GWS Giants crowd figures soar in Canberra as Chief Minister Andrew Barr calls for consideration as 20th AFL team
Crowd and membership records this season have shown just how important the ACT is to GWS. SHANNON GILL explores the mechanics and future of the AFL in Canberra with Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Giants CEO Dave Matthews.
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It shapes as the most consequential AFL game ever played in the nation’s capital. The red-hot Hawthorn trying to keep its finals fairytale alive against a GWS Giants team that has revived its top four chances.
Yet beneath that is a quiet success story. Canberra has become a Giant part of the orange tsunami’s operation in a year where crowd records are set to be broken.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, whose government renewed its deal with the Giants in 2022 through to the end of 2032, thinks it could be a glimpse of the AFL’s future in Canberra.
“Canberra’s population will soon reach half-a-million people and Territory Gross State Product will pass $50 billion,” Barr tells CODE Sports.
“The broader region is approaching one million people and this population and economic growth will continue. ”
“At some point in the future the AFL will consider adding a twentieth team to the national competition, a team representing the broader Canberra region (ACT and Southern NSW) would have to be in the mix for consideration,” Barr says.
A stand-alone Canberra team may seem fanciful, yet the numbers are compelling.
Manuka Oval, celebrating its 100th anniversary this weekend, will be heaving on Sunday with all seats sold out on Wednesday; the earliest sellout time in memory. That will make it three sellouts from three Giants games in Canberra this season, another first.
A crowd of 13,5000 would take the average attendance this season beyond 13,000, which would be the highest ever for the Giants in Canberra.
Those are significantly higher averages than what Tasmania (9657 – entering the AFL in 2028) and the Northern Territory (8419 – mooted as a possible 20th team) have achieved for AFL games this year.
For the moment, GWS CEO Dave Matthews is understandably happy with the status quo.
“We’re proud to be Canberra’s AFL team – we have been for more than a decade now and will be for years and years to come,” he tells CODE Sports.
Unlike other club’s interstate cash grabs, the Giants have been in for the long haul. The Giants’ ten year deal follows on from an initial decade in Canberra starting in their debut year of 2012.
It’s a commitment that has built their membership base in the ACT to an all-time record of 6840 in 2024.
Yet there’s also crucial practical elements that make the ACT essential for the Giants.
The Easter Show in Sydney renders the Giants ENGIE Stadium out of action for six weeks around the April event, so without a second venue that they can call their own the Giants would be handicapped immensely as a season finds its groove.
This year the Giants opened the season with a home win before the blackout period, in which they gained two important wins at Manuka in Round 7 and 8.
“Canberra is our home,” Matthews says.
“We’re welcomed with open arms and some of our club’s most historic moments have occurred at Manuka Oval.”
On the field two of the Giants most important players, midfield titan Tom Green and high-flying intercept defender Harry Himmelberg, are products of the GWS Academy who played in Canberra before being drafted. Another former Giants academy member and Canberra product, Jack Steele captains St Kilda, highlighting the potential talent source of the area.
And while the Giants benefit, they are also doing a bunch of heavy lifting for the code itself. A presence there is essential, given the establishment of the Canberra Raiders and the ACT Brumbies helped diminish the Australian rules culture in the city during the 1980s and 1990s.
Having a team playing in Canberra also gives the AFL a hard-to-measure political presence. In addition to the ACT government partnership, this weekend, like all Canberra games, there will be Federal MPs, staffers, senior public servants and even international ambassadors in the stands.
The AFL is an expert at getting things done with government, and the Canberra matches are crucial to greasing the wheels. Ever since the Giants were born, it’s been an AFL strategy to get footy novices of the Canberra political classes on board with the Giants and to Manuka games.
“We’re proud of everything we’ve achieved alongside the ACT Government over the past 13 years. It’s a partnership that has been a success on every measure,” Matthews says.
Barr believes the partnership gives as much the other way too.
“Without the partnership the ACT would be the only state or territory that didn’t have any AFL,” he says underlining that a sense of national sporting legitimacy for the region comes from the Giants.
“Beyond the sporting benefits, there are significant economic benefits for Canberra through direct expenditure, tourism and destination marketing.”
Melbourne, Sydney and regional NSW are the ACT’s biggest domestic tourism markets, so regularly having games beamed nationally from Manuka between a Melbourne team and a Sydney team with associated marketing signage plastered over the ground ticks all the boxes.
All that, however, won’t sway Hawk tragic Barr to don the orange this Sunday.
“The round 13 clash in Launceston (a Hawthorn win) was epic, hopefully this Canberra clash will produce the same result!”
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