Nervous club presidents will on Tuesday ask the AFL to guarantee that there is no financial catastrophe awaiting the league if the Macquarie Point stadium has a massive cost blowout.<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s club CEOs and presidents will meet with the AFL Commission on Tuesday before the league\u2019s Australian Football Hall of Fame night for a mid-season update.<\/p>\n
The AFL is expected to present a picture of the league\u2019s rude health given attendances are up, with ratings and membership figures also strong despite the economic headwinds.<\/p>\n
The league will tell clubs broadcast ratings are up 4.9 per cent year on year, with every single Thursday night match exceeding 1.1 million total average viewers.<\/p>\n
This season will also join the 2025 season in recording more than 4.1 million attendees by round 12, with 10 matches drawing at least 70,000 fans, five drawing 80,000 fans and two with 90,000 attendees.<\/p>\n
But the Herald Sun understands that clubs are keen to assess the financial risk to the league given the incoming Tasmanian Devils side.<\/p>\n
Clubs unanimously agreed to the 19th licence in May 2023 in a 15-minute phone hook-up despite some reservations.<\/p>\n
Some of those presidents are keen to secure guarantees from the league that it will not be negatively impacted or required to take money away from other areas to prop up the Devils.<\/p>\n
They are also keen to find out from the league what would happen in the event the stadium was so expensive the state government bailed out of building the stadium.<\/p>\n
The league committed an initial $360 million financial package in 2023, which includes $210 million over a decade in base funding, $15 million for the new stadium, $10 million for a high performance centre and $90 million in game development.<\/p>\n
The Herald Sun revealed last month that while the new high performance facility was on budget it would not be ready by round 1, 2028 in time for the first AFL game.<\/p>\n
The Macquarie Point stadium was initially budgeted at $715 million, but is now at $1.13 billion after factoring in $150 million in potential cost escalations.<\/p>\n
A motion has been tabled in Tasmanian parliament calling for an updated costing figure, with Tasmanian infrastructure minister Kerry Vincent admitting he could not guarantee the cost would not rise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly can\u2019t, and I won\u2019t be, no. Prices are what they are, and we need to work through that. And it\u2019s like anything else we do in life, we manage the costs of all projects,\u201d Vincent said.<\/p>\n
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said recently that there was no turning back with the Tasmanian team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team is in, they\u2019ve won a licence, the stadium will get built and we\u2019ll be starting in 2028,\u201d he told Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360.<\/p>\n
Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham recently said the league had to set up the Devils to succeed with elite facilities but would not be surprised if the stadium, high performance centre and entire set-up cost as much as $3 billion all up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just the stadium, it\u2019s the infrastructure around it, it\u2019s the roads, it\u2019s the training and administration facilities, it\u2019s actually upgrading UTAS Stadium and (Ninja Stadium).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already seen very substantial cost escalation from what was initially floated as costing. I think originally they were saying the stadium was going to cost $715 million. The last time I saw it was about $1.1-1.2 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you, I am in the construction industry in a sense \u2013 the cost increases that have occurred in the last 12-18 months post-Covid certainly, but also what we\u2019re now going to see post the Iran War, are going to be very substantial cost inflation, which is coming through all building products, it\u2019s coming through fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nervous club presidents will on Tuesday ask the AFL to guarantee that there is no financial catastrophe awaiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[350517,638,12259,269841,64,63,55,15824,639,350524,26447,350512,350506,350513,320689,350516,350520,92749,99045,350510,681,177818,350519,350508,350505,350504,274565,350503,350514,350511,350507,350521,85,48995,350515,350509,350518,350523,350522],"class_list":["post-723863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-administration-facilities","tag-afl","tag-andrew-dillon","tag-andrew-pridham","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australian-football-league-commission","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-club-presidents","tag-construction-industry","tag-cost-escalations","tag-cost-increases","tag-economic-headwinds","tag-elite-facilities","tag-financial-catastrophe","tag-financial-package","tag-financial-risk","tag-grant-obrien","tag-infrastructure-minister","tag-jon-ralph","tag-kerry-vincent","tag-massive-cost-blowout","tag-membership-figures","tag-mid-season-update","tag-nervous-club-presidents","tag-nikki-davis-jones","tag-ninja-stadium","tag-parliament-calling","tag-performance-centre","tag-rude-health","tag-secure-guarantees","tag-sports","tag-state-government","tag-substantial-cost","tag-substantial-cost-escalation","tag-substantial-cost-inflation","tag-tasmania-football-club","tag-updated-costing-figure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723863","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=723863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}