).

[citation needed] From that point, Tasmanian local football slowly dwindled as teams began to lose money.

However the team's strong performances against Victoria in the early 1990s prompted Tasmanian officials to open talks with the AFL.

After the state side's last representative appearance in 1993, Tasmania stepped up its bids for inclusion in the national competition.

Upon the disbanding of the TFL in 2000, the Tasmanian Devils was formed in 2001 and admitted into the Victorian Football League in its inaugural year.

The team played home games in Launceston, Hobart, Ulverstone, Burnie and Devonport during its time in the league.

At the start of the 2006 season the Devils and the Australian Football League's North Melbourne Football Club began a partial alignment, allowing six North Melbourne listed players to play for Tasmania when not selected in the seniors, and arrangement which lasted from 2006 until 2007.

This was unpopular among local fans, significantly harming the popularity of the club; and the season proved to be a disappointment on-field, with the Devils finishing ninth and missing the finals.

In 2001, AFL clubs St Kilda and Hawthorn began playing home matches in Launceston at York Park (later known as Aurora Stadium), supported by the Tasmanian government in an attempt to build a local following.

A government-backed Tasmanian bid was prepared in response to the AFL admitting new licences for the Gold Coast and Western Sydney for the 2010 and 2011 seasons.

On 30 July, the Tasmanian government announced that it had secured a major sponsor, Mars for the bid in a deal worth $4 million over 3 years.

[36] Since 2001 Hawthorn has successfully cultivated a following in Tasmania playing numerous home games at York Park with its Tasmanian membership base has increased from 1,000 to more than 9,000.

Recent studies have valued Hawthorn's economic impact in Tasmania and national brand exposure to total $29.5 million in 2014.

[37] In 2010 the North Melbourne Football Club was contracted to play two games per year in Hobart at Bellerive Oval starting from 2012.

[45] Grand Final results On Wednesday 19 April 2017, AFL Tasmania announced the formation of the TSLW.

This also meant that when North Melbourne entered the AFLW in 2019, it was given access to the Tasmanian talent from across the league so as to act as Tasmania's team in the competition.

Other players from Tasmania include Hall of Fame inductees Royce Hart, Vic Belcher, Horrie Gorringe, Matthew Richardson, Laurie Nash.