An oval ball sitting on the boundary line of an empty ground, light going gold behind the far wing.

Footy tipping

Footy means two different games depending on where you're standing.

In Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, a footy tipping competition is Australian rules. In New South Wales and Queensland, it's rugby league. Fanzava runs either code, or both at once on the same hub, in your branding.

Free to start. No credit card.

The two codes, side by side.

Footy in VIC, SA, WA, TAS and NT
Australian rules. 18 clubs, 24 home-and-away rounds, Round 1 from Wednesday 17 March 2027, Grand Final at the MCG on Saturday 2 October.
Footy in NSW and QLD
Rugby league. The NRL runs 18 clubs from 2027 with the Perth Bears joining, and the season opens at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Saturday 27 February.
When they overlap
Rugby league starts in late February, Australian rules in mid-March. From March through August both codes are running at the same time, most weekends, on the same nights.
Round shape
Both codes run Thursday night to Sunday. Neither round is a single lock: fixtures close one at a time, at their own kick-off.
Finals
Australian rules moves to a five-week finals series in 2027, opening with two Wildcard matches for 7th through 10th. Rugby league keeps a four-week, top-eight series.
Which one is your audience's footy?
Wherever your members, staff or customers actually live. If your audience crosses the Murray or the Tweed, the answer is both, and that is a configuration question rather than a decision.

Choosing a code, then getting out of the way.

  1. Start with where your audience lives, not where you do.

    A Brisbane workplace with a Melbourne head office has two footy conversations, not one. Your tipping competition should match the argument your audience is already having in the kitchen, not the one on your org chart.

  2. Run both codes if the answer is both.

    Two competitions, two leaderboards, one hub, one set of participants, one brand. People can enter one, the other, or both. The Free plan covers a single competition; Starter runs three at once, which is enough for both codes plus a finals bracket.

  3. Set the round rhythm once, then leave it alone.

    Fixtures arrive from the live data feed. Tips lock at each kick-off. Reminders go out 24 hours before the first lock of the round, and again 75 minutes before. Results score the moment a match ends, and the leaderboard moves on its own.

The settings that decide a footy tipping competition.

The defaults work out of the box. These are the four settings that organisers of both codes end up arguing about, usually in Round 3, usually in a group chat.

One point a tip is the floor, not the ceiling.

Flat scoring is honest and it is also flat. Joker Tips let each participant nominate one fixture a round for a multiplier you set between 1.5x and 3x. Get it right and it pays; get it wrong and nothing extra is lost. That asymmetry is what keeps someone sitting 40 points back still playing in August.

Byes hit the two codes for different reasons.

Australian rules has 18 clubs and 24 rounds, so several rounds carry fewer than nine games and a late joiner can ride a light round up the ladder. Rugby league loses its best players to State of Origin camp for roughly six weeks mid-season, so the form guide stops working entirely. Same symptom, completely different cause, and each code needs its own answer.

Margin is what settles a tie, not what wins a round.

Every round, participants predict the winning margin on one designated fixture. It does not touch weekly points. It decides the season, when two people finish level and cumulative margin accuracy across every round separates them. Set it in Round 1 or you will be inventing a tiebreaker in September.

Decide your late-tip policy before anyone is late.

Someone will miss a lock. Choose now whether an untipped fixture auto-assigns to the favourite, scores zero, or simply does not count. Three defensible answers, one rule, applied by the platform without you having to adjudicate it on a Friday night.

Tipping is one way to run a footy season. It isn't the only one.

Head-to-head tipping

Pick a winner in every fixture, every round, all season. The format everyone already knows, which is exactly why it works for a mixed audience across both codes.

Margin tipping

Predict the winning margin rather than just the winner. Rewards people who actually watch, and works as a standalone competition for a footy-literate crowd.

Survivor

One pick a round, no repeats, one loss and you're out. Brutal, fast to explain, and it produces a winner long before the home-and-away season ends.

Finals brackets

September is a knockout tournament in both codes. Run the home-and-away season as tipping, then switch to a bracket for the finals and pick up everyone who tuned out in July.

Why run your footy tipping on Fanzava.

Your logo, your colours, your domain.

Every paid plan is white label. Your brand on every screen, every email, every notification. Pro and above add a custom domain and a custom email sender, so it reads as tipping.yourbrand.com and the Monday recap arrives from your address.

Both codes, one hub, one audience list.

Participants sign up once. They can enter the Australian rules competition, the rugby league one, or both, and they sit in the same groups and the same leaderboards structure either way. Your audience is one list, not two.

No app, no install, no friction.

Send a link or print a QR code. People sign up in their phone browser in under a minute and tip from wherever they are. Nothing to download, nothing for IT to approve.

The Sunday-night maths is gone.

Results come in from the live data feed the moment a match ends. Leaderboards refresh in real time, overall and by group. The Monday recap writes and sends itself.

Questions footy organisers ask.

Does footy mean AFL or NRL?
Both, and which one depends on the postcode. In Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, footy is Australian rules. In New South Wales and Queensland, footy is rugby league. Neither side is wrong and neither is going to change their mind, so if your audience spans the border, run a competition for each rather than picking a fight you can't win.
Can we run both codes at the same time?
Yes, as two competitions on one hub with separate leaderboards and separate scoring settings. The Free plan covers one competition at a time. Starter, at A$39 a month for up to 100 participants, runs three concurrently, which covers both codes plus a finals bracket in September.
What does a footy tipping competition cost to run?
Free for up to 25 participants, with no credit card. Paid plans start at A$39 a month on Starter for 100 participants and step up through Growth at A$65 for 250 and Pro at A$105 for 500. All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST. Branding, your own domain and larger participant caps are what people upgrade for.
Do we have to enter the fixtures ourselves?
No. Australian rules and rugby league both run on the live data feed. Fixtures, kick-off times, lock countdowns and results arrive automatically once the competition is set up, byes included. The feed goes well past the two footy codes too, from the Big Bash and the A-League to Super Rugby, the GAA championships, Formula 1, Supercars and Super Netball, with the full list on the sports page. Custom sports and manual fixture entry are there if you want to run something the feed doesn't cover.
Can our sponsors appear in the competition?
Yes. Add sponsor logos from the admin panel and they appear on the leaderboard, in round result emails and in the weekly recap. Prize categories can be configured and funded the same way, so participants can see what they're playing for from Round 1.

Ready to settle which footy your audience is actually arguing about?

Free to start. No credit card.

Know your code already? Go straight to AFL →