{"id":427874,"date":"2026-01-21T14:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427874\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T14:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:16:09","slug":"india-andrew-dillon-afl-looking-to-invade-cricket-heartland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427874\/","title":{"rendered":"India? Andrew Dillon, AFL looking to invade cricket heartland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just over a month before the NRL get set to kick their season off in Vegas, the AFL have their eyes set on a different international market.<\/p>\n<p>CEO Andrew Dillon is <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/news\/1461370\/afl-ceo-andrew-dillon-to-meet-executives-in-india-as-league-continues-global-push\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">set to travel to India later this week<\/a>, and is expected to hold meetings with a range of Indian sport commissioners and business leaders, ahead of the AFL India National Championships later this month.<\/p>\n<p>Dillon will also be accompanied on the trip by the league&#8217;s head of strategy Walter Lee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Australian Rules Football Association of India (ARFAI) expressed their excitement at welcoming Dillon to the country.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/afl\/news\/no-will-day-no-zach-merrett-can-hawthorn-midfield-stay-afloat\/4283dbcc24d4639b0aed266c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">No Will Day, no Zach Merrett: Can Hawthorn&#8217;s midfield stay afloat?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are so excited to host the AFL delegation led by CEO Andrew Dillon at the upcoming ARFAI National Championship 2026 in Ranchi,&#8221; they posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>India, one of the world&#8217;s largest and growing sporting markets, is viewed by the AFL as a major international growth opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the AFL began laying the foundations for their Indian expansion, creating a Desi social media account and broadcasting the first ever game with Hindi commentary.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>ARFAI is embarking on the 11th annual national championships, where nearly 300 local players will compete.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The AFL have previously look to explore other international markets, hosting games in Japan, New Zealand and China, amongst others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just over a month before the NRL get set to kick their season off in Vegas, the AFL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-427874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}