Six months in, how is Andrew Dillon tracking as CEO of the AFL?
Andrew Dillon had a couple of hard acts to follow in the all powerful Andrew Demetriou and ‘rock star’ Gillon McLachlan, so how has he fared so far, six months into being boss of the AFL?
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Footy’s new boss Andrew Dillon was wandering back across the Adelaide Oval footbridge on Thursday night when a clutch of fans stopped him in his tracks.
Adelaide had at least gone down fighting as a heaving Adelaide Oval crowd ensured the first Gather Round under his watch was off to a rollicking start.
As Dillon walked past the Adelaide casino he had reason to believe his new-found fame had caught up with him.
“A Melbourne fan came up and asked for a photo and I was happy to do that,” Dillon said on Friday.
“And then an Adelaide fan came up and she was just about to take the photo and she said, ‘Actually, who are you?’”
Twelve months ago Adelaide-born hero Gillon McLachlan rolled into town as part of what would be a season-long victory lap.
He had saved the AFL from Covid, he had danced with Delta Goodrem at a grand final, and he was about to start a week-long platonic love affair with South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas.
The pair oozed chemistry as a Gather Round promotional tag-team, effectively brokering a three-year Gather Round deal in public in a sideshow nearly as interesting as the weekend’s football.
Dillon, meanwhile, was stuck in what one AFL insider dubbed the league’s version of Game of Thrones as the Herald Sun revealed commission boss Richard Goyder was keen to parachute in Dogs president Kylie Watson-Wheeler as McLachlan’s replacement.
Watson-Wheeler dodged the cameras, McLachlan preened for the cameras, club bosses frantically lobbied for Dillon and the man himself kept his head down.
So six months into his tenure at the AFL, what is the half-year progress report for Dillon?
As Nathan Buckley joked with Malinauskas on Wednesday about how he and McLachlan had been so close they practically finished each other’s sentences, Dillon stood stone-faced as the premier flashed that megawatt smile.
Dillon could never match the charm, wit and grace of Malinauskas or McLachlan.
And yet as Dillon knows, his quiet diplomacy and vast knowledge of this industry will allow him to get stuff done.
As footy’s powerbrokers and key stakeholders report, he hasn’t wasted a minute.
So after McLachlan stayed around to grab those legacy moments – a new pay deal, a new team in Tasmania – what are the items on Dillon’s to-do list?
HONEST, RELIABLE
Talk to every industry figure and they will compliment Dillon on and off the record, but perhaps one plain-speaking key stakeholder sums it up best.
“He’s been fantastic. He is so honest and reliable. There is no bullshit. If he tells you no, you know that it’s a no. People are enjoying the fact he doesn’t have to be the main man. Gill was an entertainer. He was the star of the show. He was the Christian Horner to an F1 team. We are quite enjoying that Dillon isn’t that person.”
Former state premier and ex-Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett, a persistent critic of the AFL, uses a different analogy.
“I welcome Andrew’s elevation to the leadership. I hope he is not going to be like our dear premier Jacinta Allan, who feels like she has to do everything as an honour to the former leader.
“Andrew has inherited a lot from Gill but he needs to establish his own authority. He is still feeling his way a bit but the one thing I am hearing is the presidents very much approve of his greater consultation.”
By now Dillon’s listening tour of the AFL community has become legendary.
The husband to Amanda and father to Lucy, Pippa and Chloe has thrown himself into a feverish bout of consultation to get the temperature of the AFL community.
Dillon has crossed the nation on 75 separate flights in his first six months, handing out AFL largesse to those screaming for action before he gets onto the really thorny issues that will force him expend his political capital.
Those issues include Tasmania, the illicit drug code update, a concussion class action, a racism class action, an eventual solution to the Gabba ground crisis.
He has handed the northern states Opening Round to their rapturous applause, handed coaches a larger footy cap and salary exemptions for senior coaches.
He has committed to $1 billion in funding of community football over the next decade.
He has hastened slowly, all the while taking advice from confidantes including former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou and former trade unionist and AFL commissioner Bill Kelty.
Dillon knows his style is different to McLachlan, but as one club source said: “He has less razzle-dazzle but more substance. No one knows footy like him. He can walk into a room and say the least amount of words but make the best contribution to any meeting.”
McLachlan had a tight group of executives doing the heavy lifting until he closed the deal, including Dillon, commercial boss Kylie Rogers and fixturing, clubs and broadcast boss Travis Auld.
BIG CHEERS
At McLachlan’s South Yarra farewell bash they were in his thrall as they showered with him tributes – his devotion to them so complete it resembled a cult-like following.
McLachlan was personable and interested but not always sure of an AFL underling’s job description or name and yet Dillon is truly beloved of the AFL team after spending so much time with many of them working in football, game development and legal.
It sounds corny, but the AFL staff actually erupted in a roar of excitement on the morning Dillon’s elevation to chief executive was announced at AFL House.
Industry figures know they can go to Dillon on any topic and his decades of work across all portfolios at the AFL means he will never be flustered or without an answer.
Fox Footy boss Steve Crawley, also head of Fox Sports, has spent his life negotiating with powerful men and as an outsider in the AFL world he likes what he has seen so far.
