Team relocations in Australia and New Zealand

The two major professional sporting leagues in Australia are the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL). Both competitions were originally based in one city (Melbourne and Sydney respectively) and expanded to a national level, and through that process, there have been team relocations, mergers and closures in both leagues. The clubs are owned by members, not privately, but the North American franchise model exists, which means entry to the league is restricted. The hybrid model has meant that the leading promotor of relocation is the league itself, trying to grow the football code by encouraging poorly performing clubs to relocate interstate.

AFL

The AFL is the national competition in Australian rules football and grew out of the mostly suburban Melbourne based Victorian Football League competition; as a result, the member clubs have had to move to adjust to a changing national focus.

Major interstate relocations and mergers

• South Melbourne Football Club – in 1982, it relocated interstate to Sydney, 963 km north and became the Sydney Swans. Despite early struggles, the club has more than tripled its membership since and have won premierships (championships) in 2005 & 2012.
• Fitzroy Football Club – in 1996, the Melbourne-based club merged its playing operations with the interstate Brisbane Bears, a club 1669 km north of its original home, with the Bears becoming the Brisbane Lions. Since the merger, the Brisbane club almost doubled its membership and won three consecutive premierships between 2001 and 2003. Though the Fitzroy Football Club ceased fielding a team in profession competitions, it continued as a standalone entity based at its traditional home and fields a team in the amateur Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA).

Minor relocations

• St Kilda Football Club – in 1964 relocated from the Junction Oval in St Kilda to the Moorabbin Oval in the South Eastern Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin. Two years, later they won their first and only premiership. From 1993 to 1999, they played their home games to Waverley Park in Mulgrave in Melbourne's east. St Kilda were one of the first tenants of the new Colonial Stadium in 2000, but their administration remained at Moorabbin. In late 2007, it was confirmed that the club would leave Moorabbin to set up base in Seaford, Victoria, a region (the Mornington Peninsula) in which the club had grown its supporter base significantly. The move was completed at the start of the 2011 season.
• Hawthorn Football Club – in 1973, it moved from suburban Hawthorn to Princes Park in Carlton, an inner Northern suburb of Melbourne, and then to Waverley Park in 1991. In 2000, the club moved its home games to the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In 2005, some years after Waverley Park's demise as an official VFL/AFL venue, the club permanently relocated to Waverley, but the name of the club did not change.
• Brisbane Bears – in 1993 relocated to the Brisbane Cricket Ground in Brisbane for the 1993 season and membership and attendances instantly tripled. Formed in 1986, the perhaps-incorrectly named side had initially established itself in Carrara, Queensland, a suburb of the city of Gold Coast, Queensland, some 80 km south of the city of Brisbane.
• Collingwood Football Club – in 1999, it played their last game at Victoria Park in Collingwood and moved to the larger and more central Melbourne Cricket Ground. The headquarters of the club moved to the Lexus Centre in Richmond, Victoria in 2005.