Where could the AFL be played around the world? Sam Landsberger investigates
An audacious proposal to relocate a club to Los Angeles in the 1980s fell flat, but 40 years on the conditions have changed as the AFL looks for a radical new home for Gather Round.
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The AFL map will look complete when Tasmania takes to the grass some 149 years after Hobart adopted Australian rules footy ahead of soccer.
As the Bass Strait is crossed in 2028 you wonder whether back at league headquarters an atlas will remain open. Perhaps a globe will be spinning in the boardroom.
The AFL’s tone on sharing our game with the world has ebbed and flowed all century.
South Africa was the flavour of the month about 2008 while St Kilda and Port Adelaide struck historic deals to play games for premiership points in New Zealand (2013-15) and China (2017-19) respectively.
The international conversation has been muted. There’s not even subtitles due to the AFL’s desperation to funnel cash into bleeding community clubs.
In 2022 the investment in community football was $50m. In 2023 it is $67m courtesy of the AFL Commission.
Last year’s $50m ballooned to $67m this year courtesy of the AFL Commission endorsing “not less than 10 per cent” of assessable revenue must be reinvested.
AFL executives believe cycling the elite level’s earnings back into base of the game supports a healthy ecosystem.
But footy powerbrokers sense that after three or four years there will be a strategic shift to scratch a global itch.
It would be bad business by the AFL to take a stand-alone game offshore because for a massive cost the return from a one-off event would be limited.
The economies of scale would look very different if the AFL instead told every club to stamp their passports.
First Tasmania and then the world ... perhaps in the boldest way.
There is a growing belief that Gather Round looms as the best model for the AFL to play games abroad.
The game could take over an entire city to showcase Australian rules to foreign markets like never before.
“We’d be in for that!” one club’s chief executive excitedly said.
The Tasmanian Government wants to take Gather Round south of the mainland once Hobart’s stadium is completed in 2029 or 2030.
Purchasing extra AFL games for the stadium would help justify the state government’s massive construction spend.
Gillon McLachlan sold the next three Gather Rounds to Adelaide for $80m. From 2027 it is up for grabs.
WHERE COULD THE AFL GATHER?
The AFL would search for a destination that boasts a bustling business centre and suitable venues, should exporting Gather Round gain momentum.
Two islands leap off the page – Singapore and Hong Kong.
Those dynamic and humid cities in South-East Asia have existing infrastructure thanks to their cricket grounds.
Their business hubs would attract strong commercial returns and the AFL would receive a golden opportunity to penetrate the broader Asian market.
The other leading candidate would be the west coast of the United States.
The world’s largest sports market will soon add a professional Twenty20 league for the first time when Major League Cricket is launched in July.
Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis are San Francisco Unicorns while Mitch Marsh is listed at the Seattle Orcas.
The first ball will be bowled at Dallas’s Grand Prairie Stadium following its $30m transformation into a cricket venue and base of the US national team.
Suddenly, the US is throwing cash at cricket grounds. They can double as AFL venues and,
importantly, they can minimise how much the league would have to stump up for temporary infrastructure.
“The critical thing for the US was obviously the absence of cricket grounds, but with the establishment of a new T20 competition and cricket grounds being built, the AFL certainly could have an ambition of playing games over there,” Greater Western Sydney boss Dave Matthews said.
“We’re certainly a club that would be happy to get involved. (But) it’s not something that’s taking up a lot of time or resources at the moment.”
As foreign as footy in California might seem, it is worth remembering that in 1988 a secret plan was hatched to take the Sherrin to Hollywood.
A Melbourne club was set to be relocated as the LA Crocodiles, who would have played games at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena or the Los Angeles Coliseum as well as a day game in San Francisco, and possibly Seattle.
CHINA CALLING
In 2020 a perfect storm of Covid, trade wars and political tensions halted Port Adelaide‘s push into China.
But a return to Shanghai is shaping up.
“If we could get back there in the next three years I would be pretty happy with that,” Port’s chairman David Koch said. “At one stage, when we were playing in China, 15 per cent of our revenue was associated with China. So it was significant for us and it helped build ties.”
The AFL’s grassroots focus in that time frame won’t matter. Clubs have been empowered to drive their own overseas ventures, leaving the league to act as a supporting mechanism in the background.
It’s a power balance that works. Flip it and there will be turbulence because convincing clubs to get on board a mission being driven by the AFL would be challenging.
Koch was chuffed to have conquered – or perhaps crept into – China.
“It was significant – we are a medium-sized club in a small state,” Koch said. “To make clubs run properly and to make sure your football department is fully funded you need to compete for commercial revenue and backing.
“So we had to build a niche for ourselves that no one else had, and my view was that China is our biggest trading partner. We took the game to China to build a bridge culturally and commercially.
“It was never about building the game in China. The first year we just did it ourselves, but it was important to then bring the AFL in as a partner and get the governing body involved.
“They were sceptical, but then they became massive fans of it.”
HOME, SWEET HOME
Several clubs have no interest in proactively picking up their passports. It is a monster mission.
Koch said Port Adelaide had six full-timers at Alberton dedicated to the China project, plus three Mandarin speakers.
They still have Tony Zhang working part-time from Shanghai as Port’s chief representative for the Greater China region.
Brisbane Lions will be searching for a home when the Gabba is demolished in 2026 and then rebuilt for the 2032 Olympic Games.
But the Lions want to keep their games local when bulldozers ignite that $2.7 billion project.
Hawthorn and North Melbourne are bracing to lose $4m a year each from Tasmania and could have to get creative to replace that sponsorship.
