Australian rules football in China has been played since the 1990s and is growing in popularity. 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, an AFL academy in 2011, and built a dedicated AFL oval in Tianjin in 2011. The AFL Commission designed AFLX in 2017 as a means to promote the sport in China. It scheduled a series of AFL Premiership matches was played at Jiangwan Stadium from 2017-2019, the first outside of Pacific.
