Updated ,first published
The AFL has secured Kylie Minogue to perform at this year’s grand final at the MCG.
The league confirmed it has reached a deal with Minogue after many years chasing her to headline the musical entertainment for the season decider.
In a statement, Minogue said: “The AFL Grand Final at Melbourne’s one and only, forever iconic MCG? Yes please! As a Melburnian, I’m so excited to be coming home for the biggest day in the Aussie sporting calendar.”
League boss Andrew Dillon said Minogue had been on the league’s Grand Final wishlist for some time.
“There is no better artist to headline the performance prior to our biggest game of the season,” Dillon said.
“Our AFL team recently joined Kylie at the MCG for the Grand Final content shoot, and you could already feel the excitement for September building.”
The news comes on the day the league confirmed that the traditional day grand final would continue in 2026 and 2027 with a 2.30pm start, despite calls for the game to be scheduled at night.
New AFL chairman Craig Drummond didn’t rule out a change to the time after 2027, but wanted to give fans certainty for now.
“We are very focused, as we said, on the fans, on the footy, the quality of the footy product, but not saying that in the future, we wouldn’t look to reassess,” Drummond said on Sunday.
“But in this point of time, we think it’s really important to give our stakeholders certainty, and that’s why two years, we think, makes eminently good sense.”
Seven reported that Minogue had previously only wanted to perform at night so she could use additional lighting and pyrotechnicsbut she would now take to the stage during the afternoon, with an official announcement expected as early as this week.
Minogue, known as the Princess of Pop, is an Australian superstar who has achieved success as a singer, songwriter and actor, including winning two Grammy Awards and four Brit Awards.
Minogue performed at billionaire Anthony Pratt’s birthday party earlier this month and if she headlines the grand final, she will be following the path of another past AFL grand final headliner in US pop star Katy Perry, who performed at Pratt’s birthday in 2024 and then the AFL decider later that year.
The league has focused on overseas acts for many of their recent grand finals, with US hip hop legend Snoop Dogg impressing some fans and angering others while headlining last year’s grand final as some distasteful lyrics came back to haunt him.
KISS, Robbie Williams, Perry and The Killers have also led the grand final performances in the past decade.
Minogue would be the first Australian to headline the grand final entertainment since Eskimo Joe and several other local acts led the 2021 entertainment when the game was moved to Optus Stadium in Perth due to COVID lockdowns in Melbourne.
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said on Sunday that the league would review the timeslot for the grand final ahead of the 2028 season when the Tasmania Devils are due to enter the competition.
The twilight time slot, which was used for the 2021 grand final in Perth – a nighttime start for viewers in the eastern states – has long been regarded as the league’s preferred option to move away from the afternoon, partly because of the time needed for presentations and post-game festivities. The 2020 and 2021 grand finals were played away from the MCG as Victoria was in COVID lockdowns at the time.
“It was more about that in 2028, we will have the 19th team, so we’ll have a fixture structure that is different, so there will be a lot of planning going into the entry of Tasmania and how the season structure is going to work, and grand final time might be part of that,” Dillon said.
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