I like that! I reckon they need to make sure it's expandable though. In case we need a 50k stadium
Apple Isle Showdown: Tas Govt threatens to end Hawks, North deals if no plan for 19th side
- Thread starter LeverPuller
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Standby for more ramifications…
Mr Taswegian
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- May 25, 2019
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Adelaide crows are the second AFL team to publicly back tasmania's AFL bid after Richmond supported it last week,that just leaves 16. 
BringBackTorps
Club Legend
- Jan 5, 2017
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1.
Who, when, & what, exactly was said by Adelaide Officials re a Tas. 19th team? Link please.
Footscray (President P. Gordon), Richmond (B. Gale, & RFC President P. O'Neal), Collingwood ( E. McGuire), & Hawthorn coach A. Clarkson have all made strong, recent public comments in favour of a Tas. 19th team.
In the Melbourne AF MSM, there is massive support for a Tas. 19th team- as long as the Busines Case is sustainable, & the Tas. govt. makes adequate & permanent funding guarantees.
2. "Carter Report actually puts Tasmania back on the AFL’s map
By Greg Baum August 20, 2021 — 3.30pm
Q: Who said: “I do think it’s illogical that we subsidise the 10th team in Melbourne, but we won’t subsidise the first team in Tasmania.”
A: Colin Carter, 10 years ago.
Carter has been misunderstood, and perhaps because of it, his report last week has been misrepresented. The ineradicable take-away is that there will be a Tasmanian team in the AFL.
Carter comes originally from Perth and as a kid barracked heartily for WA against Victoria. When he moved to Victoria, he hooked up with Geelong, though he has never lived there, and at length became president.
He has never seen footy as Melbourne’s game, but rather as the nation's game. In 1985, he helped to form the Melbourne competition into a national competition and served on its commission. Without a Tasmanian team, his report says, that competition is incomplete.
Yes, he contemplates a relocation and a joint venture with a Victorian team as options, prompting Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein to snort that they wanted to have their own team, not rent one.
The passion that burns in Tasmania for Australian rules football is obvious.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Crucially, Carter reports that a new team with its own licence is viable on every metric and through every lens. It would be smaller than the other models to start, and take longer to succeed. It would also be fiercely resisted by the other clubs, who would fear further stretching of the game’s resources. Carter would have been negligent not to cover off on this.
But his report stresses that the business of the AFL is not like any other. If it was, half the clubs would be out of business, yet some have survived literally for a century or more without ever turning a profit. Subsidisation is built into the game.
CREDIT:MATT GOLDING.
Carter makes his business case by demolishing business cases. “Sport doesn’t work that way. A football competition is not just an ‘economic’ industry. It is also a 'social compact' in which large and small revenue teams co-exist for very long times,” he says.
“Unlike in the commercial world, the smaller teams survive, and the larger clubs accept that this is so. That is the ‘social compact’ and this needs to be understood to make sense of what a Tasmanian team means for our competition.”
Carter cites the Green Bay Packers, whose American home town is half the size of Hobart, but who have won 13 championships. Inter alia, he observes that being small and cold is not antithetical to player retention: Green Bay, Christchurch, Manchester. In AFL, it is clubs in the sunniest climes who have struggled with this.
In surveying the landscape, Carter goes to possibly more contentious places than have made the headlines. One is the wooliness in membership figures. Richmond, with a notional 105,000 members, sell just 22,000 11-game general admission memberships. Even more astonishingly, this cohort attends only around two games a year on average.
St Kilda have 7300, Geelong merely 2500, which makes sense when you think that the Cats never play 11 home games in Geelong and 30 per cent of their members live in Melbourne. In a way, they are a de facto joint venture.
Carter wonders if the AFL players might contribute to funding the new Tasmanian club, not materially, but by agreeing to an already-mooted reduction in list sizes of two per club. This would also address the bugbear of dilution of talent. Carter thinks that dilution is a moot point anyway, since Australia’s population has grown faster than the AFL player body politic.
You can hear the grumbling of the players’ body already. You can also hear the clubs growl. Carter reveals that in designing the national competition in 1985, the AFL had thought to introduce two teams each from Perth and Adelaide immediately so as to make sure none could establish an instant monopoly. The extant clubs shot them down.
