Death of Dale Tapping On 4 February 2025, coach Dale Tapping died, two years after he was diagnosed with
myeloma, an aggressive form of
blood cancer. Essendon had appointed Tapping as its VFL coach for the 2025 season only several months prior on 11 October 2024. He had previously served as 's VFL coach from
2013 until the end of the
2016 season, and was named VFL Coach of the Year in 2016.
Cameron Joyce, who coached in the
AFL Women's (AFLW) from
2022 season 6 until he was dismissed at the end of the
2024 season, was announced as Essendon's new VFL coach on 24 February 2025.
Practice matches Clubs held practice matches beginning on 15 February 2025. A
carnival featuring the six Victorian-based standaline clubs was held at
Mars Stadium in
Ballarat on 1 March 2025. There was speculation that the
Tasmania Football Club would enter the VFL in 2025. Instead,
AFL Tasmania introduced a
Senior Talent Academy, which included
representative games against and on 22 March 2025 and 4 May 2025 respectively. On 5 September 2025, Tasmania was granted a licence to compete in the VFL, starting in
2026.
Broadcast rights In September 2022, the
Australian Football League (AFL) announced a seven-year, $4.5 billion broadcast rights deal with the
Seven Network,
Foxtel and
Telstra, effective from the 2025 season. This included Saturday matches (outside of marquee matches) becoming exclusive to Foxtel and
Kayo for the first eight rounds of the season, while all Saturday night matches in the last eight rounds of the season would be exclusive to Seven. As a result, Seven moved its VFL coverage from Sunday afternoon to 7pm on Saturdays, airing in Victoria on
7mate. On 17 March 2025, the VFL announced that one game per round would be broadcast on Saturday nights, with fixture changes implemented accordingly. ==Clubs==