Now that the gloves are off between Hawthorn and the Devils in the battle for the hearts and minds of Tasmania’s north, it is worth noting the strange and ongoing silence from the AFL on what has become a festering sore for the game’s 19th club.
Just months after the Devils resolved one polarising and damaging controversy over their new Hobart home ground at Macquarie Point, the new club faces another dispute. Tasmania CEO Brendon Gale on Tuesday doubled down on his assertion to this masthead 12 months ago that Hawthorn should leave the state at the end of next season.
For Gale to provoke the debate this week was untimely, but it’s a debate the game’s bosses should have resolved for his club well before now. The AFL’s inaction now sees Gale’s Devils in danger of looking like the bad guys when they have worked so hard to unify the state.
Quite simply the Tasmanian team that makes its VFL debut in Hobart on Saturday wants Hawthorn out of the state after 2027 in line with the business case approved by the 18 clubs in 2024. Hawthorn, who win 80 per cent of their Launceston games and will reap more than $9 million from the state government in their current two-year deal, want to stay and share UTAS Stadium to the tune of two to four games a year.
That head office has failed to take a position in a debate that has confused Tasmanian football supporters and divided the very market it vowed to unite underlines the lack of decisive leadership which has too often punctuated Dillon’s time in the job. Unless it points to something – from the Devils’ position – far more alarming, that the AFL is actually entertaining a two-team model.
Hawthorn boss Ashley Klein this week confirmed that the AFL was undergoing business modelling for a two-team market in Launceston from 2028, the Devils’ debut season in which they will play the majority of their games at UTAS. This is despite the business case approved by the clubs and the commission, and the strong stand taken by the Tasmanian board that, for the club to be strong and sustainable, it needed the entire state behind it. This assertion has dismayed and surprised the Devils, and is even more confronting given the Macquarie Point Stadium won’t be ready until at least 2031.
Dillon was contacted for comment.
Klein told this masthead: “Our understanding is the AFL is doing an analysis on what our proposition would look like if Hawthorn were to stay. On what it would look like for Hawthorn, for the Devils, and for football in the state and for tourism.
“Our wish and want after 25 years out of our 100-year history is to continue to play football in Tasmania. Everything we’ve done in terms of the community, grassroots football and our branding shows how connected we are. We wouldn’t get in the way of the Devils, we would leave the community and grassroots partnerships to the new team. We see it as more of a tourism partnership going forward but if Hawthorn was to stay in Tasmania we think it would be better for the game and better for the state.
“I can appreciate that they [the Devils] have got a different view, and if I was Brendon [Gale] I’d be going down the same path. But there’s no other state in Australia that has the entire home game market to itself.”
Klein’s comments are at odds with last week’s lengthy meeting in Hobart between Tasmania chairman Grant O’Brien and his board, and new AFL Commission chairman Craig Drummond and Dillon’s No. 2, Tom Harley. There the Devils’ bosses reiterated their desire for the AFL to finally take a stand and clarify that Hawthorn’s current agreement with Tasmania will be their last.
O’Brien said the suggestion the AFL was investigating the prospect of a two-team model in Tasmania was news to him. He likened that scenario to that of Geelong sharing GMHBA Stadium.
Speaking to this masthead from North Hobart Oval on the eve of the sold-out VFL clash with Coburg, O’Brien said: “I think it’s come to a point where Hawthorn don’t want to leave but the prospect of a two-team state in terms of our population is like proposing two teams playing out of Geelong. I’m sure Geelong would not be happy about that and it doesn’t make sense to me.
“The proposal for the 19th licence never had any suggestion of two teams, and it was made very clear in the taskforce report. If there’s any doubt about that it’s up to the AFL to clarify it.
“Hawthorn has been great for the state and Hawthorn has taken great benefit from the state. But it’s a bit hard from a unifying perspective to see a team playing out of Hobart and two teams playing out of Launceston. Hawthorn, in fairness to them, have a government sponsorship, but the agreement was that from 2028 the Tasmania Football Club would have clean air.”
It is true the new club has work to do in Launceston and the lack of clarity over Hawthorn’s future is not helping. The Hawks will relinquish their Tasmanian logo on their guernseys in 2027 but have now reached a new and separate two-year sponsorship agreement with the Launceston City Council.
For years, the AFL privately blamed divisions across the state for the game’s failure to support a Tasmanian team and now the Hawks are continuing to muddy the waters, thanks to the AFL’s inaction.
The Devils last month signed one of the game’s most lucrative long-term sponsorships – a seven-year partnership with the home-grown Blundstone worth an estimated $24 million – but financial support from the north nowhere near matches that south of the state.
Hawthorn boast 8000 Tasmanian memberships. As head office well knows, Tasmanian football supporters all barrack for another AFL club and surely by failing to take a position on Hawthorn’s future it’s only hurting the Devils’ progress. Ditto the state government, which has pledged $12 million a year to the Devils for 12 years.
Hawthorn point to the fact that the Tasmanian government – in fact both major parties – supported a two-team model in Launceston in the lead-up to last year’s election. But neither side wanted to risk losing Hawthorn votes. And Hawthorn’s future is not up to the government; it is up to the AFL, which dictates the home-and-away season fixture.
So Drummond and Dillon need to take a position. Similarly, O’Brien and Gale don’t want to be seen as the new club that kicked Hawthorn out of the state. Not only would that prove bad for business and bad for the Devils’ image, but it’s a notion as unfair as it is inaccurate.
The proposal for a 19th AFL licence is controlled by the AFL. All its planning was underpinned by a one-team model in a state with a population of about 580,000. The game’s head office might have a new chairman but the slowness to act should not be blamed upon a change of leadership. The definitive call for Hawthorn to exit Tasmania should have been made in 2025. And any business analysis being undertaken by the AFL on behalf of the Hawks where Tasmania is concerned should be focusing upon a farewell tour and a bigger future at the MCG.
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Caroline Wilson is a Walkley award-winning columnist and former chief football writer for The Age.Connect via email.