More broadly on funding, Carter notes that in the NFL, 72 per cent of all the game’s revenue is pooled and shared. In the AFL, the figure is less than 50 per cent. If the AFL were to bend a little towards the NFL way, a new Tasmanian club could be fully funded overnight. But that growl from the clubs would become a howl.
Favourite son Matthew Richardson in a Tasmanian guernsey.
The AFL won’t make a call on a model or inauguration for the Tasmanian team until the COVID fog clears a little. But it’s when and how, not if.
Looking to the further horizon, Carter envisages that the “how” will recede anyway. Geographical connection between a team and a place is loosening in all sports (?- No)
However the Tasmanian team begins, it will become both a local artefact - like MONA - and a “formidable” national brand.
This is, or should be, the AFL’s true business. “The AFL as 'keeper of the code' is more than spin,” Carter says. “It defines the AFL’s obligations as nationwide and even more. The tragedy of football’s past is that there were missed opportunities because they were no-one’s responsibility.” The game had a presence in NSW, Queensland, Papua New Guinea and even New Zealand once, but it was not nurtured.
“Today, taking the long view, Tasmania is now at some risk,” says Carter. “However, the costs of securing it are reasonable. It fulfils the ‘purpose’ of the AFL. It is the right thing to do.(My emphases, & words in brackets)".
3. Wookie's sportsindustry.com.au website 20.8
"Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation.
Tassie team backlash unfair, says report author
Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation".
heraldsun.com.au
(Paywall. Can anyone open link, & post here please).
"Defending the Tassie report: It was a ‘stunning step forward’
Colin Carter, responsible for the report into the viability of a Tasmanian AFL team, says critics have completely missed its key recommendation. Read his personal letter".
="Mr Taswegian, post: 71829820, member: 197385"]Adelaide crows are the second AFL team to publicly back tasmania's AFL bid after Richmond supported it last week,that just leaves 16.
Who, when, & what, exactly was said by Adelaide Officials re a Tas. 19th team? Link please.
Footscray (President P. Gordon), Richmond (B. Gale, & RFC President P. O'Neal), Collingwood ( E. McGuire), & Hawthorn coach A. Clarkson have all made strong, recent public comments in favour of a Tas. 19th team.
In the Melbourne AF MSM, there is massive support for a Tas. 19th team- as long as the Busines Case is sustainable, & the Tas. govt. makes adequate & permanent funding guarantees.
2. "Carter Report actually puts Tasmania back on the AFL’s map
Q: Who said: “I do think it’s illogical that we subsidise the 10th team in Melbourne, but we won’t subsidise the first team in Tasmania.”
A: Colin Carter, 10 years ago.
Carter has been misunderstood, and perhaps because of it, his report last week has been misrepresented. The ineradicable take-away is that there will be a Tasmanian team in the AFL.
Carter comes originally from Perth and as a kid barracked heartily for WA against Victoria. When he moved to Victoria, he hooked up with Geelong, though he has never lived there, and at length became president.
He has never seen footy as Melbourne’s game, but rather as the nation's game. In 1985, he helped to form the Melbourne competition into a national competition and served on its commission. Without a Tasmanian team, his report says, that competition is incomplete.
Yes, he contemplates a relocation and a joint venture with a Victorian team as options, prompting Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein to snort that they wanted to have their own team, not rent one.
The passion that burns in Tasmania for Australian rules football is obvious.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Crucially, Carter reports that a new team with its own licence is viable on every metric and through every lens. It would be smaller than the other models to start, and take longer to succeed. It would also be fiercely resisted by the other clubs, who would fear further stretching of the game’s resources. Carter would have been negligent not to cover off on this.
But his report stresses that the business of the AFL is not like any other. If it was, half the clubs would be out of business, yet some have survived literally for a century or more without ever turning a profit. Subsidisation is built into the game.
CREDIT:MATT GOLDING.
Carter makes his business case by demolishing business cases. “Sport doesn’t work that way. A football competition is not just an ‘economic’ industry. It is also a 'social compact' in which large and small revenue teams co-exist for very long times,” he says.
“Unlike in the commercial world, the smaller teams survive, and the larger clubs accept that this is so. That is the ‘social compact’ and this needs to be understood to make sense of what a Tasmanian team means for our competition.”
