AFL’s new Tasmania side to be called the Tasmania Devils

The will of the Tasmanian people has won out, with the newest AFL team to adhere to the traditional state strip and a popular name, as talks progress between the AFL and a Hollywood giant.

Tasmania’s AFL team will tap into traditional themes with the side to be named the Devils and play under the predominantly green strip of the club’s state jumper.

The new team will officially be launched on March 18 where the name, logo, colours will also be unveiled across multiple locations in Tasmania in a community-based announcement.

The AFL continues to make strong progress with Warner Bros over an agreement to use the “Devils” moniker after this masthead revealed last year the company held the corporate copyright.

This masthead understands that agreement will pave the way for Tasmania to play under the Devils name, with that moniker proving overwhelmingly popular with Tasmanian fans across multiple surveys.

Warner Bros animated character Taz threw a spanner in the works for the AFL’s newest team.

TFC AFL Club Inaugural Board of Directors, (Club Ambassador) Julie Kay, Chair Grant O'Brien and (Club Ambassador) Jack Riewoldt. Picture: Chris Kidd

While names including the Swifts (inspired by the Swift Parrot) and Penguins have been mentioned in dispatches, no other name has ever been in strong contention.

The state’s Coates League Under-18 team is named the Tasmania Devils and plays with the state’s green strip with dashes of yellow and red.

That traditional strip has huge appeal to the new club because so many Tasmanians still retain old-fashioned jumpers of those colours from the state’s glory days playing State of Origin.

The Tasmanian State of Origin team regularly competed in international carnivals and won matches against every other state as recently as 1990.

The sight of fans with those traditional old jumpers attending the club’s first match in 2028 while the young fans sport new jumpers will be a perfect tie-in of old and new.

Tasmanian AFL team chairman Grant O’Brien said last week the Devils was only one option but it will prove the popular winner.

“As you know, it only really provides us with an option. It doesn’t say that that’s going to be the one. I think there is strong mail coming in for some of the other options,” he said.

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon told the Dyl and Friends podcast on Monday in an ideal world the team would lure a premiership coach of the ilk of Chris Scott.

Tasmania’s Coates Talent League kit. (Photo by Kelly Defina/AFL Photos/via Getty Images )

The new team will likely play in the VFL in the year before its inaugural AFL season in 2028 but will have a welter of picks it will have to trade for established players.

The AFL handed North Melbourne a pair of future second-round picks last year it had to trade for talent and the Tasmanian team will also be handed some concessions it cannot use in the national draft.

“What we learnt now for Tassie when we look at Gold Coast and the Giants is making sure they are competitive from the start. With Gold Coast and the Giants they were given the luxury of having a build,” Dillon said.

“For Tassie, the Tasmanians are not wanting to win one game in the first year and then two games. They will want to hit the ground running so we will tweak the rules and then the thing is to have the best facilities as early as possible.”