St Kilda hosted the first match for premiership points played overseas when it hosted Sydney in Wellington on Anzac Day in 2013.
That game drew 22,546. But Anzac Day matches in Wellington against the Brisbane Lions and Carlton in the following two years both drew less than 13,500.
Wellington City Council then dumped the Saints to end the experiment.
The Saints are 0-6 in games sold to Wellington, China and Cairns and so last year they tore up their $650,000 Cairns contract.
Gold Coast also walked out on China after losing to Port by 72 and 40 points in 2017-18.
“(2018) was our last foray to China,” then-president Tony Cochrane said at the club’s best-and-fairest. “The board have decided that to give the playing group every possible chance in the future that the trip is too onerous and too difficult.”
Koch knows he needs to find a new rival to reignite operation Shanghai.
“We‘ve got to find an opponent who will come across – but even playing a pre-season game can be a real option for us as well,” Koch said.
“While it was great to make a bit of history with playing for points I think it could be just as effective just prior to the season, or just after the season.”
As for the history made?
“Every EPL, every baseball and every basketball game over there have all been exhibition games because they thought the risk was too high and were amazed we did it,” Koch said.
“We are still the only sport in the world to play a game in mainland China for points in a domestic competition.”
WHAT ABOUT RIVAL SPORTS?
Plans for the NRL to launch next season with a double-header in Las Vegas are progressing. It‘s part of a five-year strategic plan to cash in on the $93 billion sports betting goldmine in the US.
Supremo Peter V’landys is betting on American punters signing up for NRL subscriptions to watch and gamble on games after getting hooked on a taste in Vegas.
If the Hail Mary play comes off the NRL could generate more than $200m if
It‘s understood the AFL also received approaches from organisations attempting to create the ultimate Vegas sports trip by bundling footy games around a mix of NFL, NBA and MLB action.
But there were fears at AFL House that a Vegas venture would be viewed as a party trip rather than a genuine global push and walked away.
They also weren‘t sold on Nevada’s commercial streams.
The NBL is watched by more people overseas than in Australia. So playing basketball in China, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and the US all appear viable options.
NBL owner Larry Kestelman was acutely aware that David Stevenson lived in the US (twice) and throughout Asia when he poached the AFL‘s operations boss to run his sport.
Stevenson‘s network and lived experience inside those markets should help the NBL cash in on the many opportunities they have to trot the globe.
In cricket the explosion of Twenty20 leagues across the planet has diluted demand for foreign games, which could take the gloss off the host nation‘s product.
Major League Cricket‘s arrival might bowl over any interest the US had in purchasing Big Bash matches.
Perhaps an exhibition game between, say, Melbourne Stars and the eventual MLC champion, be it the Texas Super Kings, LA Knight Riders, Washington Freedom or whoever salutes, would work.
Word out of the ICC is that they are all-in on the American dream because of the country‘s huge Indian population and unrivalled untapped growth.
The US is one of the ICC’s top priorities and it recently inspected venues in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas and Texas for next year‘s T20 World Cup.
TALENT SEARCH
Gerard Sholly will fly to Ireland this week to run five or six training sessions for boys and girls at Trinity College’s grounds in Dublin.
Former Magpie Marty Clarke will coach the boys and the sessions will be beamed back to interested clubs as the league looks to reinvigorate the Gaelic raid after Covid.
Sholly is head of cricket at TLA but has partnered with the AFL for the trip independently of the talent giant.
He said Geelong, which recently signed Gaelic gun Oisin Mullin, has a good set up in Ireland and suspected Hawthorn’s connections were also strong.
Ireland is one of three foreign markets the AFL scours for talent, along with our neighbours – New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific – and the US.
“We‘ll continue to invest in a small way in those areas,” AFL talent ambassador Kevin Sheehan said. “We’ve had a trickle of players (from neighbouring countries) over the years, so that’s a minor one.
“We’re still talking about the American stuff and Mason Cox is approaching 100 games (currently 96).
“There are some yet some discussions about how we best do that going forward.
“It has been a tough period because of the obvious – Covid and the restrictions around it – but everyone would agree that players from international markets do enhance our game.”
Sholly suggested staging a women’s game of Australian rules between Australia and Ireland in Ireland.
There are close to 30 Irish girls on AFLW lists and Sholly said many more Gaelic guns could push for selection after a few training sessions with a Sherrin.
“That would draw some attention, particularly in Ireland, and be great reward to represent Australia,” he said. “Rather than International Rules they could actually play Australian rules.
“There’s a lot of people watching AFL and AFLW in Ireland every week. They interview the Irish girls every week … it’s got huge coverage in Ireland.”
WHERE ELSE ON THE MAP?
Koch floated India as another possible AFL destination and said his club was open to all corners of the planet.
“We built a name for ourselves as the international team for the AFL,” Koch said.
“I tongue in cheek describe it as we are to the AFL what the Bolshoi Ballet is to Russia.
“They’re about building bridges – culturally, soft diplomacy and commercially – between countries.
“You could go to any country with an oval – because the world is full of rectangular fields at the moment.”
Sholly, who knows India inside out through his cricket expertise, said it made perfect sense.
“With cricket being such a tremendous export between the two countries I think there’d be interest in an AFL game, for sure,” Sholly said.
“There’d be a lot of interest from the Indian community in Australia and we have a lot of immigration of Indian students and people relocating to Australia.
“In a decade's time those kids are going to be following AFL. They’ve got such a massive population that if you get a game on TV over there more people will watch it than the whole of the Australian population.
“There’s a significant middle class in India now that can afford to travel and go to games, and there’s certainly grounds there.”
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