2024 AFL Women's season

The 2024 AFL Women's season was the ninth season of the AFL Women's competition, the highest-level senior women's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season featured 18 clubs and ran from 30 August to 30 November, comprising an eleven-match home-and-away season over ten weeks, followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top eight clubs.
won the premiership, defeating by 30 points in the 2024 AFL Women's Grand Final. North Melbourne won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 10–0–1 win–loss–draw record and, by winning its three finals, recorded an undefeated season for the first time in the competition's history. 's Ebony Marinoff won the AFL Women's best and fairest award as the league's best and fairest player, while 's Aishling Moloney and Brisbane's Taylor Smith tied for the AFL Women's leading goalkicker award as the league's leading goalkickers.

Background

In February 2024, Australian Football League executive general manager Laura Kane announced that pre-season training for the 2024 season would commence on 3 June, and that the season would begin during the last weekend of August, coinciding with the AFL's pre-finals bye weekend, as had been the case the previous two seasons. In February, an eleven-match home-and-away season was confirmed, an increase from ten matches in 2023, along with four weeks of finals. Although players were on twelve-month contracts for the first time, the announcement came earlier than in previous seasons following requests from players to allow sufficient notice to plan living and work arrangements. Clubs had offered voluntary training during the off-season, with some allowing select players to play in state league competitions for additional exposure.
The 2024 season fixture was released in May, with the eleven-match home-and-away season scheduled over ten weeks. The compressed period of the season took place during weeks 4 to 7, with each club playing two matches in one of the four weeks; consequently, the fixture was divided by weeks rather than rounds, and matches were played on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during the compressed period to align with school holidays across Australia and focus on increased attendance and television viewership. Leading into the season, reigning grand finalists and were heavily favoured to at least make the grand final again in 2024, with experts from Code Sports and ESPN predicting that one of the two clubs would win the premiership and 17 of the 18 club captains tipping either North Melbourne or Brisbane as the club most likely to reach the grand final outside of their own.

Overview

The season began on 30 August with a match between and, and concluded on 30 November with the 2024 AFL Women's Grand Final. All matches throughout the season were broadcast live on the Seven Network, Fox Footy and Kayo. Sydney was awarded the right to host the opening match of the season after averaging the highest home crowds during the 2023 home-and-away season with 4,637, more than 2,000 over the league average; the match marked the first time the season opener was held outside of Victoria. The Dreamtime match between and, to take place during Indigenous Round in week 9, will be played in Darwin for the first time, while Sydney hosted Richmond in the competition's first match in Coffs Harbour in week 3; the season was the first to not feature a Hampson–Hardeman Cup between and the. The season marked an AFLW record for female senior coaches with five, including new coaches Tamara Hyett and Daisy Pearce.
In August, the AFL announced that a new "smart footy" ball-tracking technology would be introduced for the upcoming season at all venues, in which a chip is embedded in the football and tracked by sensors around the field; the system, which had been trialled for 18 months and VFL Women's, would be used to assist with reviewing scores, including alerting officials when the football crosses the goal line, hits the goal post or is touched mid-shot. After the technology was successfully used twice in week 1, marking the first use of a score review system in the AFLW, AFL general manager of footy operations Josh Mahoney said that the league would work towards implementing graphics in television broadcasts and at venues to give fans an insight into the review process, similar to the replays used for score reviews in the AFL.

Pre-season

All starting times are local time. Source:

Home-and-away season

All starting times are local time. Source:

Week 8

Ladder

Progression by round

For readability purposes, weeks 4 to 7 are split into each club's five matches, with no fixed ladder positions being given for the first four matches of this period due to the spread of matches.
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Home match attendance

The following table includes all home match attendance figures from the home-and-away season.
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Finals series

All starting times are local time. Source:

Win–loss table

For readability purposes, weeks 4 to 7 are split into each club's five matches. Home matches are in bold and opponents are listed above the margins.
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Season notes

The became the first team to be held goalless three times in an AFLW season.
became the first team to go through an AFLW season undefeated. They had a record score differential of 315.4% and conceded an average of just 19 points per game.

Awards

Major awards

The AFL Women's best and fairest was awarded to co-captain Ebony Marinoff.
The AFLPA AFLW most valuable player was awarded to Adelaide co-captain Ebony Marinoff; Marinoff was also voted as best captain, while teammate Chelsea Randall was voted as most courageous player and 's Shineah Goody was voted as best first-year player.
The AFLCA AFLW champion player of the year was awarded to Adelaide co-captain Ebony Marinoff; coach Darren Crocker was voted as coach of the year.
The AFL Women's Grand Final best-on-ground medal was awarded to North Melbourne's Jasmine Garner.
The AFL Women's All-Australian team was announced on 25 November; North Melbourne's Jasmine Garner was named captain and Adelaide co-captain Ebony Marinoff was named vice-captain.
The AFL Women's leading goalkicker was awarded to 's Aishling Moloney and 's Taylor Smith.
The AFL Women's Rising Star was awarded to Port Adelaide's Matilda Scholz.
The Goal of the Year was awarded to Adelaide's Hannah Munyard.
The Mark of the Year was awarded to Port Adelaide's Matilda Scholz.

Leading goalkickers

Player movement and draft

The player movement period will run from November 2024 to March 2025, including the 2024 AFL Women's draft, the competition's first fully national draft, will be held on 16 December 2024.