It was football’s ultimate parallel universe. Just as the landscape for the AFL’s 19th team will unfold across two small cities, Tasmania’s first victory was one of two diametrically opposed stories. And it took place against a backdrop of political in-fighting, public protests, acrimony and scepticism.
Boasting no players, no certainty over their contentious new stadium, only holding a provisional AFL licence and only a tentative start date of 2028, the newly named Devils chose on the eve of the season to open themselves up to the ultimate popularity contest.
Kath McCann in Melbourne this week.Credit: Simon Schluter
The $10 membership was the brainchild of the club’s first full-time boss, the highly credentialed Hobart native Kath McCann. Fresh from a summer-long Tasmanian road trip with Jack Riewoldt, she had stood firm against the state government and remained true to her early vision of moulding the football club in the image of the Tasmanian community.
McCann and her board had faced pushback from the Tasmanian government, which wanted the club to postpone the launch until after the state election. With the AFL and the club still at odds over the launch date for the club’s AFLW and VFL teams, McCann remained determined to test the club across the Tasmanian community.
A founding director of the club as well as its first executive, even McCann’s board argued with her over the low membership price.
But not for long. “We didn’t have a lot to offer,” admitted McCann, who convinced the Grant O’Brien-chaired board that the club in its first public statement had to be affordable for every Tasmanian family. “We are determined to co-design the club with the community and I’m not sure that’s ever been able to be done before,” she said.
“And we are the only state-based club, so it’s a unifying initiative like never before. My hope is that we work with AFL Tasmania to become a fully integrated entity, which has also never been done by a new club.”
The membership triumph has been well documented. O’Brien – whose initial forecasted ambition had been 40,000 – was sitting with AFL bosses immediately after the simulcast launch at 8pm on March 18 when the numbers ticked over 60,000. Within 24 hours the Tasmania Devils had more than 100,000 members. That figure today stands at 195,000 and McCann said the club would launch a new membership initiative to ensure Tasmania had more than 200,000 signed-up supporters when the club’s board holds its first meeting with the AFL Commission at the start of next month.
More than 100,000 of those members are Tasmanian-based, meaning almost one-fifth of the state’s population has joined the club. Victorian members number 43,000 with Queensland (almost 13,000), Western Australia (about 12,000) and NSW (9445) respectively the third-, fourth- and fifth-biggest markets for the new club.
Women make up almost 40 per cent of Devils members with the Tasmanian numbers proportionate with population across the state and 55 countries represented, led by the US (864 members). Almost 23,000 Devils members said they did not support an AFL club, which suggested the new team had attracted a significant number of new supporters to the game.
“I think we did surprise the market with the offer,” said McCann. “I know that $10 was not an expensive membership, but people did have to get out their credit cards and commit their details. We actually broke all the start-up rules because we missed the fan-acquisition stage completely and had to move straight to fan engagement.”
O’Brien likened the club to a rock band now searching for a follow-up to its first big hit. He described McCann as “the Pied Piper”.
“Kath has spoken from the start about inclusion,” he said. “The membership drive had her fingerprints all over it. She kept saying: ‘It’s more than a club, it’s a movement within the state.’
“As it turned out we’ve gone beyond the state.”
McCann, 42, was the national chief operating officer for the Beacon Group, having held senior board and executive roles, including with Tourism Tasmania and Hobart Airport, when she was contacted by O’Brien, the former Woolworths boss who played football alongside Brendon Gale at Penguin, to interview for the board of the AFL’s 19th club.
A panel including Andrew Dillon and Peggy O’Neal concluded they had unearthed a potential executive as well as a director. When it became apparent the club almost immediately needed a full-time marketing, membership and community boss, McCann was appointed. “She’s repaid our faith in spades,” said O’Brien.
Brendon Gale is due to switch to the new Tasmanian club in October.Credit: Getty Images
AFL Tasmania state manager Damian Gill moved out of his office alongside Blundstone Arena to accommodate McCann and her Hobart-based staff of two, where she is plotting her next road trip with Riewoldt and sports commentator and club ambassador Alister Nicholson – part of a long-term community project entitled “The Fabric”. Along with her next AFL club visit – a meeting with Geelong boss Steve Hocking this week was derailed by flight cancellations.
A Hawthorn supporter who supports the Hawks potentially retaining at least one home game a season in Launceston from 2028 – “whether it’s a home-or-away game against the Devils, it would be brilliant,” she said – McCann didn’t play football, although her netball team Cripps Waratah was admitted into the state’s hall of fame.
The first member of her family to attend university, a football fanatic and the goddaughter of Tasmanian hall of famer and Glenorchy star Danny Ling, McCann is training for the Gold Coast half-marathon and the Adelaide marathon in August.
Her husband Adam Sproule is the director of the Tasmanian Institute of Sport and her children Oscar, 17, and Harriet, 14, will represent Tasmania in the national under-18 hockey championships this weekend – McCann manages both their under-aged teams. She has long lamented the loss of sporting talent from her home state.
“At least 70 footballers have left Tasmania since 2021 to play in the VFL, SANFL, WAFL, and QAFL,” she said. “That includes 50 this year and that’s just the men. The drain of talent is so significant and we don’t want to lose any of those people any more.
“For our state, this is a unifying initiative like never before.”
The private hope of the Tasmania board is that Gale departs Richmond significantly earlier than his stated scheduled departure of October. Largely because of the key football decisions facing the new club and the political complexities surrounding the new stadium at Macquarie Point.
No appointment – including last week’s move led by director Alastair Lynch and McCann to contract veteran recruiter Neville Stibbard to assess the team’s future 17- and 18-year-olds – can come without Gale’s oversight. The next big call will be to appoint a football boss and the board’s wish list includes Chris Fagan and Graham Wright.
Nathan Buckley has publicly entertained the prospect of coaching the Devils and four other senior AFL coaches have spoken with Tasmania directors, expressing some interest in the job. Already rival clubs are looking to contract coaches and players in a bid to quarantine them from the new club. The conflicts facing Gale, whose stated ambition is to oversee the start of the Punt Road redevelopment later this year, look certain to mount.
McCann said she had no issues with relinquishing her executive directorship with the club and that she too hoped Gale could start sooner than originally scheduled. “I’ve met him [Gale] and I can’t wait for him to start. The impact of him coming home to lead our club, to lead Tasmania is just enormous.
“Football in Tasmania has never had a leader like this either socially or economically. There is no doubt Tasmanians want a sense of belonging and he provides the opportunity to take that to a whole new level. The impact he can have on this state is just so significant.”
Club powerbrokers hope McCann remains at the club in an executive role potentially overseeing community, membership, branding and events. Currently contracted until the start of 2026, that predicted appointment would see her step off the board.
McCann would not predict her role beyond her two-year deal. Although she and Gale have met several times, their relationship remains fledgling and ultimately her future remains his call.
“Whether it’s from the inside or the outside, I’ll be the one cheering the loudest,” she said.
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