Carter cites the Green Bay Packers, whose American home town is half the size of Hobart, but who have won 13 championships. Inter alia, he observes that being small and cold is not antithetical to player retention: Green Bay, Christchurch, Manchester. In AFL, it is clubs in the sunniest climes who have struggled with this.
In surveying the landscape, Carter goes to possibly more contentious places than have made the headlines. One is the wooliness in membership figures. Richmond, with a notional 105,000 members, sell just 22,000 11-game general admission memberships. Even more astonishingly, this cohort attends only around two games a year on average.
St Kilda have 7300, Geelong merely 2500, which makes sense when you think that the Cats never play 11 home games in Geelong and 30 per cent of their members live in Melbourne. In a way, they are a de facto joint venture.
Carter wonders if the AFL players might contribute to funding the new Tasmanian club, not materially, but by agreeing to an already-mooted reduction in list sizes of two per club. This would also address the bugbear of dilution of talent. Carter thinks that dilution is a moot point anyway, since Australia’s population has grown faster than the AFL player body politic.
You can hear the grumbling of the players’ body already. You can also hear the clubs growl. Carter reveals that in designing the national competition in 1985, the AFL had thought to introduce two teams each from Perth and Adelaide immediately so as to make sure none could establish an instant monopoly. The extant clubs shot them down.
More broadly on funding, Carter notes that in the NFL, 72 per cent of all the game’s revenue is pooled and shared. In the AFL, the figure is less than 50 per cent. If the AFL were to bend a little towards the NFL way, a new Tasmanian club could be fully funded overnight. But that growl from the clubs would become a howl.
Favourite son Matthew Richardson in a Tasmanian guernsey.
The AFL won’t make a call on a model or inauguration for the Tasmanian team until the COVID fog clears a little. But it’s when and how, not if.
Looking to the further horizon, Carter envisages that the “how” will recede anyway. Geographical connection between a team and a place is loosening in all sports (?- No)
However the Tasmanian team begins, it will become both a local artefact - like MONA - and a “formidable” national brand.
This is, or should be, the AFL’s true business. “The AFL as 'keeper of the code' is more than spin,” Carter says. “It defines the AFL’s obligations as nationwide and even more. The tragedy of football’s past is that there were missed opportunities because they were no-one’s responsibility.” The game had a presence in NSW, Queensland, Papua New Guinea and even New Zealand once, but it was not nurtured.
“Today, taking the long view, Tasmania is now at some risk,” says Carter. “However, the costs of securing it are reasonable. It fulfils the ‘purpose’ of the AFL. It is the right thing to do.(My emphases, & words in brackets)".
3. Wookie's sportsindustry.com.au website 20.8
"Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation.
Tassie team backlash unfair, says report author
Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation".
heraldsun.com.au
(Paywall. Can anyone open link, & post here please).
"Defending the Tassie report: It was a ‘stunning step forward’
Colin Carter, responsible for the report into the viability of a Tasmanian AFL team, says critics have completely missed its key recommendation. Read his personal letter".
Last edited:
Ashman23
Club Legend
Tassie AFL team: Report author Colin Carter outlines how critics got it wrong with crucial finding
The man responsible for the report into the viability of a Tasmanian AFL team says critics have completely missed its key point. Read his personal letter.
Jon Ralph
5 min read
August 21, 2021 - 8:06AM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/.../966b030b9099fb02908d54120fcbccfc#share-tools
Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation.
Carter on Friday said it would have been pointless for the AFL to ask club presidents to vote on a new side in coming months given the certainty they would not pass a resolution.
Writing in an exclusive column in News Corp, he said the vast majority of his 22-page report states the case for a 19th licence for the first time in an official AFL report.
He believes the report is a significant step forward for the Tasmanian case for its own AFL team.
He said part of his brief from the AFL and Tasmanian government was to consider relocation and joint ventures, as unpalatable as they might be for any of the AFL’s existing clubs.
But Carter said it was up to the AFL Commission to now approve a 19th team before convincing clubs of the positives of an extra AFL team.
Colin Carter reveals it was the first time the AFL had agreed that Tasmania should have a licence.
“Regrettably, this past week has been marked by attacks on the report — rarely for its content and mostly for failing to include timelines,” he writes.
