How the AFL balances varied stakeholders for sustainable business success

The Australian Football League has many and varied stakeholders, and club directors must balance running a sustainable business with winning games and premierships.

The Australian Football League (AFL) is big business. Eighteen clubs attract revenues of between $60m and $100m a year, and the 2024 annual report discloses an annual total revenue of $1.039 billion. Each match of the 2024 season attracted an average crowd of 38,344 and nearly one in 20 Australians are members of an AFL club.

The AFL also presents a unique set of challenges for its club directors.

“The board is effectively governing a medical, entertainment, consumer and community organisation, all at the same time,” says Tim Reed GAICD, chair of the Greater Western Sydney Giants. “On-field and off-field performance plays out in a public arena. Yet our core ‘product’, the game of football, is enabled by a group of young men and women who are constantly in the public eye, but also have their own lives to lead.”

The players, sometimes as young as 18, are thrust into a world of money, attention and pressure. “This creates unique risks around behaviour, mental health and physical safety,” says St Kilda vice president Jennifer Douglas FAICD.

Directors must balance running a sustainable business with winning games and premierships. “It’s only natural that members and fans prioritise winning over things like balance sheet strength and commercial innovation,” says David Grossman MAICD, general manager of clubs and scheduling within the AFL executive team.

Boards rarely have the luxury of making decisions in their own time. “Generally, you have to consider the demands of a media cycle or external stakeholder,” says Dr Sonja Hood AM GAICD, president of the North Melbourne Football Club. “That adds a layer of complexity few other organisations would have to consider.”

They also operate in a unique structure that sits within and alongside national and state governing bodies, which, as Reed points out, requires a collaborative approach to governance.

The evolution of governance

Today’s governance model has been evolving since 1896, when eight leading clubs — Melbourne, Essendon, Geelong, Collingwood, South Melbourne, Fitzroy, Carlton and St Kilda — broke away from the Victorian Football Association (VFA) to form the Victorian Football League (VFL).

“The VFL was governed by the clubs,” says Grossman. “They sent representatives to manage the league, which resulted in competing interests, financial instability and factional governance. Then, in 1985, the clubs made the bold decision to set their parochial interests aside for the sake of the code. This led to the appointment of an independent AFL Commission.”

The commissioners are elected by the clubs, but operate autonomously, which allows them to make long-term strategic decisions for the benefit of the league.

“We were able to buy Marvel Stadium in Melbourne and add expansion teams in Western Sydney, the Gold Coast and — soon — Tasmania,” says Grossman. “We also launched the AFLW in 2017 which, in just six years, progressed to a fully-fledged national league of 18 teams.”

In his reflections on the 2012 Essendon drug scandal, former chair Lindsay Tanner MAICD suggested the speed of the code’s evolution had outpaced some key elements of governance. “We weren’t up to the professional or corporate standard of an organisation of our size,” he wrote in an article for Resolution magazine.

Tanner also admitted that the Essendon football department functioned almost autonomously, with decisions being made outside the purview of the board and executive. “A classic governance failure,” he said.

Grossman believes effective boards work closely with management to integrate good governance practices. “This enables them to proactively manage the risk Lindsay is referring to,” he says.

The role of good governance

Reed describes effective governance as breeding a culture of risk management and sound, ethical decision-making as it mandates transparency, integrity and thorough processes.

“At the Giants, we have three board subcommittees — an integrity committee, a football committee and an audit and risk committee — each of which anticipates relevant risks and provides oversight of the development and execution of our strategy. This is all with a lens to the risk profile and mitigation processes.”

As with any business, it is impossible to remove risk entirely. “We have adopted the principle of ‘no surprises’,” says Reed. “This promotes early and constructive dialogue and ensures the right skills, experience and people are at the table early to manage issues when they arise. When things don’t go to plan, we are quick to undertake a retrospective analysis and then to decide whether further action is required.”

On the weekend of 13 July this year, two boards were confronted by actions beyond their control. St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, a 22-year-old First Nations player, received anonymous, racially abusive messages via Instagram. Port Adelaide’s Jase Burgoyne was targeted in a similar way.

