The state ofVictoria,Australia, has a strong sporting culture and includes many popular sports.
The most popular sports played in the state arebasketball,Australian rules football,cricket,shooting,soccer, andnetball.Horse racing joins that list as the most popular spectator sports.
In terms of both attendance and media coverage, Australian rules football is the most popular sport in the state. The participation rate of 4% is the third highest in the country with 223,999 players counted in 2004.Australian rules footballoriginated in Melbourne in 1858. Ten of the eighteenAustralian Football League clubs are based in Victoria, and theMelbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is held by many to be the spiritual home of the game. Victoria hosted allAustralian Football International Cup competitions from 2002 to 2017.
Current Teams
Basketball has the highest participation rate in the state.[1][2][3]Melbourne United (previously Melbourne Tigers) andSouth East Melbourne Phoenix are Melbourne's current teams in theNational Basketball League (Australia). United have won the championship 4 times, in 1993, 1997,2005-2006 and2007-2008, with the Phoenix, being a new club, having yet to win a title. Both teams currently play home games atJohn Cain Arena in the centre of Melbourne, with SE Phoenix playing several games a year at theState Basketball Centre in the eastern Melbourne suburb ofWantirna South.Between 2010 and 2013, Basketball in Victoria experienced an increase in participation and at the time had more players in the state than any other sport.[4][5]
Cricket is also popular in Victoria. The governing body for the sport isCricket Victoria which administers the 1,182 cricket clubs and 112,000 registered cricketers in Victoria, and 62,774 children involved in school-based competition. TheVictorian cricket team is the state team for both men and women and currently competes in theSheffield Shield,Marsh One-Day Cup and Women's National Cricket League.
Since 2011, theMelbourne Renegades andMelbourne Stars have competed in theBig Bash League, Australia's professional domesticTwenty20 series.
Current Teams
Soccer in Victoria is governed by theFootball Victoria. It is particularly popular among migrant communities and has one of the highest sporting participation level in the state (after basketball). Victoria currently features three teams in the NationalA-League in both the men's and women's competitions.[6]
Current Teams
Former Teams
The predominantly Australian rules football-dominated state of Victoria didn't play host to muchrugby league football, which was traditionally a New South Wales and Queensland-based game during the 20th century. Some representative games were played in Melbourne to gauge public interest in the sport in the early 1990s and the crowds were encouraging.
Travel back a few years and you find that, inrugby league circles, Melbourne was viewed as a great, succulent peach ready for picking. Almost 90,000 people had turned up to the MCG in 1994 to watch NSW play Queensland in aState of Origin match. In a period where the robust sport was focused on expansion, Melbourne loomed as the obvious next frontier. Then the code imploded.
— The Sunday Age, 1999[7]
When the newly formedNational Rugby League re-emerged in 1998,Melbourne Storm was part of the lineup of clubs. They have since become one of the most successful teams in the League and gained a significant following in their home state.[8]
As of 2022, there are 17 amateur clubs based in Melbourne with further clubs in regional areas around the state.[9]
Melbourne hosted several international matches including: Australia vs England during the2008 Rugby League World Cup and again in the 2010 Four Nations Series[citation needed], the2010 ANZAC Test, which attracted a capacity crowd at the newly openedAAMI Park and several games at the2017 Rugby League World Cup including a quarter final.
Current Teams
Motor racing has its Australian roots in Melbourne. One of the earlier motor races was held on a horse racing venue in Melbourne, but organised motor racing as we know it today began with the first running of theAustralian Grand Prix, held on a rectangular dirt road course on the streets ofPhillip Island in1928. The Grand Prix wandered across the country in subsequent decades but today is held as part of theFormula One World Drivers Championship on the streets of inner Melbourne aroundAlbert Park Lake. A modernPhillip Island Grand Prix Circuit hosts theAustralian motorcycle Grand Prix. The state has more motor racing circuits than any other as well as providing the home base for more than half of the teams contesting the premier domestic motor racing series,V8 Supercar. Even New South Wales' signature motor race, theBathurst 1000, has its roots in Victoria, having been first held as a 500-mile race at Phillip Island.
Netball is recognised as the largest female participation sport inAustralia. InVictoria there are in excess of 105,000 registered participants, which does not include the tens of thousands of school children that participate in school netball programs annually.
Approximately 240 associations/groups affiliate withNetball Victoria on an annual basis. Affiliation provides access to netball events, programs and services as well as a pathway to State, National and International representation. Associations are geographically grouped into one of the 20 Regions, and then Regions are grouped into one of six Zones. 96% of the Netball Victoria membership is female. 55% of the membership resides in regional Victoria with the remaining 45% in the metropolitan suburbs in and aroundMelbourne. 62% of the Netball Victoria membership is aged seventeen (17) and under, with the majority of the remaining participants aged between eighteen and fifty. Victoria has two teams in the nationalSuper Netball competition, theMelbourne Vixens and theMelbourne Mavericks.
