TASMANIA Football Club is on the cusp of signing its 200,000th member as the Devils prepare for another membership push and continue to travel the country in preparation for a planned AFL entry in 2028. 

The AFL's 19th team smashed its initial target of 40,000 founding members by October within two hours of announcing its colours, name and mascot in March, reached 150,000 within just four days and are now about to become only the sixth sporting club on the planet to have more than 200,000 members. 

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Argentina boasts two of the top three, with Buenos Aires rivals River Plate and Boca Juniors both having more than 300,000, along with German giant Bayern Munich and Portuguese powerhouse Benfica. Borussia Dortmund is the only other club with at least 200,000 members. 

The difference between those clubs and Tasmania is clearly the price point. The Devils' membership costs only $10 but has provided Tasmanian football fans with an instant connection to a club that is currently without a home base and stadium but is gradually building towards both.

More than 110,000 of Tasmania’s population of just under 600,000 people have signed up already, while over 40,000 people based in Victoria have become members. Queensland has the next most ahead of Western Australia. The Devils have members in over 55 countries across the globe, led by the United States, and 40 per cent are women. 

While Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney were built from scratch in parts of the country where AFL was a foreign concept, the staggering membership numbers have proven how much support there is for a team based in Tasmania – and how much support they will have when they play at the MCG and stadiums across the country. 

Devils executive director and board member Kath McCann is steering the ship for Tasmania, travelling far and wide to help launch the next phase of the build. 

"With nearly 200,000 members, we have a big group of members who are hungry for content and hungry to be part of the journey. That's a focus for us every single day. In terms of the next step, we will be launching shortly to market to encourage those that haven't joined to become founding members," McCann told AFL.com.au. 

"The whole focus will be around members encouraging others to sign up. What we want to see is whole families, whole school groups, whole workplaces, whole streets and maybe even whole countries that become Tasmania Devils founding members. The reason that we want that is because we are on a really fantastic journey in Tasmania and we want to see this movement continue to move towards first bounce in 2028."

McCann has spent a lot of this year on the road since Tasmania chairman and former Woolworths CEO Grant O'Brien approached the Hobart native to consider the role, while the 42-year-old was the national chief operating officer for the Beacon Group. 

After spending an hour presenting to the AFL Commission at the League's Docklands headquarters last Thursday, McCann was at Geelong on Tuesday with Cats CEO Steve Hocking and CFO Simon Kelleher, with the pre-planned meeting falling on the day champion forward Tom Hawkins announced his retirement.  

The Cats are the only regionally based club in the AFL and are the model Tasmania will look to follow when building a club from the ground up, focusing on recruitment – across the football department and organisation – community engagement and initiatives that are different to the other 17 clubs based in big cities. 

Brisbane CEO Greg Swann recently travelled down to Hobart to meet with the Devils and provide advice after helping reset the Lions following his time in the role at Carlton and Collingwood, while Greater Western Sydney boss Dave Matthews has also been helpful sharing the experiences of building a start-up club in the AFL. 

Outgoing Richmond CEO Brendon Gale will return to his home state in the coming months and begin his new role as inaugural Tasmania CEO in the new year. From there, a head of football and other football department appointments are on the agenda. For now, McCann is about to add some staff in the commercial and digital space. 

"We are definitely a start-up. There are four of us currently. We've got a tremendously engaged and operational board that have been working with the organisation since late 2023. The appointment of Brendon Gale is massive for the club. We couldn't be more excited to have a tremendous Tasmanian finally coming home. It is a terrific coup for the club to attract someone we consider to be one of the finest administrators in this game," McCann said.

"We are pretty thrilled to have two cadets in market at the moment to bring in two Tasmanians to work in our social media and content team. That's a really exciting opportunity to help build the brand and have some fun engaging the membership base. We've got another job advertised at the moment that is around corporate services and finance lead. We are small and humble currently, but we would expect in 2025 to start seeing a fairly rapid expansion of the organisation under Brendon's leadership. Next year I think there will be many jobs that do pop up, especially when we see the emergence of the footy department."

Veteran recruiter Neville Stibbard, who helped construct the Giants' inaugural list and has also worked for the Suns and Bulldogs after a successful era at the 1990s and 2000s North Melbourne, has been contracted to start assessing talent for the Devils, while AFL Tasmania football boss Matthew Armstrong has also been scouting players. 

McCann joined Stibbard and Armstrong on the Gold Coast recently to watch the School Sport Australia under-15 championships. That age group will be the first draft Tasmania picks from in the 2027 Telstra AFL Draft. Lizzie Dingeldei was also on the trip, scouting girls for the Devils' AFLW program.

Tasmania is doing its due diligence on two sites for the Devils' proposed $70 million training and administration base and hope to make a final decision in the not-too-distant future. The Rosny Parklands site on Hobart's eastern shore is the preferred site with the club still working through the geotechnical, environmental and heritage surveying. 

After waiting decades to have its own team and boasting more than 150 years of football heritage, McCann said the club is confident it will enter the AFL in 2028, as planned.

"From the club's perspective, we are solely focused on 2028 and still in discussions with the AFL on entry into AFLW and the dates on that. We've got our eye on the prize. That's what we're working to and have no reason to believe that won't be the case," she said.

"With the momentum and what we've been able to achieve, we are on the right track. No doubt we've got a lot of work ahead of us and there will be obstacles and challenges that come our way. But we can't wait for 2028."

Tasmania has sold more than 16,500 guernseys and continue to see the 'Map' popping up all over the world, including during the Paris Olympics. The next batch of jumpers are on sale by the end of August, with more merchandise to come. Momentum is building at the Devils ahead of a 2025 where more key appointments will be made.