“While we all hope such terrible incidents will never occur, individual clubs and the league have clear policies regarding such behaviour,” says Douglas. “They also have support in place to make it safe for anyone affected to raise concerns. Nasiah reported the matter immediately, and we and Port Adelaide are both working with the AFL to address the incident and support the players.”

The AFL has a zero tolerance policy on racism and vilification, and many clubs have Reconciliation Action Plans, LGBTQ+ inclusion modules and cultural awareness training for players and staff.

“Good governance creates accountability and rigour that make diversity, inclusion and Indigenous engagement non-negotiable,” says Jessica Mellor GAICD, a director of the Gold Coast Suns. “The AFL has made great strides and is actively addressing structural challenges within the code to improve diversity — and we’re committed to staying in lockstep with them. With the largest cohort of First Nations players in the competition, we take a proactive approach to supporting Indigenous pathways and ensuring continuing connection to land and culture for our players while they’re away from home. We don’t shy away from the tough discussions about diversity and inclusion, because they’re central to ensuring a successful and sustainable future for our club.”

Three years ago, selecting Alastair Clarkson as senior coach put North Melbourne’s board under the spotlight. As a four-time premiership coach with Hawthorn, Clarkson was considered the ideal person to revitalise North Melbourne. However, shortly after his appointment, he became embroiled in accusations of racism at his former club. He consistently denied all allegations and, in May 2023, the AFL’s independent panel of inquiry concluded with no adverse findings. After a leave of absence to focus on his mental health, Clarkson took up his new role.

“It was a difficult moment, but it was also a really good test of our governance principles,” says Hood. “You can either do the expedient thing or you can do the right thing. In that case, I would argue we did the right thing.”

The AFL is keen for the code to welcome everyone in Australia — including women. “The formation of the AFLW has been a major factor in changing the perception of women in sport,” says Grossman. “We want females to feel they have a place in all parts of our game, not just as players at the elite level, but also in administration and governance. We have increased the representation of females on our commission, on our club boards and, increasingly, in executive positions through both the AFL and our clubs.”

St Kilda has developed specific strategies to help their AFLW players feel welcome and integrated into the club.

“We have a board subcommittee dedicated to the W program and also an industry-first mentoring program,” says Douglas. “All of our female players have the opportunity to be matched with a dedicated mentor to provide support for their life and off-field career.”

Taking note of stakeholders

The AFL is one of the most — if not the most — comprehensively vertically integrated sports systems in the world. “The AFL charter states that we are responsible for grassroots and community football as well as running an elite competition,” says Grossman.

This adds up to a very large, passionate and varied group of stakeholders, all desperate for their team to win games. Other key stakeholders include players, employees, the AFL and sponsors. “Sponsors are coupling their brand with ours, and that’s an enormous responsibility,” says Reed.

For Mellor, it comes down to accountability. “Resetting our values was an important step in creating shared expectation amongst our community of what the Suns are, and what we aren’t,” she says.

“Our new slogan — Win, Together, Our Way — sets the tone for everything we do, from the boardroom to the locker room. We’re high-performing. We’re connected and inclusive. We can be bold, because we’re unique. These values are shared internally and externally, so there’s a common understanding of how we behave and what we stand for — and that culture sits behind decision-making across all levels of the club.”

Director skills

Despite the unique challenges, an AFL club needs a very similar skill set to a corporate board.

“At the end of the day an AFL Club is a business,” says Mellor. “Although we’re ‘football-first’, we know the technical execution lies in the hands of experts. Our boardroom has a diverse mix of skills and, at times, we need to get in, roll up our sleeves and support our lean executive team. That proximity helps directors to understand the business better, which leads to better-quality conversations in the boardroom.”

For individual directors, the biggest difference could be the demands on their time.

“Board members must be willing and able to attend matches — and to play an important role as an ambassador for their club,” says Douglas.

“This requires a level of dedication well beyond turning up for board meetings. It’s why many clubs stipulate that only committed supporters can join their board.”

This article first appeared under the headline 'Kicking for goal’ in the September 2025 Issue of Company Director magazine.