Does Tasmania need its own Canberra?

Tongue firmly in cheek I suspect.......

poor turnout but they were playing a team that even people in Western Sydney don't support, it was head to head with Supercars at Symmons Plains and the mountain bike nationals at Derby. Having said that, the Hawks have been served up some unappealing fixturing by the AFL for years so welcome to the future North fans.

hes the worst writer on the roar

I like the idea and the the thought you've put into it. It's amazing that 120 years ago or so Canberra was created. Tasmania needs it's own team and the Gold Coast is a graveyard for any any football code. There's just too much to do there, beaches, relaxing, a casino, theme parks, crime, drug dealing and using, the football is a sideshow act. Try the Baldock Stadium

I coach junior footy in Hobart and over the last few years numbers are dropping faster than Hawthorns ladder position. We didn't get 1 kid drafted last year and probably won't this year this neglect is going to linger we may never see great players leave this great football state again if we had a team it will work simply because football needs it we will all flock to a team similar to Geelong does.

Tricky, You obviously also know very little about Tasmania`s contribution to Australian rules football. Having played our great game with very many of the greatest players to play the game I think I know plenty about our contribution to the sport and apart from playing in Quagmire surfaced grounds 50-60 years ago we collectively enjoyed our football immensely. With the great research into grounds drainage and grounds preparations these days the standard of winter football has enhanced our game tremendously. Lets congratulate Tasmania for its contributions to our great game.

This looks like a poor attempt at humor, for the sake of the author I hope it was not a serious thought.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/30/whats-wrong-with-tasmania-australias-freeloading-state/ States like WA have also been propping up Tassie for decades now due to them deceiving a greater proportion of GST revenue. I don't have an issue with this per se, but building a stadium just to play footy and unify a state, I somehow doubt is going to impress the NSW, Vic and WA premiers.

The NSW tax payer will love it also, especially given we already subsidise this state to exist. Really?

Get a team down there and see what would change. Tasmania has been starved of a football team for 50 yrs. Tasmania would be growing cities too if their work had not been taken away from them. I worked there when everybody had a good job for many years.

Maybe if they played games down there that people actually cared about you would see much better attendances. Tasmania couldn't give a FF about clubs like Fremantle and GWS, if you had Essendon and Carlton playing down there you would see a different outcome.

As a former Tasmanian now nearly 80 yrs. old who played both sports and more mostly in Hobart I find the comments about building a new Stadium in central Tasmania as totally stupid, offensive, and absurd. Tasmania has some terrific ovals / grounds and two stand out as one`s of the best grounds and playing surfaces in Australia. Namely Blundstone oval formerly Clarence oval 60 yrs. ago before it was fully developed and The University of Tas. ground which it is now called in Launceston, which probably has the best playing surface in Australia. I remember when we beat the big V at that ground in the late 1950`s (1959) I can name many other grounds namely The King George the 5th oval in Glenorchy, the domain oval at Hobart`s domain, the Newtown oval, the sandy bay oval, and amongst many more of my old stumping ground`s The North Hobart oval which I along with all the grounds mentioned were all great venues. A few of these grounds could be re-developed quite easily, to suit our present standards. Why would you even think about building new ovals / grounds when spending an amount of money to add extra stadium seating at the two best venues in Tasmania against many 100`s of millions to waste building a complete new venue. It doesn`t even make common sense. If the previous writers wrote about the 100`s of brilliant footballers who have contributed to our great game it would be worthwhile. Tasmania has produced many , many hundreds of the best footballers ever to put a boot on. The AFL formerly the VFL had many chances to produce or send a current team down to and out of Tasmania but it was totally out and about money and they have blundered completely instead of having the best players playing out of the best player`s produced state. Now they want Tasmania to feed a 3rd league team as that suits their adhoc attitude. May Tasmania some day be given the right to field a State side and make the AFL a completely national football sport. I very much doubt it as they try to back up with non- Australian rules rugby States. At present I am living in the USA and after watching their hopeless brutal crazy game here, our game is the greatest ball game ever invented. You don`t need to be smart to play American football just blooming stupid.

I would say at a distance of 100km you would get about 10% of the total attendance from Lauceston and Hobart making it 20%. You mitght find 80% if Tasmanian supporters would make the trip once a year, 50% twice, but you would be finding very few doing it week to week., unless there is a local population to draw upon it won't work. In the US you have an NFL team Oakland raiders which wants to relocate to Las Vegas from California, The difference is they would be looking at tourists in Las Vegas going to their games more from their opponents to fill their stadium and Las Vegas would be looking at subsidising it to get more visitors. They would not be expecting their regular fans to continue driving to Las Vegas. So while that involves more distance with something like the NFL it might work The great irony is the AFL sold Tasmania that most Hawthorn supporters would be travelling regularly to Tasmania and that justifies the millions that Tasmania gives them. Then Tasmania has spent a fortune on top of that renovating stadiums for only a few games a season. So no matter how bad this current idea , Tasmania has already been sold a bad idea by the AFL paying top dollar for little in the way of any benefit in the same vein.

Seeing the attendance at Hobart yesterday, my minds made up. No chance of a Tassie team. Too small a population. You need a city with half a million minimum to have a chance of working. The AFL has too many teams now. Melbourne and Sydney are growing cities, they are where efforts need to be concentrated.

Was this written by Steve OKeefe after his bender the other night?

I love it but you only broke down the cost of the stadium. What is the cost of building the city per capita? Dan Marsh could be a successful city Mayor...sems to have galvanised Tassie cricket. I much prefer this kind of article than sack the coach articles.

let everyone in the city pay. a huge percentage of people care little for sport and less for AFL. Nick, you are the gift that keeps on giving

Yes, build a new city in Tasmania, all for the sake of playing some AFL games; I'm sure that will solve all the economic issues and unify the state. The NSW tax payer will love it also, especially given we already subsidise this state to exist.

Mind blown