“I am fairly new to the AFL but I feel with Andrew Dillon his door is always open,” Crawley said. “He listens, he contributes, he loves his footy. And to be honest I can’t find a negative with the guy. I deal weekly with (NRL boss) Peter V’landys and you get a sense if something fits right. My opinion already is that Andrew Dillon fits the job as AFL CEO perfectly.”
What about his contrast in style with the aggressive, provocative V’landys?
“Chalk and cheese,” Crawley said. “Peter knocks Victoria and Andrew doesn’t knock NSW. But you don’t want everyone to be the same.”
Dillon’s fixturing team has cut the amount of games which cross over for Fox Footy, while at Channel 7 he has brought forward Friday night games to 7.40pm but handed them an extra 10 minute lead-in on Thursdays.
AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh, fresh from a bruising but successful pay negotiation with McLachlan, approves of Dillon’s style.
“There is probably a view that the AFL is listening – and that’s a good thing because it has not always been the case. It’s a difficult balance because they have a job to make decisions … but I think he has taken a consultative and collaborative approach.”
Former Collingwood president and media personality Eddie McGuire says Dillon has “picked up the baton and run with it”.
“The biggest issue for any organisation when a new CEO comes in, is that you can waste the first 12 months trying to find out where the bathroom is. Whereas he has had a clean run, he has been able to manufacture a huge success in Opening Round in those markets that mattered. The continuation of Gather Round is off to a flyer, we have record crowds from round 1.
“There are no panic stations anywhere. Then has got some big agenda items to take forward from class actions to the rebuilding of the drugs code, and the ongoing international situation of concussion, and all of these things are international.”
Says confidante Demetriou of Dillon’s style: “He is one of the very few people I have come across in football who hasn’t got an enemy. People never say a bad word about him. He is a person of the highest integrity, he is very honest, he is very calm, he is a very decent person.
“Gill and I started with Andrew in 2000 and Andrew has been party to every major legal agreement, every broadcasting agreement, every stadium deal, major sponsorship, every club agreement, he has intimate knowledge of everything that has gone on in the AFL since 2000. He has had an amazing position to understand and learn. He worked for three CEOs, Wayne (Jackson) myself and Gillon, so he had the benefit of a great apprenticeship.”
Dillon truly seems less concerned with headline “legacy” items than with a thriving code that prioritises community development and a growth mandate.
As one close adviser says: “It’s less about him and more about the game. Gill raced into some stuff to build his legacy but not everyone has to be a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs”.
Says Kennett: “He is confronted with a number of legacy items, which will make it a challenging time for him. The drug issues. The issue of the AFL imposing its will on the people of Tasmania is an arrogant proposition, The issue of concussion, which has to be resolved.“
Dillon has pushed hard to sell a vision of Tasmania’s Macquarie Point stadium as a venue that will only add to the state’s economy.
Kennett is scathing of the AFL’s break-or-break-through approach to Tasmania.
“It is something Andrew has had to inherit and I hope he shows some flexibility on it. You don’t have to demand of a population of only 550,000 that they produce a stadium that puts them in debt for generations,” he said.
“There are alternatives. I hope Andrew has the courage to stamp his mark on a 19th team without indebting the people of Tasmania. Tasmania is a real issue.
“They could have a stadium without a roof, they could move it to Launceston and upgrade the facilities there. The AFL have put up $15 million but do they have the right to impoverish an entire community? I don’t think they do.”
The impeccably well-sourced McGuire says the AFL wants harsher penalties for first strikes under the drug code and, if so, Dillon will have to battle with the AFLPA.
AFL Coaches’ Association boss Alistair Nicholson lauds his work on the soft cap but says assistant coaches are desperate for more job security or at least greater exit payouts given most are only a few months at most.
Those inside AFL House would like Dillon to take a firm grip on the organisation’s culture rather than allowing the HR department to steer the company’s direction.
Suggestions the AFL CEO’s salary might be transparent again – as under Demetriou’s watch – seem to have evaporated, with Dillon dodging a question on that proposition last month.
His desire to bring Brendon Gale on board as a legitimate second-in-charge – and likely successor – ran aground over issues that included Gale’s actual title and whether he might need to apply for that job.
With Auld and McLachlan gone he desperately needs someone to fill the consigliore role he supplied for McLachlan.
Ideally it would be a club chief executive but no person in football currently fits that bill.
Richmond CEO Gale will go to Tasmania as the Devils’ chief executive and be dealt the unenviable task of dragging the independents kicking and screaming trying to pass a stadium bill in parliament.
THE BIG DEALS
One senior industry figure who marvelled at McLachlan’s ability to drive huge TV rights deals that benefited all says the commercial side of the AFL is Dillon’s big challenge.
“One of the things the industry is looking at is, ‘OK, commercially, are we going to continue to push forward at the same rate as we have?’ Gill was a commercial beast. That’s probably the question mark at the moment.”
And given a likely 2028 start date for a Tasmanian side, will Dillon with his growth agenda be the AFL chief executive to herald the introduction of a 20th team and all the TV riches that would generate?
On that same Adelaide Convention Centre stage where Dillon spoke about that Adelaide fan the morning’s MC Abbey Gelmi described Malinauskas as a “rock star”.
Dillon will never be handed that catchy title.
But if he can deliver a Tasmanian stadium and broker an illicit drugs policy that weighs the carrot and the stick in equal measures footy’s quiet achiever will at least boast about rock star results.
Originally published as Six months in, how is Andrew Dillon tracking as CEO of the AFL?
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