“It is like having a fight about setting a wedding date before even agreeing to get married.
“The unresolved issue is not about timelines but whether Tasmania should even have a team. My report unequivocally says ‘yes’. What got lost this week was that stunning step forward for Tasmania. For the first time, the AFL agreed that Tasmania should have a licence.
“I am hopeful that the clubs will support the proposal provided care is taken to work through the business case with them and to methodically and carefully address any lingering issues or doubts they might have. Their support cannot and should not be taken for granted.”
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said on Friday he maintained a strong relationship with Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein, who has threatened to pull all funding for the AFL until there is a timeline for the new team.
“He is a good fellow. I rang him yesterday. We will continue to talk to the Tasmanian government and the premier about what he wants and in the context of the Carter report what works for the industry as well.”
Kangaroos are one of two AFL teams who currently play in Tasmania each season.
Colin Carter’s personal response
Author of the Carter report into a Tasmanian AFL team
It is a week now since my report on Tasmania’s case for an AFL Licence was made public and much of the ongoing debate has been disappointing.
My report emphatically supports Tasmania being represented in our national AFL competition, even as a 19th licence.
For the first time, the AFL has publicly endorsed this position.
What many are missing is understanding of the issue that must be solved before Tasmania can get a team. And so, let’s start with two unassailable facts:
Fact 1: There have been many reports arguing the case for Tasmania
Fact 2: Tasmania does not have a team
It doesn’t take much insight to see that the issue here is that those who make the decision — the AFL Commission and the AFL clubs — have not in the past been convinced by evidence previously produced.
If starting a team in Tasmania was so clearly in football’s interests, it would have happened long ago.
As Paul Keating famously reminded us, you can back in self-interest every time.
So perhaps the problem is that any case made so far, while convincing to those already supporting a Tasmanian team, has not been convincing to the doubters.
Throughout my work, there were many interviewees who said that they’d love Tasmania to have a licence, but they were unsure that the numbers would stack up.
That the AFL Commission, over the past 35 years since the formation of the national competition, has never once recommended this step to the clubs is a sure sign that it too has never been convinced.
As I started this project, several AFL club presidents told me that they believed that the AFL presidents, if asked to vote now, would vote the Tasmanian case down because not enough were convinced that the numbers work.
Any understanding of how these things work makes it obvious that the most important — and difficult — task is to persuade those who will make the final decision.
While my report is unequivocal in its view that Tasmania should have a team, it can’t have a team until the Commission and the majority of the presidents decide it will have a team.
Early in my project, it became clear to me that the Tasmania case could be justified, even on economic grounds.
Carter says early in his project it became clear that the Tasmania case could be justified, even on economic grounds.
And so, around 20 of the 22 pages in my report are devoted to demolishing the common arguments against a Tasmanian licence and, importantly, showing that the business case for Tasmanian passes the test — economic and pub. I have used economic and business arguments to refute the usual commercial doubts about Tasmania’s case.
Based on some early feedback from hard-nosed commercial realists, there is a real chance that I have been successful in that endeavour.
My Terms of Reference from the AFL also asked that I make comment about other options, including a relocation. Briefing materials from the Tasmanian Premier’s office also included comment on potential relocation as a consideration. The joint-venture idea was floated during the project which meant some obligation that I consider it.
I was very clear in the report that a 19th Licence is recommended if these other options fell over.
Regrettably, this past week has been marked by attacks on the report — rarely for its content and mostly for failing to include timelines.
It is like having a fight about setting a wedding date before even agreeing to get married.
The unresolved issue is not about timelines but whether Tasmania should even have a team.
My report unequivocally says ‘yes’.
Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein and Carter at UTAS Stadium in Launceston. Picture: Chris Kidd
What got lost this week was that stunning step forward for Tasmania. For the first time, the AFL agreed that Tasmania should have a licence! That is huge progress, but the next difficult steps are still to take place.
After discussions with the Tasmanian Government as to its unwavering economic support for a team, we must then persuade most of the 18 clubs to support a new licence at a time when Covid is placing their finances under huge stress.
I am hopeful that the clubs will support the proposal provided care is taken to work through the business case with them and to methodically and carefully address any lingering issues or doubts they might have. Their support cannot and should not be taken for granted.
