SUN SHINING ON QUEENSLAND’S AFL HUB
Gold Coast is the new ‘home of footy’ in Australia as Victoria relinquishes reins amid COVID grips
COMPARED to the mess that is Victoria right now, Queensland is more than in the sun.
So credit where credit is due, our Premier got the strategy right on borders and carefully bringing us all out of the lockdown.
I know how hard it has been and to some extent will continue to be, however compared to the rabble of a government under Daniel Andrews in Victoria, we are travelling so much better here in the great state of Queensland right now.
And don’t you just love how Andrews doesn’t want to own it, failing to acknowledge a right royal stuff-up with hotel quarantine, lack of contact tracing, limp approach to the protests and protection of mates like at the meat works. It goes on and on. A firstclass massive train wreck!
As is often the case in situations like this, there are always winners and losers. Queensland is the winner with our tourism industry slowly being able to recover and people getting back to work. Life is slowly returning under difficult circumstances.
We had one other magnificent win – we have become the centre for the AFL world. Subject to a third wave of hubs in Queensland (almost a certainty now), my best guess is this will result in about $20 million extra being spent by the AFL industry in Queensland, all in the southeast corner, and millions of dollars of showcase tourism opportunity being shown down south while so many teams are located up here.
For us on the Gold Coast, resorts like the Palm Meadows Mercure and Royal Pines Resort are being reopened to cater for this new demand.
I could write about lots of examples at the micro level. My favorite involves two classic Gold Coast institutions – Mick Fanning and Darren Handley Designs.
Two of the all-time greats of AFL, Nat Fyfe and Travis Boak, while being in hubs on the Gold Coast, took the time to seek out these surfing icons and order new boards. The video has gone viral in the two states where they come from – Western Australia and South Australia
As a selling tool for this GC-based industry, it’s pure magic, not to mention the great footage and Mick’s commentary around our legendary surf locations on the Coast. Just terrific!
The other big win is the massive uplift in media numbers in AFL, mainly because of the huge uptake in viewers in Queensland and NSW. Now part of this is because for the very first time Queensland has two AFL teams performing well and
Queenslanders love winners.
But a big part of it is the attention in having so many teams up here in hubs. That is generating viewer and media interest around how the sport has grown significantly in both Queensland and NSW over the past 10 years.
The Gold Coast is keeping the AFL industry alive and suddenly Victoria’s loss has been our gain.
Our own Metricon Stadium is going to host a record number of games this season – way more than double a normal year.
Our Gold Coast Suns ratings are up 50 per cent on last year and if we can keep up the exciting, hard-running football then a Thursday or Friday night timeslot is surely inevitable this season.
Awesome for our Gold Coast community if we can hit prime time, nationally.
Only this week The Courier-Mail reported that NRL fans are switching off in Brisbane en masse, and AFL television ratings are at record highs in Brisbane, spiking by 38 per cent.
The AFL has outperformed the NRL by a whopping 38 per cent in national audience on Thursday night and 28 per cent on Friday night games.
Across the two AFL expansion markets of NSW and Queensland, the AFL is up 16 per cent in 2020 on its averages.
No doubt 10 years of building junior participation and growing our great indigenous game at the grass roots is now feeding into this narrative. The AFL has invested wisely and strongly in building this base, now approaching 300,000 in Queensland – something a lot of other sporting codes could take notice of and learn from.
It has been a difficult 10 years and we have had our critics, even from within with negative comments from people like Jeff Kennett.
But now reality has hit. The AFL season has been saved by the AFL Commission having invested wisely in new stadiums in NSW and Queensland, expansion clubs and a baseline growth in the game so that all of this could be effortlessly rolled out. Long-term thinking and investment are now paying important dividends.
It has been a difficult fight at times and only this past week someone commented to me that I’m single minded in my approach to help make this work.
That would be 100 per cent correct!
Surrounded by great people, doing an extraordinary job and well supported by the AFL Commission and management, we are going to make AFL a foothold sport on the Gold Coast and in northern NSW. Albeit with a very young team, the Gold Coast Suns will continue to grow and prosper, bringing more national media attention and focus on the Gold Coast.
I see absolutely no reason why we cannot be flying a premiership flag one day for our community. And don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise.
The work and effort behind the scenes by the Premier, Minister Kate Jones and Queensland Health in delivering this economic fillup with these various AFL hubs has been fantastic.
From adversity, they have collectively kicked a very positive goal here for our community in delivering an economic and tourism rollout, just when we needed it most. I like it and clearly from the massive media interest, so do millions of Australians.
Great stuff!