Relocation of professional sports teams in Australia and New Zealand

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Relocation of professional sports teams in Australia and New Zealand" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Relocation of professional sports teams occurs when a team owner moves a team, generally from one metropolitan area to another, but occasionally between municipalities in the same conurbation. Australia and New Zealand uses a North American-style league franchise system which means the teams are overwhelmingly privately owned and therefore favours relocation practices. Owners who move a team generally do so seeking better profits, facilities, fan support, or a combination of these.

The two major professional sporting leagues in Australia are the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL). Both competitions were originally based in one city (Melbourne and Sydney respectively) and expanded to a national level, and through that process, there have been team moves, mergers and closures in both leagues. The clubs are owned by members, not privately, but the North American franchise model exists, which means entry to the league is restricted. The hybrid model has meant that the leading promoter of moving is the league itself, trying to grow the football code by encouraging poorly performing clubs to move interstate.

AFL

The AFL is the national competition in Australian rules football and grew out of the mostly suburban Melbourne based Victorian Football League competition; as a result, the member clubs have had to move to adjust to a changing national focus.

Major interstate moves and mergers

• South Melbourne Football Club: In 1983, it moved interstate to Sydney, 963 km north and became the Sydney Swans, after having relocated all of its home games to Sydney in 1982. Despite early struggles, the club has more than tripled its membership since, and has won premierships (championships) in 2005 and 2012.
• Fitzroy Football Club: In 1996, the Melbourne-based club merged its playing operations with the interstate Brisbane Bears, a club 1669 km north of its original home, forming a new club known as the Brisbane Lions. Since the merger, the Brisbane club almost doubled its membership and won three consecutive premierships between 2001 and 2003. The Fitzroy Football Club ceased fielding a team in professional competitions, but it continues as a standalone entity based at its traditional home, and has fielded a team in the amateur Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) since 2009.^{[citation needed]}

Suburban based club joins the National competition

• The Port Adelaide Football Club, established in 1870, participated in the SANFL competition until 1997 when the club joined the AFL. In 1997 the Port Adelaide Magpies Football Club was formed to maintain the clubs presence in the SANFL at the request of the SANFL winning premierships in 1998 and 1999. The Port Adelaide Football Club won the 2004 AFL Premiership and maintains strong links to its community in the Port Adelaide area. It is the only suburban club to join the national AFL competition with all other additions to the expanded VFL being composite sides or newly established clubs like the Sydney Swans, the Brisbane Bears (see above), West Coast, Adelaide, Fremantle, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.^{[citation needed]}

Minor moves

• Colonial Stadium in 2000, but their administration remained at Moorabbin. In late 2007, it was confirmed that the club would leave Moorabbin to set up base in Seaford, Victoria, a region (the Mornington Peninsula
  ) where the club added many supporters. The move was completed at the start of the 2011 season. The Saints moved their training and administration back to Moorabbin Oval in 2018.
• Hawthorn Football Club – (1973) moved from suburban Hawthorn to Princes Park in Carlton, an inner Northern suburb of Melbourne, and then to Waverley Park in 1991. In 2000, the club moved its home games to the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In 2005, some years after Waverley Park's demise as an official VFL/AFL venue, the club permanently moved to Waverley, but the name of the club did not change. The Hawks bought a plot of land in the locality of Dingley and plan to move their base to there in 2020/21.
• Brisbane Bears – (1993) moved to the Brisbane Cricket Ground in Brisbane for the 1993 season and membership and attendances instantly tripled. Formed in 1986, the perhaps-incorrectly named side had initially established itself in Carrara, Queensland, a suburb of the city of Gold Coast, Queensland, some 80 km south of the city of Brisbane.
• Lexus Centre in Richmond, Victoria
  in 2005.
• AFLW
  club will play its home matches to the new stadium

• Fitzroy Football Club: In 1967, the team moved its home ground from the Brunswick Street Oval in Fitzroy to Princes Park, Carlton. In 1970, the club again moved its home game to the Junction Oval in 1970, then the Whitten Oval in 1984 before eventually merging with an interstate club.
• Telstra Dome
  , though the headquarters of the club remained in Essendon. In 2013 the Bombers moved their training and administration to Tullamarine.
• AAMI Stadium. The club retained its administration and training base at Alberton Oval in Port Adelaide
  .
• Telstra Dome, but retained the Arden Street Oval
  in North Melbourne as official headquarters.
• Telstra Dome 75 kilometres away in Melbourne. The club's administration remains based at Kardinia Park in Geelong
  .
• Telstra Dome and changed their name to the Western Bulldogs
  , though the club's headquarters is still in Footscray.
• Richmond Football Club – moved their home games from Punt Road Oval next door to the much larger Melbourne Cricket Ground. The club still trains and has administration quarters at the Punt Road Oval.
• Melbourne Football Club – During the re-development of their home, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the training and administration headquarters of the club were temporarily moved to Sandringham, Victoria with the Victorian Football League affiliate, the Sandringham Football Club. The club's training headquarters are currently at the Junction Oval which proves troublesome during the summer as it is used for cricket. The club removed the problems associated with separate administration and training headquarters moved all operation to its new headquarters at a refurbished Olympic Park Stadium in 2007. The club also use Casey Fields in Cranbourne East as a training center.
• Telstra Dome
  , although retained its administration headquarters at Princes Park. The club was the last suburban based Melbourne club to leave its former home ground.

Secondary interstate 'homes'

Some Melbourne-based clubs began selling home games interstate in the late 1990s and conducting community camp clinics to build up local supporter bases.

• Western Bulldogs – Darwin, Northern Territory since 2000 (approximately 1–2 games a year). In 2007, the Bulldogs reduced their commitment to 1 game and signed a deal to also play 1 game a year in Canberra. They suspended their operations in Canberra in 2010, and stopped playing games in Darwin in 2013. They played 1 match a year in Cairns against the Gold Coast Suns from 2014 to 2018, and now play 1 game per year in Ballarat
• St Kilda Football Club – Launceston, Tasmania (approximately 2 games a year between 2002 and 2010).
• Hawthorn Football Club – Launceston, Tasmania (approximately 2 games a year between 2011 and 2015). In 2015 they increased the number of games to 4 per year.
• Blundstone Arena
  as of 2017
• Brisbane Cricket Ground in Queensland (2005–2007). The Demons added a single game to Gold Coast, Queensland in Queensland in 2006. In 2007, the Demons shifted its Gold Coast commitment to Canberra
  for a single game each year whilst also playing one game a year in Brisbane.

The Demons abandoned operations in Canberra and the Gold Coast in 2011 after the addition of the Gold Coast Suns as a new AFL franchise, in 2014 the club started playing 1 game a year in Darwin and 1 game a year in Alice Springs

A-League

NRL

The NRL is the national competition in

• Relocation of professional sports teams in Europe

References