By Scott Spits
Once upon a time, an AFL coach simply had to ask their players for “120 minutes of effort”.
But fresh analysis of the most recent AFL match data shows the real number is now closer to 130 minutes.
The sample size for 2025 is modest but significant – through six rounds, including opening round, the average length of each quarter has gone past the 32-minute mark, pushing the average length of a match to 128 minutes and 42 seconds. It’s an increase of more than three minutes per game on the 2024 season, when the average match length was almost exactly 125 minutes.
While 30-minute quarters have been considered the norm for AFL games for as long as many fans can remember, the way in which the game has been adjudicated (20 minutes of play plus “time-on”) has been in operation since 1994.
The shortened 2020 season was the outlier, when AFL officials took drastic steps to ensure the competition could get off the ground amid the coronavirus pandemic, significantly cutting the length of games to 16 minutes of play per quarter plus time-on. Go back 15 years and the average AFL game was around 122 minutes, but in the post-2020 period the figure has risen by more than five minutes.
The clock shows an almost 35-minute quarter in last year’s draw between Collingwood and Fremantle.Credit: AFL Photos / Getty Images
Why are games longer?
There are myriad factors that can affect the length of a game. Some are unpredictable – for example, notable and game-stopping injuries and when play has to be postponed due to unforeseen events such as the threat of lightning.
But this season’s data shows the combined number of throw-ins and ball-ups are an increase on any point in the previous four seasons (68.4 per game). That’s a sharp jump on what happened during the 2021 season when there was an average of 58.3 breaks in play for a ball-up or throw-in. The number of goals has hovered around the 12-13 mark per team per match for the past five years, and the 2025 data shows a small spike up to 12.9 goals.
Then there’s the impact of time elapsed once a goal is kicked, with the ball brought back to the centre square for a restart. The AFL’s score review process (a tortuous protocol, if you ask some) clearly affects match time depending on how often an umpire decides to check in with the ARC – the AFL review centre.
Clubs must line up in a 6-6-6 formation at centre bounces, and policing that can take additional time. The gap after a goal is kicked is also prized time for broadcasters to help pay off their investment in the game by showing advertisements.
MATCHES: THE LONG AND THE SHORT
- Round 1: Western Bulldogs v North Melbourne - 136 minutes and 8 seconds
- Round 1: Geelong v Fremantle - 135 minutes and 36 seconds
- Round 3: Essendon v Port Adelaide - 118 minutes and 11 seconds
- Round 2: Sydney Swans v Fremantle - 117 minutes and 54 seconds
Top Cat Patrick Dangerfield, the recently departed AFL Players Association president, released himself among the pigeons in late January, saying quarters were too long and had to be cut.
“As audiences’ attention span reduces, the debate will continue with the AFL quarter lengths,” he posted on X. “It’s time to reduce them – cue outrage.”
But any suggestion by league honchos that reducing the length of matches is the right choice normally sparks the same reaction from a typical AFL supporter: hands off and stop meddling with the game!
Turn back time
Dangerfield believed there was scope to “pull back almost 15-20 minutes of the game” – which might not please those coaches who were hell-bent on 120 minutes of effort.
“If I was handed the keys, I think COVID taught us that 16 minutes, that’s just too short, it didn’t feel like you could really get the flow on in a game,” Dangerfield said on SEN.
“But I think the time-on question’s a relevant one, whether there’s an ability to reduce time-on rather than seeing quarters heading to the early 30-minute mark. I think it makes sense if they’re around the 20 to 28 [minute mark].
“I think it’s reasonable to suggest at some stage that it’s something that we could consider as a code to make the game more accessible because there are flow-on effects of reducing games less where you could have better quality slots, more primetime games, less changeover between games.
“We’re talking more five-day breaks. You might even throw a four-day break in depending on where you get to with game length.”
The debate about match length is not a new one. The issue caught the attention of Brisbane Lions premiership coach Chris Fagan four years ago. His club’s early season clash against Carlton had two quarters that exceeded 35 minutes and, with the 2020 season fresh in his memory, Fagan was calling for change.
“It is way too long. It wears the players out. I don’t know the stats, but the injury lists at clubs at the moment look big and long and we’re only into round six,” Fagan said at the time.
“The game feels long at the moment. I know it felt short last year [in 2020], because we took it back to 16 minutes plus time-on. I reckon the right answer is somewhere in between, maybe 18 and time-on.”
One thing is clear, the whistle for time-off has not been blown on the debate.
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