Clinton Young of Hawthorn has his number taken during the NAB Cup match between the Hawthron Hawks and the Melbourne Demons at Aurora Stadium. Slattery Images
In the days after Hawthorn’s premiership in 2008, the Hawks took the Premiership Cup across the Bass Strait to Tasmania to share the spoils of victory. They were treated as rock stars by the locals and feted by politicians, who rightfully felt their sponsorship had paid the biggest dividend of all.
It was a relationship made in heaven, with a win-win outcome for all. Tasmania appears on every Hawks jumper, features on the coaches box, and on every possible piece of marketing material the Hawks can produce.
Hawthorn gets 6,000 members, sponsorship worth $3 million a year and plays some of the interstate teams in the Island State, attracting good crowds and no doubt good stadium returns.
It now appears the Tasmanian Premier is not satisfied with premiership glory, wants a greater slice of the action, and is even prepared to invite other Melbourne-based teams to form allegiances, build members and play games in the Apple Isle.
North Melbourne, long the nomads of the AFL, are now interested in Tasmania.
If a logical relocation existed for the AFL, the Tasmanian Kangaroos could well be it. It achieves two aims: Tassie gets a team of its own and North Melbourne hopefully get financial salvation.
Hawthorn, it has to be said, with over 50,000 members, is one of the premier clubs in the AFL.
They would have little trouble finding an alternative sponsor, even in these difficult times. They’re literally soaring.
The AFL will no doubt consider there is not a better time to broker a deal with Tasmania on North Melbourne’s behalf.
This will be a treated as a great tragedy for the Hawks and may well spurn the reinvention of a famous song to be sung by Hawks el president to Jeffrey Kennett-Peron. It’s from the soon to be released, not-so-happy Hawthorn musical, Evicta .
“Don’t cry for me Tasmania
The truth is Hawthorn will never leave you
All through our wild days
Our mad existence
We kept our promise (2008 flag)
Don’t keep your distance
And as for sponsorship, and as for members
We never invited them in
Though it seemed to the AFL they were all we desired
They are illusions
They are not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I the love Hawks and hope you do to
Don’t cry for me Tasmania”
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