Australian rules football in China

Australian rules football in China
Jiangwan Stadium the venue for the first Australian Football League matches played in China
Country	People's Republic of China
Governing body	AFL China
National team(s)	People's Republic of China
First played	1989, Hong Kong
Registered players	2,919 (2021)[1]
Audience records
Single match	10,689 (2018). Port Adelaide v. Gold Coast (Jiangwan Stadium)

Australian rules football in China has been played since the 1989 and grew in popularity in the 2010s.^[2]

Interest in Australian football in China received a boost after the AFL, the premier professional football competition in Australia, invested in an AFL exhibition match in Shanghai in 2010, and followed up with an AFL academy in 2011. Further investment has followed from other interests including the construction of a dedicated AFL oval in Tianjin in 2011. The AFL Commission designed AFLX in 2017 as a means to promote the sport in China.^[3] It scheduled a series of AFL Premiership matches was played at Jiangwan Stadium from 2017-2019, the first outside of Pacific, which attracted an average attendance of 10,073.

The local state TV network began broadcasting matches from Australia in 2016.^[2] The 2019 AFL Grand Final was watched by a record 5.67 million viewers.^[4] Star Sports has since broadcast AFL there.

There are a number of senior clubs spread throughout China, including in the bigger cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin, as well as Auskick programs in other cities such as Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

The national team, composed solely of Chinese nationals, is known as the China (Dragons or Reds). It won the Asian Australian Football Championships All-Asia Cup in 2017 and 2018 and achieved its best international result of 13th at the 2017 Australian Football International Cup.