A relocation, even if unlikely, would be readily supported by the clubs because it maintains the competition at 18 teams.
The much more challenging issue facing our code’s decision makers is whether a 19th licence can be justified.
My hope is that my report has adequately answered that question.
The man responsible for the report into the viability of a Tasmanian AFL team says critics have completely missed its key point. Read his personal letter.
Jon Ralph
5 min read
August 21, 2021 - 8:06AM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/.../966b030b9099fb02908d54120fcbccfc#share-tools
Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation.
Carter on Friday said it would have been pointless for the AFL to ask club presidents to vote on a new side in coming months given the certainty they would not pass a resolution.
Writing in an exclusive column in News Corp, he said the vast majority of his 22-page report states the case for a 19th licence for the first time in an official AFL report.
He believes the report is a significant step forward for the Tasmanian case for its own AFL team.
He said part of his brief from the AFL and Tasmanian government was to consider relocation and joint ventures, as unpalatable as they might be for any of the AFL’s existing clubs.
But Carter said it was up to the AFL Commission to now approve a 19th team before convincing clubs of the positives of an extra AFL team.
Colin Carter reveals it was the first time the AFL had agreed that Tasmania should have a licence.
“Regrettably, this past week has been marked by attacks on the report — rarely for its content and mostly for failing to include timelines,” he writes.
“It is like having a fight about setting a wedding date before even agreeing to get married.
“The unresolved issue is not about timelines but whether Tasmania should even have a team. My report unequivocally says ‘yes’. What got lost this week was that stunning step forward for Tasmania. For the first time, the AFL agreed that Tasmania should have a licence.
“I am hopeful that the clubs will support the proposal provided care is taken to work through the business case with them and to methodically and carefully address any lingering issues or doubts they might have. Their support cannot and should not be taken for granted.”
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said on Friday he maintained a strong relationship with Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein, who has threatened to pull all funding for the AFL until there is a timeline for the new team.
“He is a good fellow. I rang him yesterday. We will continue to talk to the Tasmanian government and the premier about what he wants and in the context of the Carter report what works for the industry as well.”
Kangaroos are one of two AFL teams who currently play in Tasmania each season.
Colin Carter’s personal response
Author of the Carter report into a Tasmanian AFL team
It is a week now since my report on Tasmania’s case for an AFL Licence was made public and much of the ongoing debate has been disappointing.
My report emphatically supports Tasmania being represented in our national AFL competition, even as a 19th licence.
For the first time, the AFL has publicly endorsed this position.
What many are missing is understanding of the issue that must be solved before Tasmania can get a team. And so, let’s start with two unassailable facts:
Fact 1: There have been many reports arguing the case for Tasmania
Fact 2: Tasmania does not have a team
It doesn’t take much insight to see that the issue here is that those who make the decision — the AFL Commission and the AFL clubs — have not in the past been convinced by evidence previously produced.
If starting a team in Tasmania was so clearly in football’s interests, it would have happened long ago.
As Paul Keating famously reminded us, you can back in self-interest every time.
So perhaps the problem is that any case made so far, while convincing to those already supporting a Tasmanian team, has not been convincing to the doubters.
Throughout my work, there were many interviewees who said that they’d love Tasmania to have a licence, but they were unsure that the numbers would stack up.
That the AFL Commission, over the past 35 years since the formation of the national competition, has never once recommended this step to the clubs is a sure sign that it too has never been convinced.
As I started this project, several AFL club presidents told me that they believed that the AFL presidents, if asked to vote now, would vote the Tasmanian case down because not enough were convinced that the numbers work.
Any understanding of how these things work makes it obvious that the most important — and difficult — task is to persuade those who will make the final decision.
While my report is unequivocal in its view that Tasmania should have a team, it can’t have a team until the Commission and the majority of the presidents decide it will have a team.
Early in my project, it became clear to me that the Tasmania case could be justified, even on economic grounds.
Carter says early in his project it became clear that the Tasmania case could be justified, even on economic grounds.
And so, around 20 of the 22 pages in my report are devoted to demolishing the common arguments against a Tasmanian licence and, importantly, showing that the business case for Tasmanian passes the test — economic and pub. I have used economic and business arguments to refute the usual commercial doubts about Tasmania’s case.
