The Australian Football League (AFL) has announced a new multi-year partnership with TikTok to enhance the AFL experience for a new generation within TikTok’s Australian and global communities.

The partnership will accelerate the growth of the AFL and its clubs’ channels, delivering greater opportunity to create fresh content for a younger generation. The content will bring in previously unseen behind the scenes content and access to some of the sport’s biggest stars.

Just in time for the seventh season of the NAB AFLW (Australian Football League Women’s) competition, the dedicated account for AFLW will deliver exclusive content to fans. For the first time in history, all 18 clubs will be featured following the inception of the four expansion teams – Sydney, Hawthorn, Essendon and Port Adelaide.

Noting TikTok’s increasing popularity, AFL Executive General Manager Customer and Commercial, Kylie Rogers, says, “The AFL continues to grow in Australia, as does TikTok, especially with kids and families, so we are excited to partner together and harness the potential to engage new generations of fans around the game.”

Increasing popularity

Rogers expresses the widespread popularity of AFL and says, “Sport is a hugely popular category on the platform and, with over one billion users worldwide, TikTok will allow us to grow our game locally and abroad.”

Jonathon Oake, Sport Business Development for TikTok APAC, says, “TikTok is a vibrant hub of sporting content for millions of users across Australia, and this new partnership will deliver more AFL content to the platform than ever before.

“We see enormous user appetite and growth potential for the AFL in reaching fans across the world via short-form content.”

The AFL’s TikTok account @afl is the League’s fastest growing channel, attracting more than 220,000 followers since its launch in 2020. They are proving to engage deeply with sideline moments, highlights, and fan and player personalities around the League.

With the popularity of short-form video content continuing to grow, TikTok and the AFL are aiming to bring AFL fans even closer to their favourite sport with content the partners hope will surprise and delight them.