Tasmania Devils CEO Brendon Gale concedes club’s AFL team is at risk
The Tassie Devils’ 2028 AFL dream is at risk of teetering over the edge as CEO Brendon Gale concedes his growing team could be “out of a job”.
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Tasmania Devils boss Brendon Gale has conceded his growing team will be “out of a job” if a looming vote on the Macquarie Point stadium falls over, as the new club continues to build while facing the prospect it could teeter off the edge within two months.
The Tasmanian government will begin debate over a bill to fund the Hobart stadium next month, and a vote is expected by early July, which could either confirm the new AFL team or put it on the edge of folding.
The Devils’ licence has only been approved by clubs and the league on the proviso of a new stadium, with a roof, in Hobart.
Gale acknowledged the controversial stadium is already “the most scrutinised project in the state’s history”.
A submission signed off by Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg on the stadium emerged this week, with the cricket boss labelling the roof design “unacceptable” for the summer game.
Despite plans to field a senior VFL side next year and negotiations swirling between clubs, the AFL and the Devils on playing list concessions, Gale told a room of football identities and media on Friday “we’re out of a job” if the legislation fails.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but that’s a risk,” he said.
“There’s a view down there that we’ll have an opportunity to renegotiate. And I guess our response to that is: I wouldn’t be running that risk.
“Because the AFL has its own politics and its own constituents. And as we’ve all come to appreciate over the years, clubs have little power.
“The (AFL) commission has the power to run the game in the best interests of everyone. We absolutely believe that’s the right thing.
“But presidents and clubs have two powers, and that is, to some extent, to composition of the commission and the right to sign off on new teams.
“If one of those conditions (the stadium) aren’t met, if the AFL can’t prove that the club can meet its financial needs, I reckon the (club) presidents would be hanging on to that power and say, ‘Well, you know, I’m not that enthusiastic about changing our minds’.”
Gale said while goodwill has helped the Devils to this point, with most of the footy public behind the idea of a club on the Apple Isle, “we’re going to pay to play and we will”.
The Devils will begin to step up their lobbying around the stadium “because our existence depends upon it”.
An indication of the cost of setting up a new club, the future home base at the Kingston Twin Ovals, has blown out to $120m with the state chipping in $105m, according to Gale.
The Devils continue to grow the new club even as it sits on the edge, with the club HQ to move from Ninja Stadium (Bellerive Oval) to an inner Hobart office on Collins St until the new base is built.
Gale and his team are setting down a framework to build revenue to the range of $55-60m per year that the CEO said would keep the club afloat, with former Carlton CEO Cain Liddle advising the new team.
Collingwood brought in $84m in revenue last year, and Gale’s old club Richmond landed a league-best $125m.
The successful Tassie membership – that has landed 210,000 members at $10 a pop – will soon shift to a more realistic membership package as the club works to rake in cash.
“We need to find $55-60m bucks a year to be competitive,” Gale said.
“We can be competitive on that. We don’t need to be Collingwood or Richmond or Essendon. That’s where the stadium becomes critical.”
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- Jon Ralph
Tasmania says it expects to have the father-son rights to the sons and daughters, they expect to have priority access to the sons and daughters of all AFL players born in the state as the Devils list team meets with the league on Friday over its allowances.
And list boss Todd Patterson has made clear it would be “illogical” for the Devils not to have the No.1 pick in the 2027 national draft as Tasmania seeks protections to ensure that draft is not compromised by northern states academy bids.
Tasmania’s list allowances will go to the AFL Commission on June 10 and will include picks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, access to 17-year-old talent and a million-dollar plus sign-on bonus fund.
The Devils have pushed back aggressively on a number of fronts after reports they would not receive the No.1 overall pick and would be forced to trade many of those early selections for established talent.
The Herald Sun revealed in February the Devils were keen to have father-son and daughter-son access to Tasmanian-born AFL players including Jack Riewoldt, Nick Riewoldt, and Jeremy Howe.
Patterson told this masthead on Friday he expected those kids would have a choice of playing for their parent’s team or the Devils, with the children of Tasmanian state-league players also eligible under a higher threshold than the 100-game qualification for the AFL.
“Our expectation is they will have a level of dual eligibility and that the father-sons will have two layers,” Patterson said.
“They will have the AFL layer as we know it. The dual eligibility of the club they played for and then the state they are from and then they will have a second layer which will be more representative for the locals. We have seen something similar with the SANFL and we are just working through what the right formula is.
“We would assume for the dual club eligibility (100 games) would be the level.
“I think it would be massive. This is about history. Those boys and girls are going to have a big role to play in that and to have some of the most famous names wearing a Tasmanian jumper again on the biggest stage would be monumental.”
Tasmania has vast plans to build a Devils academy that might be modelled on soccer’s EPL junior academies and is keen to have picks in upcoming mid-season drafts that it could trade for national draft selections.
The Devils are also pushing for a much bigger sign-on bonus than the initial $1.2 million figure, aware that with figures being offered including Tom De Koning’s $1.7 million a year offer that figure would be swallowed up in one year for a single player.
Tasmanian recruiter Derek Hine said the Devils were working on ways to protect the quality of their top 15 draft picks in 2027.
As an example he said this year four of the top 20 picks would go to Gold Coast academy talent and three of the top 20 to Sydney academy talent.
Patterson said if the Devils secured the No.1 pick as now expected the AFL had to ensure it wasn’t pushed back down the draft order by bids for academy players.
“I just think it makes sense, for a new team coming in not to get access to the best player, it’s just illogical,” he said.
“So we were always confident that we were going to get there and that’s the way it’s tracking at the moment, then it’s making sure we get pure access to the best player. That is the next element.”
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