Based on some early feedback from hard-nosed commercial realists, there is a real chance that I have been successful in that endeavour.
My Terms of Reference from the AFL also asked that I make comment about other options, including a relocation. Briefing materials from the Tasmanian Premier’s office also included comment on potential relocation as a consideration. The joint-venture idea was floated during the project which meant some obligation that I consider it.
I was very clear in the report that a 19th Licence is recommended if these other options fell over.
Regrettably, this past week has been marked by attacks on the report — rarely for its content and mostly for failing to include timelines.
It is like having a fight about setting a wedding date before even agreeing to get married.
The unresolved issue is not about timelines but whether Tasmania should even have a team.
My report unequivocally says ‘yes’.
Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein and Carter at UTAS Stadium in Launceston. Picture: Chris Kidd
What got lost this week was that stunning step forward for Tasmania. For the first time, the AFL agreed that Tasmania should have a licence! That is huge progress, but the next difficult steps are still to take place.
After discussions with the Tasmanian Government as to its unwavering economic support for a team, we must then persuade most of the 18 clubs to support a new licence at a time when Covid is placing their finances under huge stress.
I am hopeful that the clubs will support the proposal provided care is taken to work through the business case with them and to methodically and carefully address any lingering issues or doubts they might have. Their support cannot and should not be taken for granted.
A relocation, even if unlikely, would be readily supported by the clubs because it maintains the competition at 18 teams.
The much more challenging issue facing our code’s decision makers is whether a 19th licence can be justified.
My hope is that my report has adequately answered that question.
- Nov 21, 2013
- 5,161
- 3,760
- AFL Club
- Melbourne
Who's going to pay for it?
The Macquarie Point proposal - unless someone like Twiggy Forrest decides to spend some loose change ($4/500M) we are a long, long way off this becoming a reality...
In my view, it would be better to spend half of that and upgrade KGV Oval (same dimensions as the MCG) and throw in a light rail service from the city on the existing lines...?
Bellerive Oval, forget it - stuck on the edge of suburb, next to the river it's already a nightmare to get to and from when more than 5/6,000 attend. Maintain as a cricket venue, but don't waste another dollar on further expansion...
TCA, great location and could/should be an option, but with the infrastructure required which is way beyond 'an upgrade' of the current venue, you may as well go back to the Mac Point proposal..!
Last edited:
Mr Taswegian
Roo Man
- May 25, 2019
- 3,049
- 1,441
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
Only 2 current AFL presidents have backedWho, when, & what, exactly was said by Adelaide Officials re a Tas. 19th team? Link please.
Footscray (President P. Gordon), Richmond (B. Gale, & RFC President P. O'Neal), Collingwood ( E. McGuire), & Hawthorn coach A. Clarkson have all made strong, recent public comments in favour of a Tas. 19th team.
In the Melbourne AF MSM, there is massive support for a Tas. 19th team- as long as the Busines Case is sustainable, & the Tas. govt. makes adequate & permanent funding guarantees.
2. "Carter Report actually puts Tasmania back on the AFL’s map
By Greg Baum August 20, 2021 — 3.30pm
Q: Who said: “I do think it’s illogical that we subsidise the 10th team in Melbourne, but we won’t subsidise the first team in Tasmania.”
A: Colin Carter, 10 years ago.
Carter has been misunderstood, and perhaps because of it, his report last week has been misrepresented. The ineradicable take-away is that there will be a Tasmanian team in the AFL.
Carter comes originally from Perth and as a kid barracked heartily for WA against Victoria. When he moved to Victoria, he hooked up with Geelong, though he has never lived there, and at length became president.
He has never seen footy as Melbourne’s game, but rather as the nation's game. In 1985, he helped to form the Melbourne competition into a national competition and served on its commission. Without a Tasmanian team, his report says, that competition is incomplete.
Yes, he contemplates a relocation and a joint venture with a Victorian team as options, prompting Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein to snort that they wanted to have their own team, not rent one.
The passion that burns in Tasmania for Australian rules football is obvious.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Crucially, Carter reports that a new team with its own licence is viable on every metric and through every lens. It would be smaller than the other models to start, and take longer to succeed. It would also be fiercely resisted by the other clubs, who would fear further stretching of the game’s resources. Carter would have been negligent not to cover off on this.
