As a national sport, the AFL is always looking to expand into other countries and showcase its unique style of play to an untapped audience of hungry sports fans. London is usually the hotspot for these games, with a total of 15 pre-season or postseason matches being played in the United Kingdom.
Some games leave you scratching your head as to why they would match up certain teams to play there; I'm looking at you, London, 2005, Fremantle against West Coast.
With the next stop on the AFL's travel itinerary hoping to be India, I decided to have a look at some of the global games across the AFL's history and rank them.
I'll be basing the ranking on how exciting and close the games were, where they were played and the spectacle they brought.
2Shanghai, China, 2010 - Jiangwan Stadium
This game had a bit of everything story-wise, with the teams unsure if they were still going to play late in the season.
Even with the match being 16-aside, Brisbane still had a lack of players travelling to China, prompting a call for a member of their administration team to play.
Melbourne ended up benefiting from having, well, more AFL players and came back from a 31-point deficit in the final term thanks to heroics from Liam Jurrah, who booted five for the match, including the game-winning goal at the siren.
