Tasmanian AFL Bid

A Tasmanian AFL team is a proposed team that would join the Australian Football League (AFL). The proposal has the support of the AFL.

Australian rules football has been played in Tasmania as long as the main land states with the first clubs formed in the early 1860s. The state hosted the national football carnival in 1924, 1947 and 1966.

The largest attendance at a football game in Tasmania was set at the 1979 TANFL Grand Final with 24,968 spectators watching Clarence defeat Glenorchy by three points at North Hobart Oval.

Between 1994 and 1997 the bid was prepared for a Tasmanian team that involved the construction of a 30,000-capacity stadium at the Hobart Showgrounds in Glenorchy, at the cost of approximately $30 million.

The AFL's continued rejection of the Tasmanian AFL team has raised significant controversy, with the Government of Australia launching a Senate inquiry in 2008 which AFL Commission CEO Andrew Demetriou and chairman Mike Fitzpatrick both declined to attend. At the enquiry, Tasmanian senator Kerry O'Brien brought into question the AFL's commitment to the game in Tasmania, and stated that he believed that with continued neglect, the popularity of soccer could overtake Australian rules football in Tasmania. There are already more children playing soccer than Australian rules football in Tasmania.

The AFL argued that the New South Wales based participation numbers were in excess of that in Tasmania, furthering their argument that a team in Western Sydney was a higher priority. The Senate enquiry found that insurmountable cultural barriers would make such a move non-viable.

...
Wikipedia