The 1997 AFL season was the 101st 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 ran from 27 March until 27 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs.

Before the season, the Port Adelaide Football Club (SANFL) was admitted to the league, increasing the South Australian membership to two clubs. Foundation club Fitzroy, which had gone into administration in 1996, merged with the Brisbane Bears to form a new Queensland-based club known as the Brisbane Lions. The Footscray Football Club changed its name to the Western Bulldogs. With these changes, the league's size remained at sixteen clubs.

The premiership was won by the Adelaide Football Club for the first time, after it defeated St Kilda by 31 points in the 1997 AFL Grand Final.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 90.3
Source: AFL Tables

• The last AFL game at Whitten Oval was played.
• St Kilda finished on top of the ladder (prior to the finals) to claim the minor premiership, despite losing 7 matches in the home and away season. No team before or since has finished on top with that many losses, which highlights the evenness of the 1997 season. St Kilda would also play in their first preliminary final since 1972 and reach their first grand final since 1971.
• The first qualifying final between Adelaide and West Coast was rescheduled from Saturday evening to Sunday afternoon to allow the Seven Network to screen the funeral of Princess Diana live across Australia.^[3] This meant that it was played at the same time as the fourth qualifying final between minor premiers St Kilda and the Brisbane Lions, who were competing in their first season as a merged entity. The game is also notable for being the first ever final between two non-Victorian teams.
• Gary Ablett Sr., arguably one of the games best and most well known players, officially announced his retirement during the Preliminary Final weekend. Ablett failed to play a game in 1997 due to a knee injury.