But his report stresses that the business of the AFL is not like any other. If it was, half the clubs would be out of business, yet some have survived literally for a century or more without ever turning a profit. Subsidisation is built into the game.
CREDIT:MATT GOLDING.
Carter makes his business case by demolishing business cases. “Sport doesn’t work that way. A football competition is not just an ‘economic’ industry. It is also a 'social compact' in which large and small revenue teams co-exist for very long times,” he says.
“Unlike in the commercial world, the smaller teams survive, and the larger clubs accept that this is so. That is the ‘social compact’ and this needs to be understood to make sense of what a Tasmanian team means for our competition.”
Carter cites the Green Bay Packers, whose American home town is half the size of Hobart, but who have won 13 championships. Inter alia, he observes that being small and cold is not antithetical to player retention: Green Bay, Christchurch, Manchester. In AFL, it is clubs in the sunniest climes who have struggled with this.
In surveying the landscape, Carter goes to possibly more contentious places than have made the headlines. One is the wooliness in membership figures. Richmond, with a notional 105,000 members, sell just 22,000 11-game general admission memberships. Even more astonishingly, this cohort attends only around two games a year on average.
St Kilda have 7300, Geelong merely 2500, which makes sense when you think that the Cats never play 11 home games in Geelong and 30 per cent of their members live in Melbourne. In a way, they are a de facto joint venture.
Carter wonders if the AFL players might contribute to funding the new Tasmanian club, not materially, but by agreeing to an already-mooted reduction in list sizes of two per club. This would also address the bugbear of dilution of talent. Carter thinks that dilution is a moot point anyway, since Australia’s population has grown faster than the AFL player body politic.
You can hear the grumbling of the players’ body already. You can also hear the clubs growl. Carter reveals that in designing the national competition in 1985, the AFL had thought to introduce two teams each from Perth and Adelaide immediately so as to make sure none could establish an instant monopoly. The extant clubs shot them down.
More broadly on funding, Carter notes that in the NFL, 72 per cent of all the game’s revenue is pooled and shared. In the AFL, the figure is less than 50 per cent. If the AFL were to bend a little towards the NFL way, a new Tasmanian club could be fully funded overnight. But that growl from the clubs would become a howl.
Favourite son Matthew Richardson in a Tasmanian guernsey.
The AFL won’t make a call on a model or inauguration for the Tasmanian team until the COVID fog clears a little. But it’s when and how, not if.
Looking to the further horizon, Carter envisages that the “how” will recede anyway. Geographical connection between a team and a place is loosening in all sports (?- No)
However the Tasmanian team begins, it will become both a local artefact - like MONA - and a “formidable” national brand.
This is, or should be, the AFL’s true business. “The AFL as 'keeper of the code' is more than spin,” Carter says. “It defines the AFL’s obligations as nationwide and even more. The tragedy of football’s past is that there were missed opportunities because they were no-one’s responsibility.” The game had a presence in NSW, Queensland, Papua New Guinea and even New Zealand once, but it was not nurtured.
“Today, taking the long view, Tasmania is now at some risk,” says Carter. “However, the costs of securing it are reasonable. It fulfils the ‘purpose’ of the AFL. It is the right thing to do.(My emphases, & words in brackets)".
3. Wookie's sportsindustry.com.au website 20.8
"Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation.
Tassie team backlash unfair, says report author
Colin Carter says he has emphatically made the case for a 19th AFL licence, adamant critics of his report in Tasmanian football have missed its key recommendation".
heraldsun.com.au
(Paywall. Can anyone open link, & post here please).
"Defending the Tassie report: It was a ‘stunning step forward’
Colin Carter, responsible for the report into the viability of a Tasmanian AFL team, says critics have completely missed its key recommendation. Read his personal letter".
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It is almost certain they will be sticking with Blundstone for a several years at least, people will just have to put up with the parking issues.
I’m happy with it going to KGV just like the design in the above pic
KGV Oval AFL standard upgrade. With 'just' a $150M budget surely they could:
Build a 15k pax wrap around two-tier covered grandstand at the river end (longer version of York Park's). This grandstand shall also include media and broadcast rooms, corporate lounges/boxes. Ground level would include F&B outlets and amenities such as toilets/first aid/security etc.
