Chair Update - March 2025

To view the Chair’s report at the AGM, please click here.

The Board met on Friday the 7th March and held our first full Annual General Meeting (AGM), another significant milestone in the formation of your Club. The AGM is a key governance requirement where we report on the financial year that ended on the 31st of October. My report at the AGM outlined the progress that has made across all aspects of the Club’s operation.

We followed up the AGM with our 16th Board meeting in Hobart. Our meetings proceeded an International Women’s Day Event that we co-hosted with Tasmania JackJumpers at My State Bank Arena.

We were so proud to host the International Women’s Day with Tasmania JackJumpers. We appreciate all of those that attended and supported, I trust you all enjoyed the event and the opportunity to be together to celebrate the contribution of women in sport.

Our Board meeting was another full agenda, with a key focus on the areas of our establishment phase business plan, Foundations, Fans and Facilities, now with the addition of Footy.

Can you believe it will be 12 months on March 18 since we launched our Club, what a night that was right across Tasmania!

All 207,000 of you who have joined since then are Founding Members of the Tasmania Devils Football Club - Founding Members for life which means you will not be required to renew your Founding Membership.

What you can do is participate in a special member only campaign that we will launch on March 18 this year. This campaign is not a membership renewal and it will not offer priority ticket or seating options, but it will offer you all an opportunity to support your Club as we continue to build the foundations of your Club on our journey to first bounce.

We have built the offers around the feedback we have received from members. Your support, by selecting one or more of the special Founding Member only offers, will greatly assist us in building our Club. Until we can offer seating or priority memberships, these special Founding Member offers will provide us with the financial resources we need. Your support is so important to us and through this campaign we have an opportunity to be Louder, Prouder and Stronger as we build this Club together.

Please keep an eye out for us going live on the evening of the 18th, there will be several items that will be limited in time and quantity, so we suggest you get in quick. You will need your member number to purchase the 2025 offer, and if you are not a Founding Member yet, do not worry, you can still join.

Another major topic at our Board meeting was the critical infrastructure projects that directly impact the Club. Given some of the reports and discussion over the recent weeks, I thought it might be timely to provide an update to you all on the Macquarie Point Stadium development as we see it from Tasmania Football Club perspective:

• There will never be a perfect time to build a stadium.
• Stadium infrastructure is a big investment and governments and communities will always have competing priorities and areas of expenditure.
• Stadium projects across the world have all faced similar journeys to completion, but history would suggest that once completed these projects have delivered above and beyond expectations for communities; Adelaide Oval and Perth Stadium are good recent examples of this in Australia.
• Tasmania Football Club views the Macquarie Point Stadium as an investment for Tasmania but also understands that it is a large sum of money and respects the right for those in the community to have different perspective and opinions on the project.
• Tasmania Football Club encourages community consultation and discussion on this project and would like to see this process be respectful to all involved.
• The stadium in Hobart will provide direct and indirect economic, cultural and social benefit to Tasmania. This is well evidenced by stadium projects all over the world.
• The Macquarie Point Stadium will host Tasmania Devils games, but the Devils are one of many tenants and events that will be held there. The venue will be a true multi-purpose hosting a range of content including other sport, concerts, events, weddings, conferences and meetings.
• Tasmania Football Club respects the Project of State Significant process and looks forward to this continuing to work through the planning process, found http://www.macpoint.com/stadium-poss-application.
• The stadium is currently in the process as expected; this has not changed since the submission was completed on 17 September 2024.
• Stadiums are of great importance to the financial performance of an AFL Club. Stadium hire agreements that AFL Clubs have with their home stadiums are the single biggest contributor to a Club’s financial performance.
• Clubs that can maximise their game day returns through productive stadium hire agreements have materially different financial results - this is well evidenced across the AFL and can be best illustrated at Adelaide Oval, Optus Stadium and GMBHA Stadium.
• There is an almost direct correlation with AFL Club’s financial performance and their on-field performance; it is important that Tasmania Football Club is a financially sustainable Club to genuinely compete on the national stage.
• Tasmanians are proud and passionate, and we want to ensure that the Tasmania Football Club does not exist to ‘make up the numbers’ in the national competition. It is therefore of great importance that we have appropriate infrastructure that will allow the Club to financially perform.

We want to make sure our Founding Members understand the relationship between the Macquarie Point Stadium and the Club. It could not be more important to us, not just because our license is contingent upon it, but because it will set us up for sustained success which we believe all Tasmanians deserve from their Club.Over the last 30 days Brendon and the team have been on the road.During this time they have met with a significant number of Tasmanians and have been buoyed by the engagement and passion for the Club, thank you all for your ongoing support.

You are about to see Tasmania Football Club advertise some key roles in our football department. We are so excited about this and look forward to sharing with you all our appointments as they are finalised. These roles are so important to our Club and mark a significant milestone as we move into football operations.

Don’t forget to put March 18 in the diary, this is your opportunity to continue to play a part in the establishment of your Tasmania Devils Football Club – so please look at the Founding Member

special offers, place your order and know that that you are making an important contribution to the Devils.

We are the team.

Go Devils.

Grant