Sydney Swans are Australia’s most widely supported AFL club for 20 straight years
The Sydney Swans have topped the annual Roy Morgan AFL supporter ladder for a 20th straight year with 1,297,000 supporters. The Swans are over 300,000 ahead of Grand Finalist the Brisbane Lions with 954,000 supporters according to the 2025 annual Roy Morgan AFL club supporters survey.
Beaten Preliminary Finalist Collingwood is the most widely supported Victorian club with 873,000 supporters ahead of ‘Minor Premier’ the Adelaide Crows with 738,000 supporters following an impressive increase of 85,000 (+13.0%) on a year ago. This year the Adelaide Crows became the first club in the AFL era to finish on top of the ladder and lose two finals to be bundled out of the finals’ series ‘in straight sets’.
Two traditional Victorian powerhouses fill out the top six despite disappointing years led by Essendon with 722,000 supporters, an increase of 59,000 (+8.9%) on a year ago ahead of Carlton on 688,000 supporters following an increase of 107,000 (+18.4%) – the largest annual increase of any club.
In seventh place are this year’s wooden spooners, the West Coast Eagles, with 658,000 supporters ahead of the Lions Grand Final opponents, the Geelong Cats with 552,000 supporters. The Cats are one place in front of the team they knocked out of the finals on the weekend, Hawthorn with 476,000 supporters.
There were three other clubs to increase their support over the last year – all based in Melbourne. These clubs include St. Kilda, with 381,000 supporters following an increase of 4,000 (+1.1%) on a year ago, just ahead of the Western Bulldogs with 343,000 supporters after an increase of 19,000 (+5.9%) and North Melbourne after an increase of 10,000 (+5.7%) to 184,000 supporters.
AFL Club Supporter Ladder 2025
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, July 2023 – June 2024, n=64,708 and July 2024 - June 2025, n=67,653. Base: Australians 14+.
North Melbourne, Port Adelaide and the Gold Coast are the best at converting supporters to members
Although it is once again no surprise to see the traditionally well-supported clubs such as the Sydney Swans, Brisbane Lions and Collingwood at the top of the overall AFL club supporter ladder, a key metric for AFL clubs is their ability to convert their latent supporters into financial members that directly benefit the clubs.
Overall, a record 1,363,437 Australians are now a member of an AFL club, an increase of over 240,000 (+3.3%) on a year ago and equivalent to almost one-in-20 Australians. The table below ranks clubs based on how effective they are at converting their supporters into financial members based on dividing the (official AFL club memberships divided by Roy Morgan supporter numbers) x 100.
On this important metric it is ‘bottom dweller’ North Melbourne who again have the most loyal supporters in the league for a second straight year. The Kangaroos convert a league-high 30.6% of their supporters into members, up 1.5% points from a year ago. The high rating for North Melbourne is despite a string of poor performances for the club over the last six years which this year celebrated 100 years in the league.
Port Adelaide are again highly ranked on this measure in second place with a conversion rate of over one-in-four supporters to members – 25.2% (up a significant 5% points from a year ago). Port Adelaide have now ranked in the top three for conversion rates for three straight years.
In third place are the Gold Coast Suns with a conversion rate of supporters to members of 21.4% (up 4.7% points) with the club making its first ever finals series in 2025. In fourth place is 2021 Premiers Melbourne. The league’s oldest club have maintained a high conversion rate in recent years and now convert 20.2% (up 0.4% points) of supporters to members. Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, Gold Coast Suns and Melbourne are the only clubs to convert more than one-in-four supporters to members.
Six other clubs convert more than one-in-six supporters to members including the GWS Giants converting 19.7% (up 3.6% points), Richmond on 19.6% (up 2% points), the Western Bulldogs on 19.1%, Hawthorn on 18.3% (up 1.6% points), St. Kilda on 17.2% (up 1.2% points) and Geelong on 16.7% (up 2.6% points).
AFL Supporter Conversion to Membership Rates
*Full AFL Membership Figures available at: https://www.afl.com.au/news/1416244/all-time-club-membership-record-broken-again.
9.72 million Australians now support an AFL club, up a massive 860,000 compared to four years
The AFL supporter base has consolidated in the last few years and well over 9 million Australians throughout the last three years, equivalent to over 40% of Australians, now support an AFL club – 9,720,000 supporters, up over 860,000 (+9.7%) compared to 2021.
In addition, there are 8,589,000 Australians who watched at least one AFL match on TV, up over 1 million (+13.3%) compared to 2021.
Julian McCrann, Industry Communications Director, Roy Morgan, says the Sydney Swans have topped the annual Roy Morgan AFL Supporter Ladder for a record 20th straight year:
“Despite missing the finals for the first time in half a decade the Sydney Swans have again topped the annual Roy Morgan AFL Supporter Ladder for a 20th straight year with 1,297,000 fans – and the only club with over 1 million supporters in 2025.
“The Brisbane Lions are the reigning Premier and are back in the ‘big dance’ this weekend to defend their title and are again second on the Supporter Ladder with 954,000 supporters. The Lions outpointed Collingwood on the weekend and the Victorian powerhouse is in third place overall for supporters with 873,000 – clearly the most of any Victorian club.
“Minor Premiers the Adelaide Crows had a great year on the park – until September, when they became the first club in the AFL era (since 1990) to finish on top of the ladder and lose two finals matches in a row to crash out. However, the Crows’ success on the park has translated into a significant increase in their supporter base, up 85,000 (+13%) to 738,000 and fourth place overall.
“Although their fortunes on the field were less than hoped for, both Essendon and Carlton have maintained their spots as ‘big four clubs’ in Victoria – at least in terms of their supporter bases. Essendon increased their supporter base by 59,000 (+8.9%) on a year ago and Carlton supporter numbers grew by 107,000 (+18.4%) – the largest increase of any AFL club.
“Notably, two other clubs have larger than average supporter bases – and their fortunes this year couldn’t be more different. Wooden spooner West Coast slots into seventh position overall with 658,000 supporters, while Grand Final favourite Geelong records 552,000 supporters – slightly more than the league average of 537,000 (although heavily inflated by Sydney and Brisbane).
“Although Australia has had a challenging half-decade with a once-in-a-century pandemic from 2020-22 followed by a bout of high inflation and cost-of-living concerns from 2022-2025, the AFL has gone from strength to strength in recent years.
“Combined AFL crowds in Seasons 2023, 2024 and 2025 have all exceeded 8 million – all more than 500,000 higher than the pre-pandemic record of 7,594,302 attendees in 2018 – and these figures are reflected in the Roy Morgan data.
“Overall support for an AFL club has now been above 9.5 million in each of the last three years (averaging 9,772,000) – significantly higher than support levels during the pandemic which were below 9 million. In addition, well over 8 million Australians are watching the AFL on TV, at least occasionally, averaging 8,646,000 over the last three years – significantly higher than before.
“Although there has been some discussion in the last week about the same teams appearing in September, it’s worth recognising that 12/18 clubs (two-thirds) have appeared in a Preliminary Final over the last 8 seasons (2018-2025) – including this year’s Wooden Spooner the West Coast Eagles – the club that won the 2018 Premiership.”
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Related research findings
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Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
