How did Tasmania Devils sign up so many members so fast? – MASHAHER

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That’s not to knock either of the younger northern clubs, who can do only what they can out there on hostile frontiers (and frontiers they are; a decade later, western Sydney is no closer to being claimed for AFL than it was to begin).

Nor is it to say that the AFL should not have pursued expansion. But it is to say that it should never have been one or the other. It should never have been growth instead of consolidation. It’s the wealthiest sport in the country by far.

For years, we were told that footy’s priority was to go where the people were. Meanwhile, from all accounts, footy in Tassie withered. It was a dubious blueprint, to say the least. It either took for granted Tasmania, one of the game’s richest heartlands, or took no account of the state at all.

Opening round was yet another gimmick to artificially inseminate footy into a barren landscape. For one week, it worked well enough, but on week two, barely 8000 turned out to watch the Giants, a likely premiership side this year. Meanwhile, 50,000, I mean 100,000, make that 120,000, signed on for a club whose men’s team won’t play a game in earnest until 2028.

That explosion of devilry is a greater augury even than its raw number. The most surprising story in Australian sport in recent times has been the emergence of Tasmania’s Jackjumpers in the NBL. In three years, they have made two grand final series; the second is in progress.

Further, they are the third most-watched NBL club, reflecting solid expat support. The Devils can expect the same. And to think that we were told Tassie was too small. In a sporting world funded and driven by television, it was always a disingenuous stance.

Like the Giants and Suns, the Devils necessarily will be a manufactured team to start. Unlike them, they won’t have to manufacture a support base. There won’t be 100,000 members, but there will be something even better: a beating heart.

That’s not to say there won’t be teething troubles before then. There’s one already; the thorny matter of the stadium. It will be front and centre when Tasmanians go to the polls on Saturday. But there’s so obviously a will, and so there will be a way.

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The trigger for the stampede to buy founding Devils memberships on Monday was the unveiling of the new club’s jumper. Stylistically, it met with mixed reviews; critics thought it naff. Yet still the bandwagon groaned.

The design wasn’t anywhere as naive as it seemed. It wasn’t meant to make some sort of pan-Tasmanian statement, or catch the eye of an influencer, or appear on a catwalk.

Though it will be refined by 2028, it was and is a classic footy jumper, in which to play footy, for a footy team, in a footy state. One hundred and plenty thousand ticked it off.

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