AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players.

It consistently ranks in the top three (alongside cricket and netball) most watched women's sporting competitions in Australia.

[3] The league receives international interest, particularly in Ireland where it has begun to attract a significant television audience due to the ongoing recruitment of Irish Gaelic football stars.

[6] Along with findings concerning grassroots and junior football, the report recommended the AFL Commission begin working toward the establishment of a national women's league.

[7] The first on-field step towards the competition took place in early 2013, when the AFL announced an exhibition match to be played between women's teams representing Melbourne and Western Bulldogs in June of that year.

[8] The match played on 29 June 2013 marked the first time two women's sides had competed under the banners of AFL clubs.

[10] The success of these exhibition matches prompted the AFL to accelerate its plans for a nationwide women's competition, announcing a preferred start date of 2017.

[12] The already-planned 2016 exhibition series was expanded at this time, with a total of ten matches to be played in venues across the country and featuring a range of new temporary representative teams.

The 18 clubs in the men's league had until 29 April 2016 to place a bid for a licence, with 13 clubs making bids: Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood, Fremantle, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, West Coast, and Western Bulldogs.

Adelaide, Brisbane, and Greater Western Sydney were the only teams to bid in their respective states and were granted licences to compete in 2017.

[36] North Melbourne became the first expansion team, founded after the inaugural season, to win a premiership, when the Kangaroos defeated Brisbane by 30 points in the 2024 decider.

In addition, clubs were required to recruit two "rookies" – people with no Australian rules football experience in the previous three-year period.

Players are split into four tiers as follows: The rules are mostly the same as those used in the AFL, with a few exceptions: Prior to the commencement of the home-and-away season teams are paired off to play an exhibition trial match.

With the addition of two extra teams in 2019, the AFL Women's home-and-away season introduced conferences, a concept not common in Australian sports.

[51] In 2018, the Western Bulldogs and Carlton women's teams held the first Pride game, to celebrate gender diversity, promote inclusion for LGBTIQA+ players, and to help stamp out homophobia.

[54] This round acknowledges the significant contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls to Australian football and the broader community.

[55][56] Each team wears a guernsey especially designed to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture,[55] and the Dreamtime match is played between Richmond and Essendon.

[5] Taking into account the greater number of games played, total attendance was still growing, just spread over three times as many matches.

[61] The two television networks covered the costs of broadcasting these matches, with no licensing fee payable to the league in exchange.

It consistently ranks in the top three (alongside cricket and netball) most watched women's sporting competitions in Australia.

[3] The league receives international interest, particularly in Ireland where it has begun to attract a significant television audience due to the ongoing recruitment of Gaelic football stars.

[67] All playing and training equipment, as well as all licensed apparel and hats for the league's clubs, are manufactured by Cotton On.

Prior to the creation of the league, the AFL ran four years of exhibition matches between sides representing Melbourne and Western Bulldogs.

The MVP award is voted on by the players' peers, in a similar method to the Leigh Matthews Trophy for men.

Each week, the senior coach of each club gives five votes to the player they consider to be best on ground in the game in which their team plays, four to the second-best, and so on to one for the fifth-best.