AFL CEO Andrew Dillon says Tasmania must meet stadium deal before 2028 entry

The AFL chief executive has addressed Tasmania’s clouded entry into the competition, saying the Devils must tick all the boxes.

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon has doubled down on the importance of Tasmania meeting its licence agreement before entering the competition in 2028.

Tasmania was alongside the other 18 clubs for an AFL summit at Marvel Stadium on Tuesday morning.

The Devils, however, are facing a nervous wait after the slated cost of their roofed stadium blew out $100m more than the original estimate.

Dillon said he was “really confident” Tasmania would join the AFL as planned in 2028 but reinforced its contractual conditions of entry.

“Having someone of Brendon Gale’s calibre put his hand up to lead an expansion team is super important for the industry,” he said.

“It’s great to see the Tassie Devils there alongside our other 18 clubs … I am really confident the Tassie Devils will get going in 2028.

“There’s complexity but there’s always complexity when you’re bringing in a new franchise, a new licence or a new club.

“But I am really confident we’ll get there and we’ll work with the Tasmanian government to make sure all the conditions of the licence are met, which includes there is a stadium with a capacity of 23,000, with a roof at Macquarie Point … as long as all those points are ticked, the licence becomes unconditional and then we start at 2028.”

The proposed Macquarie Point multipurpose stadium where the Devils will play. Picture: Mac Point Development Corporation

The AFL summit kicks off discussions between the clubs on how to grow the competition.

Dillon has a vision of 10 million attendees, two million members and one million participants across both AFL and AFLW competitions.

But he said the discussion of an in-season tournament would not be included and instead be presented to the competition committee.

“What we’re talking about for the next couple of days is really focusing in on fan first, we’re not really getting into the heavy football stuff,” he said.

“We talked a little bit about that with the CEOs and that will be something we’ll take back to the competition committee.

“I think what we want to make sure is that our game is as attractive as it has been. We had records crowds last year, an average of 37,600 people came to our games.

“We’re on track to exceed that this year, but we don’t want to stop at that, we want to have average crowds of 40,000.

“We just want to make sure our game remains accessible, affordable and as popular as it has been.”

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff at Macquarie Point with aspiring Devils, Daisy Hollick, 7, Toby Hollick, 5, Lakeyn Millhouse, 5, Billy Millhouse 9, and Parker Millhouse, 3. Picture: Linda Higginson

The fixture has come under fire in recent weeks, with the injury-ravaged Essendon and flailing Carlton owning major prime-time slots.

Dillon defended the floating fixture and particularly the Thursday night slots that have recently netted smaller crowds in Melbourne.

“The Thursday nights this year, I talk about season averages for crowds and Thursday nights have been above the average – that’s a tick,” he said.

“Thursday nights have rated extremely well, but I think what’s important is we do have a spread of teams who play through those different slots.

“We have evolved the fixture over the last couple of years, which is not as popular with all of our fans, but we think it’s one important part.

“Maybe this year is a bit of an outlier in terms of the teams that were selected earlier on were teams in pretty solid form at the time the floating fixture was put in.

“The games are still rating pretty well, they’re still pretty well attended, but we’ll take on-board the feedback from fans, broadcasters and clubs as we look to the 2026 fixture.”

Originally published as AFL CEO Andrew Dillon says Tasmania must meet stadium deal before 2028 entry