Let me introduce you to Aussie Rules!

What IS Aussie Rules Footy?

Australian Rules Football is a cross between rugby, American football, Gaelic football, with a hint of soccer and even basketball thrown in for good measure. The AFL has eighteen teams in it, plays from March through September, with its Grand Final held annually on the last Saturday in September. Games are high scoring, high flying, rarely stopping, require athletic fitness and versatility from all of its players, and don't use padding to protect players from oncoming hits. (Physios take the field to tend to a wounded player without the game stopping for them in most cases.) 
The games are four quarters long, approximately 25 minutes per quarter (although they utilize "stoppage time" similarly to soccer). Kicking the roundish football between the two tall posts is a "goal", worth six points; anything else between the outside, shorter poles is a "behind", worth only one. (They're sometimes referred to as "majors and minors" in scoring, too.)
Watch these clips for some basics in the manly art of Footy:

AFL explained

What is Australian Football?

I first started watching footy about a decade or more ago - when my first wife and I first had cable, we went for the big package so we could get a few particular channels she liked. One of the fringe benefits was the Fox International Sports channel (now "Fox Soccer" or something like that), and twice a week they broadcast Aussie Rules footy: one full game on one night, and a half-hour week-in-review highlights show on the other. I happened on it by accident, but I was hooked very quickly. The game's fast-paced and high scoring, what we love about most brands of basketball. It requires an amazing level of skill like baseball or hockey (or any number of world-class sports). It features hard hitting and tackling like American football or rugby. And it demands the cardio-respiratory fitness that soccer or track or tennis require. 

(And it's a manly sport, the way that only Aussies can create their sports! Having said that, the AFL Womens League starts play this February!)

We'll write more about my favorite sport as the weeks wear on - the eighteen team Australian Football League (AFL) just completed its season two weeks back, when 100,000 fans filled the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (that's right - the game's played on an oval field three times the size of a gridiron!) to watch the Western Bulldogs win their first Grand Final championship in 62 years! And there are so many really cool details about the game for us to discuss: fight songs, the "ruck", the largest pom-pons in human possession, "memberships", home games in other cities (or countries!), the conflict of vibes between the Victorian and non-Victorian teams, strange mascots (and city names - ever really look at an Australian map?)...and so on and so forth...Crikey!