Resurface the ground mainly to upgrade the drainage system.
Install massive LED screen/scoreboard. Upgrade the grounds PA and install the latest Wi-Fi system.
Secure long term seasonal leasing for car parking zones around Elwick for shuttle bus service to the ground.
Expand and redevelop the YMCA carpark area to facilitate main entry point for all spectators.
With funding assistance from the State Gov. infrastructure budget, develop a light rail service on the existing lines from Hobart CBD, include new KGV station and related spectator entrance to ground.
Oh, and perhaps a lick of paint and install a few extra vanity mirrors in the visitors change rooms...
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**** m**nl*nd*rs
Northern Midlands Council, I assume
- Nov 21, 2013
- 5,161
- 3,760
- AFL Club
- Melbourne
It's nice to know that the government has 10,s of millions of Bucks in the their bank account to spend on a sports stadium upgrade and other things that would affect the upgrade, when the whole country is in meltdown
Given that NSW and Qld have between them spent and/or still spending (or wasting) billions on stadiums that are will rarely be half-full, a modern stadium in a decent location is not too much to ask for Tasmania's state capital and prime tourist attraction, Hobart, to cater for their own team in Australia's most popular (by far) spectator sport. I would expect the Feds to also chip in their fair share.
- Aug 20, 2013
- 3,355
- 5,985
- AFL Club
- Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Hammarby IF, Toronto Raptors
Adelaide crows are the second AFL team to publicly back tasmania's AFL bid after Richmond supported it last week,that just leaves 16.
jo172 posted about it on one of our club forums. Looks like we publicly backed them as a 19th team as well, rather than only as a joint venture, relocation, or by merging two existing clubs to make space.
Why do that when Longford is just begging for an upgrade?
Saw a bloke square cut a six on that ground when I was a young fella!
I'd hate to have to hit a six over long on at Longford!
It'd have to be one hell of a hit
(Its not called Longford for nothing.
)
Their's not heaps of parking on the Domain. Most of it is public reserve.
Even if you used the Soldiers memorial grounds for parking, its not that easy getting to & from it due to limited roads.
Shuttle busses from the city sounds ok, but where do you park in the city?
The Greens infested Hobart City Council wouldn't allow more road access, or even let you damage trees or flowers for this or any other reason.
The HCC didn't expand North Hobart Oval when they had the chance in the early 1980's. They ain't going to let anyone develop the Queens domain bushland. Certainly not for football anyway.
Mr Taswegian
Roo Man
- May 25, 2019
- 3,049
- 1,441
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
It will have to be KGV by the looks of it for Hobart otherwise we are stuck with Blundstone.I think if they have too many problems with a ground down south they will eventually just permanently base the team in Launceston which I don't agree with but it is still better than no team.
If the ducking airport ever backpays their rates, there would almost be enough money.
I don't think its so drastic they'd put everything in Launceston. The task force, as with most people, realise this
needs to be a whole of State exercise. We're stuck with Bellerive, at least for some time to come.
Mr Taswegian
Roo Man
- May 25, 2019
- 3,049
- 1,441
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
I definitely agree the games need to be shared but I'm happy to settle for it all up here if Blundstone becomes to unbearable for 20000 plus fans or Hobart can't find another location like KGV in the medium term.
well the grounds already exist, and have coexisted for ages. Hasn’t been an issue so far
Mr Taswegian
Roo Man
- May 25, 2019
- 3,049
- 1,441
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
They would have to spend a lot more on them though if we got a team.
Yes, & the economics are far better with our own team, so investment becomes worth while.
UTas needs an upgrade no matter what. Launceston wants a lot of Gov money to do this, TasUni building. the Cultural centre, the Tamar river works, etc etc etc.
Bellerive may get some work done too, at some stage Especially to fill in the gap between the members & the little north stand, Maybe behind or over some of the hill area.
If you just want footy to be moved back to Launceston like when we had the failed political policy of footy in the North & cricket in the South, just say so. You seem to be pushing for it.
I think that policy was good for Launceston's economy but did a lot of damage in the grass roots of football in the south & cricket in the north. Think about that.
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