Current Teams
Former Teams
According to theAustralian Bureau of Statistics (2007), Victoria has very low rugby participation (less than 1%), dominated by amateur competition run by theVictorian Rugby Union, and participation in many private schools.[10] However, international rugby matches attract large attendances, (e.g.2003 Rugby World Cup, andsevens at the 2006 Commonwealth Games).
TheMelbourne Rebels represented Victoria in the professionalSuper Rugby competition. Their formation was long-awaited in the state, theVictorian Rugby Union having bid twice previously for a licence, the first time in 1995, losing to theACT Brumbies, and the second time in 2005, losing to theWestern Force. Their bid for the 15th licence was successful in 2010, however, after 14 years, Rugby Australia pulled the Rebel's licence, citing excessive debts incurred in running the team as the reason. The team folded in 2024, leaving Australia's second largest city without a team in Super Rugby.
Open water swimming is a popular sport throughoutVictoria. There is an ever-growing number of races right aroundPort Phillip Bay,Western Port Bay and Victoria's Ocean Coast. There are even a small number of races held in Rivers and Lakes.
The open water swim season in Victoria runs from early December to Mid-March of the following year. Several swims occur onAustralia Day which also marks the "middle" of the season. The largest open water swim in Victoria (and As of 2009[update], the largest in the world) is theLornePier to Pub. It attracts up to 4000 participants each year.
Some other well known swims include;
The standard distance of the majority of the swims on the open water swim calendar is between 1 km and 2 km with the most common distance used being 1.2 km. Other swims however, cover much longer distances, including the Bloody Big Swim which covers 11.2 km.
Many famous swimmers are known to have participated in these swims including Olympic Gold medalistsKieren Perkins andMichael Klim. It is also a popular hobby of many other famous people including manyAFL footballers, Australian cricketers includingSimon O'Donnell and politicians including formerPremiers of VictoriaSteve Bracks andTed Baillieu.
Annually, Melbourne hosts theAustralian Open tennis tournament, one of the fourGrand Slam tournaments; the famousMelbourne Cuphorse race; the 'Boxing Day' crickettest match held each year from 26–30 December at theMelbourne Cricket Ground; and theAustralian Masters golf tournament. TheWallabies, Australia's nationalrugby union team, usually also play at least one Test annually in Melbourne.
Rivalling the Open early in the year, theFormula One World Drivers' Championship visits theAlbert Park Street Circuit to contest theAustralian Grand Prix (which was originally hosted by Adelaide, South Australia). AlsoPhillip Island hosts theAustralian motorcycle Grand Prix forMotoGP bikes as well as a round of theWorld Superbike Championship, andStawell is the home of Australia's most prestigious foot race, theStawell Gift.
The MCG was the site of the first evercrickettest match betweenAustralia andEngland in 1877, and has been the main stadium for the1956 Summer Olympics and2006 Commonwealth Games.
As well as Olympic and Commonwealth Games, Melbourne has hosted numerous sporting events which rotate host cities. Melbourne co-hosted the2003 Rugby World Cup, including many pool matches as well as a quarter final – all of which were played at the Telstra Dome; hosted the 1975, 1979, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2015 events of the basketballFIBA Oceania Championship; hosted the2002 World Masters Games; the first city outside theUnited States to host theWorld Police and Fire Games in 1995, and thePresidents Cup golf tournament in 1999; and was the first city in theSouthern Hemisphere to host the World CupPolo Championship in 2001. The city has hostedFIFA World Cup qualifiers in both 1997 2001 and 2009
The state was to host the2026 Commonwealth Games, regionally across Victoria and Melbourne until they were cancelled in July 2023.[12][13]
| Venue | Capacity | Main sports |
|---|---|---|
| Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit | 90,000 | Motorcycle racing,touring car racing |
| Kardinia Park | 40,000 | Australian rules football |
| Winton Motor Raceway | 30,000 | Motorsport |
| Eureka Stadium | 11,000 | Australian rules football |
| Bendigo Stadium | 4,000 | Basketball,Netball |
| Ballarat Sports Events Centre | 3,000 | Basketball, Netball |
| Club | League | Venue | Established | Premierships/Championships |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bendigo Spirit | Women's National Basketball League | Bendigo Stadium | 2007 | 2 |
| Geelong Football Club | Australian Football League | Kardinia Park | 1859 | 10 |
| Geelong Venom | Women's National Basketball League | Geelong Arena | 1984 (as Bulleen Boomers) | 2 |
| Tickford Racing | Supercars Championship | Winton Motor Raceway | 1989 | 2 |
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