Melbourne City will host Brisbane Roar at AAMI Park in the opening fixture of the season on Friday 6 October 2017, before an F3 Derby and Big Blue at Etihad Stadium on the Saturday.

Wellington Phoenix vs Adelaide United and Western Sydney Wanderers vs Perth Glory completes the opening round on the Sunday.

Network TEN’s opening three Saturday night fixtures will be blockbusters, under their new free-to-air arrangement, with the Grand Final re-match followed by a Melbourne Derby at Etihad Stadium and Sydney Derby at Allianz Stadium.

All clubs will play at least one Saturday night fixture live on Network TEN, with games to be aired on sister channel One.

A-League head Greg O'Rourke said: “This will be the first season of the Hyundai A-League under our new broadcast agreement with Fox Sports who have been a broadcast partner of the competition since 2005 and we are once again look forward to partnering with them.

“We are also very excited about working with our new Free-to-Air partner, Network Ten, who will be broadcasting the Harvey Norman Saturday night match and the Hyundai A-League 2018 Finals Series live."

Round One includes a Grand Final re-match at Etihad Stadium

There will only be one Sydney Derby at ANZ Stadium this season, where the domestic club attendance record was broken in 2016/17, on Saturday 9 December 2017.

This season’s draw will also feature two split rounds (Rounds 20 and 22), previously one, around AFC Champions League commitments in February and March as previously reported by FourFourTwo.

The finals will commence on the weekend of 20-22 April, with the Grand Final on 5-6 May.

Other features include Adelaide United returning to Adelaide Oval in Round Three to host traditional rivals Melbourne Victory, while Brisbane Roar will take a game to Gold Coast at CBUS Super Stadium in Round 10 against Wellington Phoenix.

Melbourne Victory will play Central Coast at Simonds Stadium in Geelong in Round 14, while Wellington Phoenix hosts Newcastle Jets at Auckland's QBE Stadium in Round 23.

Meanwhile, Adelaide United will host Central Coast on Boxing Day, the Mariners entertain Wellington Phoenix in their traditional New Year's Eve game in Gosford and Western Sydney will play Melbourne City on New Year's Day at ANZ Stadium.

The three Melbourne Derbies will take place on Saturday 14 October (Round Two at Etihad Stadium), Saturday 23 December (Round 12 at AAMI Park) and Friday 2 March (Round 22 at AAMI Park).

Tim Cahill's famous moment in last season's Melbourne Derby in October

The three Sydney Derbies will be played on Saturday 21 October (Round Three at Allianz Stadium), Saturday 9 December (Round 10 at ANZ Stadium) and Sunday 25 February (Round 21 at Allianz Stadium).

Brisbane Roar managing director Mark Kingsman told FourFourTwo he'd requested a more "evenly spread" fixture list and O'Rourke revealed a new feature to accommodate this, to be known as "The Chase".

“Developing this draw has been a challenging process to accommodate the preferences of the clubs, venue availability and also the AFC Champions League 2018," O'Rourke said.

“We have added a new feature to this season’s draw with all clubs playing each other twice between rounds 1 to 18.

"The remaining nine rounds will see each club play each other once in the lead-up to the Hyundai A-League 2018 Finals Series.

"This stretch of nine Rounds will be known as “The Chase” with 27 points on offer in the run home to Round 27.

There will be four themed rounds; Remembrance Round (Round Six), Play Football Round (Round 19), Female Football Round (Round 22) and Harmony Round (Round 24).

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