Yes it was.
They had a plan to relocate North Melbourne to Gold Coast. They offered them $100m over ten years to move. Their preference was for relocation of smaller Melbourne club. A deal North were stupid not to take.
When North dug in and refused to move, the AFL ruled out plan A and methodically went with plan B - start up new club on GC and 2 years later GWS. Then they negotiated with QLD Government for a new Carrara stadium etc. All in a very methodical way really.
The only major negative on the Suns was the training facilities (weights rooms etc). They were sub standard. That’s been rectified since Commonwealth games. GWS start up was done even better than Suns - so lessons learned and applied quickly to the 18th club, in dare I say it - a methodical way.
They had two plans of action. Went with plan B and secured all the major investment and infrastructure they needed for the clubs to be established and boost media rights value.
And that methodical style continues on with team 19. They ain’t going to Hobart without a stadium deal locked away etc. They’ve had consulting reports about establishing the team, whether it’s viable etc. They forced the Tasmanian government to do the hard yards on their bid to the point they released a Parliamentary select committee report on the case for a Tasmanian team. They’ve put it on federal government to fund the stadium.
The other thing is they have time on their side. They don’t need to rush expansion, as they got to 18 teams first and have negotiated a gap of $500m from their rival code. They have ten years to implement the next two clubs.
They’ve been planning for 20 teams for ages though. They just don’t bother doing DT puff pieces and hollow announcements like it’s ground breaking news like NRL do.
As with the media rights deal, AFL keep quiet and line everything up in the background before making official announcements etc. Its all quite methodical
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