Hawthorn is pushing to secure four extra home games at the MCG after the AFL issued the club a Tasmanian eviction notice.<\/p>\n
The Hawks\u2019 four home-and-away matches \u2013 as well as a pre-season fixture \u2013 in Launceston will make way for the Tasmania Devils\u2019 arrival in 2028.<\/p>\n
Hawthorn argued to keep its matches in the northern part of the state given the Devils would play out of Hobart.<\/p>\n
But the AFL confirmed on Tuesday morning that Tasmania would get an open run across the entire state. <\/p>\n
Hawthorn president Andy Gowers said the club was already discussing with the AFL where those home games would be staged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would want those games to be back at the MCG and that\u2019s part of the discussion with the AFL,\u201d Gowers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not going to talk exact numbers (money lost), but what I will say is it is a significant factor in our bottom line and has been for a number of years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s part of our disappointment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawthorn has about 8000 members as well as full-time staff based in Tasmania.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is clearly one of our major considerations,\u201d Gowers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers down there on the ground but also staff, we\u2019ve got full-time staff who work there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel for them and we\u2019ll be communicating with every member, all of our staff, all of the people down there who have supported us and got involved in the football program down there \u2013 we feel for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if the AFL would assist the Launceston staff with employment in Tasmania, Gowers said: \u201cI don\u2019t know the answer to that question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell said the decision was like being \u201ckicked out of a home\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know the people at the coffee shop, the hotels and go on the same sort of walks and around the same sort of people all the time,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like we\u2019ve sort of been kicked out a home and I understand, I guess, from the AFL\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean it\u2019s easy to group all of Tassie together, but we\u2019ve spent the vast majority of our time in Launceston and we\u2019ve loved our time there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re enormously disappointed we won\u2019t get the opportunity to continue to be a part of that community.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving said that, we\u2019ve still got seven games to go, so we\u2019ll do our best to show how much they mean to us on Thursday night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn is pushing to secure four extra home games at the MCG after the AFL issued the club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,328541,64,63,689,55,639,31176,296806,328539,43053,2105,20778,7492,328540,64029,31732,12152,43961,677,328538,12936,85,60133,2801,328542,64414],"class_list":["post-681350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-andy-gowers","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-coffee-shop","tag-eviction-notice","tag-famous-moments","tag-football-program","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-hawthorn-coach","tag-hawthorn-hawks","tag-hawthorn-president","tag-home-games","tag-lance-franklin","tag-launceston","tag-newswire-sport","tag-oceania","tag-open-run","tag-sam-mitchell","tag-sports","tag-steve-bell","tag-tasmania","tag-time-staff","tag-tyler-lewis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}