Wreck It Ralph: Can footy’s greatest dealmaker deliver one last ‘mic drop’ moment?
Footy’s greatest dealmaker will walk away from AFL House in a matter of weeks. But does he have one last ‘mic drop’ moment left in him?
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Gillon McLachlan has spent nearly half a century on this planet assembling the skills to close the deal that could define his enduring legacy.
Footy’s greatest dealmaker will walk away from AFL House in a matter of weeks - 14, 16, 18? - with the heavy lifting still ahead of him before that exit date.
For all he has done — and there is plenty — delivering a football team to an entire state starved of that benefit for its entire history is some kind of ‘mic drop’ moment.
And no one in footy is better placed given what the deals he had made, the relentless networking he has been involved in, the government connections he has assiduously mined.
All the TV rights deals, all the deals to save football from Covid, all the infrastructure deals to deliver Australian stadiums that is the game’s greatest achievement.
All of them can combine to bring home a $750 million deal for a stadium that would transform the waterfront of Tasmania and bulletproof the state’s bid.
If he can present a deal to the 18 AFL presidents with AFL backing, bipartisan government support and the pipeline of cash that will ultimately deliver that stadium, how can they refuse?
Even accounting for all the carping and self-interest and genuine reluctance they have.
It is easy to paint a picture that McLachlan and co set this deal up to fail.
And yet if McLachlan walks away from this - too hard, too costly, too much heavy lifting - it will go against all of the instincts honed in 22 years at the AFL.
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This is the man who helped deliver stadiums for Gold Coast and GWS, who purchased Marvel Stadium and helped save the AFL from Covid, who orchestrated the stunning Adelaide Oval development alongside Andrew Demetriou.
And to force a club like North Melbourne to relocate - it would hark back to the “Up Yours Oakley” sentiments that meant Fitzroy fans never forgave AFL boss Ross Oakley for their merger.
While at the same time setting up the very real prospect Tasmanian fans would vote with their feet and boycott the team given it is so obviously not of their own creation.
Make no mistake, if McLachlan’s last act is to kick the Tasmanian deal down the right - likely never to be reconsidered - it would be a total fail.
The sentiment of recent weeks is the AFL has painted the Tasmanian bid into a corner.
First they asked the Tasmanian taskforce and Tasmanian state government to deliver a financial model that would underpin a 19th licence.
It was a deal delivered knowing all the while the bid couldn’t deliver concrete State Government and Federal Government funding for a stadium.
How could they deliver three quarters of a billion dollars for a stadium that can’t exist until the AFL gives it a licence that would allow those governments to consider it?
Yet the AFL’s view has been that the stadium was always one of the 11 priority areas it was working on along with finances, government support., talent ID, retention, list allowances and many more issues.
After key talks late last week McLachlan already has a “line of sight” on the quantum of the TV rights deal that will clearly eclipse anything that has ever come before it, including the $2.508 million, six-year deal last brokered.
He has the cash that would allow the AFL to afford the extra $12-$15 million of annual special distribution that Tasmania would require decades into the future.
Now comes the stadium.
Former South Australian premier Mike Rann is the man who ultimately committed $535 million to a transformational deal that moved football from AAMI Stadium to a new Adelaide Oval ground.
The deal was struck by McLachlan and his AFL boss Andrew Demetriou despite the thicket of complications that included what Rann calls a “toxic” relationship between the state’s cricket and football state bodies.
It was the AFL’s Mission Impossible, uniting those bodies after 40 years of enmity and coaxing Rann to the table after he at one stage accused his Treasurer Kevin Foley of “rat-f***ing him” for pushing the AFL deal behind his back.
Yet those accusations of political trickery Rann eventually nailed the landing, also able to announce plans for a multi-billion dollar Royal Adelaide Hospital which showed sport was not prioritised over health.
Rann told the Herald Sun on Monday the critics who panned the government for its ambitious plans had quickly fallen away.
“I wish Tasmania good luck with its plans,” he said.
“The upgrade has been a spectacular success. It has been a big boost to cricket and footy. It has been a big boost to tourism and the vibrancy of our city. It is a good example of an intelligent investment in good design paying dividends,” he said.
“It shows how an investment in infrastructure can be transformational. The same was true with our new hospital which has been the anchor of a huge investment in a medical and bioscience precinct.
“I do not know anyone in Adelaide … in politics, sport, business or public, who does not think this was a sound investment. The Adelaide Oval redevelopment has enhanced our city, its life, business and state pride, and it will continue to pay dividends for years to come.”
McLachlan dreams about the same legacy for Hobart, and yet the problem is the same issue every home renovator has found out in the past 18 months amid escalating costs and ballooning budgets.
The revamped Metricon Stadium cost only $144 million to build less than 20 years ago, funded by the Queensland Government ($71.9m), Commonwealth Government ($36m), Gold Coast City Council ($23m) and the AFL ($13.3m).
Adelaide Oval cost $535 million and required an intervention to secure better stadium deals for the participating clubs.
Optus Stadium was budgeted at $1 billion and ended up costing $1.6 billion.
And yet for all its achievements the league’s greatest gift has always been dragging money out of governments to build its stadiums.
McLachlan has always been a dealmaker extraordinaire, sweeping in to nail an entire $2.5 billion AFL TV rights deal within days that seized upon Rupert Murdoch’s fury at being blindsided by Nine’s NRL rights deal.
Murdoch famously fronted the AFL press conference to announce: “We have always preferred Aussie Rules”.
He sealed another rights deal with Seven by throwing in the exclusive rights to Thursday night teams.
He started a fledgling AFLW competition built on equality and female rights, fully aware of the commercial windfall it would ultimately generate.
He spent those 18-hour working days through Covid pestering and badgering government ministers across the country so relentlessly the league constantly stayed one step ahead of border shutdowns.
The challenge to secure government funding comes at a time when cost of living challenges have never been greater, when stadium builds have never been costlier.
With his team working in the background McLachlan has lowered expectations, has used every trick in the book to extract the current $150 million state government commitment.
To use Rann’s colourful vocabulary, he surely will not “ratf***” Tasmania now when its historic team is so close.
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