2012 AFL season

The 2012 AFL season was the 116th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989.

The season featured eighteen clubs, with addition of the newly established Greater Western Sydney Giants, which was based in Western Sydney and split its home games between Sydney and Canberra.

The season ran from 24 March until 29 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs.

The premiership was won by the Sydney Swans for the fifth time, after it defeated by ten points in the 2012 AFL Grand Final.

Draft
The 2011 National Draft was held on 24 November in Sydney, making it only the second time it was held out of Melbourne. This is due to the entry of.

NAB Cup
Adelaide won the 2012 pre-season competition following a 34-point win over the West Coast Eagles at AAMI Stadium. It was their second pre-season cup premiership.

Premiership season
The fixture for this season was officially announced on 28 October 2011. Some of the features of the fixture included:
 * Each team played twenty-two matches over twenty-three rounds.
 * Each team had one bye, located between rounds 11 and 13. This is similar in practice to the split round concept, which (prior to 2011) saw one of the mid-season rounds played over two weeks, giving each team one week off.
 * Due to concern over one-sided matches featuring the two newest teams ( and ), their fixtures were adjusted so that they played each of the top five teams from 2011 only once.
 * For the first time, each Victorian team travelled interstate at least five times, and each team travelled to Perth at least once.
 * Blundstone Arena, Blacktown International Sportspark and Škoda Stadium hosted home and away matches for the first time in 2012.
 * As had been the case since 2010, the final round of matches was given a floating fixture. Exact dates were determined later in the season with a view to giving likely finalists the longest possible break ahead of their first final.

The addition of a ninth match in each round, and the new television rights deal requiring most matches to be shown live, influenced the scheduling of matches, and changed some traditional match starting times. In typical rounds, where nine matches were played between Friday and Sunday, the changes were:
 * Friday night matches began at 7:50 pm EST instead of 7:40 pm, or 8:40 pm EST when played in South Australia or Western Australia.
 * Saturday afternoon matches began at 1:40 pm EST and 1:45 pm/2:10 pm EST.
 * A regular Saturday match was scheduled beginning at 4:40 pm EST – which was either a twilight match on the east coast, or an afternoon match in Perth.
 * Saturday night matches began at 7:40 pm EST instead of 7:10 pm.
 * The second Sunday afternoon match began at 3:15 pm instead of the traditional 2:10 pm. This change was to allow the Seven Network to show the match live into Victoria, and use it as a lead-in to its struggling 6:00 pm news bulletin.

Rule changes
Following two high profile goal umpiring errors in the previous three years' grand finals, in which goals were awarded to Tom Hawkins (, 2009) and Sharrod Wellingham (, 2011) for shots which hit the post, video score reviews were introduced to AFL games for the first time. A score review could be initiated by the field umpire, at his own discretion or on request by the goal umpire, and television broadcast footage would be reviewed for visual evidence to overturn an on-field goal umpiring decision.

Win/loss table
Bold – Home game X – Bye Opponent for round listed above margin

Awards

 * The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to Ryan O'Keefe of, who got 28 disposals.
 * The Brownlow Medal was originally awarded to Jobe Watson of, who received 30 votes. On 11 November 2016, Watson relinquished the medal in the wake of the Essendon supplements saga. It was subsequently re-awarded jointly to Sam Mitchell of and Trent Cotchin of , who received 26 votes each, on 15 November 2016.
 * The AFL Rising Star was awarded to Daniel Talia of, who received 43 votes.
 * The Coleman Medal was awarded to Jack Riewoldt of, who kicked 65 goals during the home and away season.
 * The McClelland Trophy was awarded to.
 * The Wooden Spoon was "awarded" to.
 * The AFL Players Association awards were as follows:
 * The Leigh Matthews Trophy was awarded to Gary Ablett of, for being the Most Valuable Player throughout the premiership season.
 * The Robert Rose Award went to Joel Selwood of and Beau Waters of, for being the Most Courageous Players throughout the premiership season.
 * The Best Captain award went to Jobe Watson of.
 * The Best First-Year Player award was won by Jeremy Cameron of.
 * The AFL Coaches Association Awards were as follows:
 * The Player of the Year Award was given to Trent Cotchin of, who received 107 votes.
 * The Allan Jeans Senior Coach of the Year Award was given to John Longmire of.
 * The Assistant Coach of the Year Award was given to Peter Sumich of.
 * The Best Young Player Award was given to Dyson Heppell of.
 * The inaugural Jim Stynes Community Leadership Award was awarded to Daniel Jackson of.

Coleman Medal

 * Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the Coleman that round.
 * Underlined numbers indicates the player did not play that round.