In carefully prepared remarks on Wednesday, outgoing AFL supremo Gillon McLachlan commended the day’s freshly inked Tasmanian deal to the assembled journalists and cameras as a kind of crusading apogee in “progressing the game, so everyone can share in its heritage and possibilities – everyone”.
“Today, we close the loop,” he said, under the overcast skies of North Hobart Oval. Now, it was a “truly national” competition.
More than 4000 kilometres away in Darwin, they might have been choking on their laksas.
Inside the proposed new stadium in Darwin.
There, advocates have been advancing an increasingly compelling case for years. The proposed club – representing the vast north – would be based in Darwin and play a handful of home games Alice Springs, Townsville and Cairns. Broome, too, in northern WA, could be in contention for a fixture or training hub.
In 2021, the proponents were joined by Channel Seven Melbourne managing director Lewis Martin and former Melbourne chief executive Peter Jackson, who sit on the formal seven-member taskforce plotting what could be the most revolutionary concept in world sport.
The taskforce proposes a football club with social impact as its core objective, whose powers of hope and inspiration – the “possibilities” of which McLachlan speaks so generally – deliver annual benefits that may be worth ten times the value of investment.
It is called the “unconventional model”, a name derived from the hard truths that shallow population bases and money pits of the north would mean annual operational shortfalls of about $15 million compared to even the most cash-strapped clubs, according to a 2021 feasibility by Bastion Experience.
But, most importantly, the authors also found the benefits from better health, education, crime and social cohesion outcomes could be worth about $460 million each year.
For this reason, a northern Australia team could be an appealing strategic investment for Land Councils, health bodies or the multiple layers of governments already throwing billions at stagnating strategies such Closing the Gap and Developing the North.
The team would be a magnet for corporation sponsorship, and a stunning show of leadership (and branding) from the government and AFL administrations with the gumption to press go.
AFL Northern Territory chairman Sean Bowden (left) with Michael McLean and Northern Territory Thunder’s Lateesha Jeffrey.Credit: Krystle Wright
“The game has a such a positive impact,” says Nigel Browne, a Larrakia/Wulna man and member of the taskforce. “Whether it be health, training, committing yourself to your team, and then also committing yourself to your education, family – to staying away from smokes and drugs and drinking.
“There are also examples of people [in the AFL] who were treated poorly because of the fact they were Aboriginal, more than anything else. And I just think that wouldn’t happen here because of the relationship that footy has with Aboriginal communities in the Territory.”
There is also the tantalising prospect of Darwin’s proximity to Asia, the AFL’s on-again off-again new market fancy, where even a niche following could be immensely valuable. As the Bastion report noted: “Flying five hours south from Darwin enables the engagement of 24 million people, whereas flying north engages over 400 million people.”
Mutitjulu children playing footy during the closing ceremony in the shadow of Uluru.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
But this would be a team of, and venerating, Aboriginal culture, proponents say. It has been proposed the name, emblem and guernsey design be drawn from lore and language. The talent would, in large part, come from the mostly untapped north, already the progenitor of some of the code’s greatest names, but whose hospitals, jails and decaying remote communities hide the stars who never were.
“And no one likes a bye round, which the 19-team competition will create,” Browne says. “We can bring the balance back with a 20th team. It’s not the biggest arguing point we’ve got, but it’s a fairly decent one.”
Beyond the annual finances, one of the taskforce’s key challenges is to work out how to develop a sustainable talent supply from remote regions. It would require heavy investment in the bush. AFLNT chair Sean Bowden has previously pitched dollar-for-dollar funding in remote regions on what was spent building a proposed 25,000-seat stadium.
While this could be hundreds of millions of dollars, there remained the eminently reasonable argument that remote communities should be entitled to same facilities found anywhere else in Australia.
An artist’s impression of a proposed new stadium in Darwin that proponents hope will host a Northern Territory AFL team.
And what of essential non-local talent? It has been ventilated ad nauseam that even the Gold Coast, with its sun and surf, has struggled to attract and retain players from the southern metropolises.
But there is another side of this coin, says Browne. He and others believed Darwin could be destination club for leaders and changemakers who desire meaning beyond the boundary lines.
“From Alice Springs to Darwin and everywhere in between, it’s really hard to find people who have anything negative to say about it,” he says.
“The most often asked questions are, ‘When are you building [the stadium]? When’s the team coming?’ We’re underscoring the fact that footy in the Territory is just one of those things that pulls people together.”
For all the deserved good will and cheer, it does not diminish the Europe-sized hole north of an imaginary line drawn from Perth to Brisbane line without elite representation.
McLachlan on Wednesday was clear in his support for a future 20th team, but where it would come from? By Thursday, callers on talkback radio had proposed every impossible scenario from the NSW Riverina to Geraldton in WA.
But there is only one “truly national” option.
