Tasmanian leader Kelly Elphinstone discusses the impact of the Tassie Devils on sport, tourism, and local business growth.
An interview with Kelly Elphinstone, of the Elphinstone Group
Footynomics: The Business of Sport
Article Text By Professor Tim Harcourt, Chief Economist, Centre for Sport, Business and Society, UTS
From Burnie to the world stage, the Elphinstone name has become synonymous with Tasmanian innovation, resilience and leadership. And now its legacy is helping shape the state’s next chapter in elite sport.
Kelly Elphinstone is the Executive Director of the Elphinstone Group and is an active leader in Burnie and the entire Tasmanian community.
The Elphinstone Group was founded by Kelly’s father Dale in 1975 and this year celebrates its 50th anniversary.
When not doing her day job, Kelly is a member of the Young Presidents Organization, Chief Executive Women, a director of Tasmanian Mining Manufacturing Energy Council and a member of the Tasmanian Defence Industry Advisory Committee. She’s clearly very busy!
A footy club as a business
From its Burnie origins on the North West Coast of Tasmania, the Elphinstone Group now has around 3,000 employees, over 10 different businesses and is very much a global enterprise, but still retains its head office in Burnie.
Kelly sees the Tasmanian Devils Football Club like a business in terms of talent acquisition and brand Tasmanian on the world stage, just like the Elphinstone Group.
She explained:
“I think football clubs are businesses, no different to ours, particularly at an AFL level, at a professional level. They have employees, they’re looking to attract, develop and retain the best talent, but they’re also required to give back to their communities, just like we are, and I think there’s a big similarity in how they operate.”
Brand Tasmania
Kelly also sees the Tasmania Devils as a unique once-in-a-generation opportunity to build Brand Tasmania.
“By our very nature, Tasmanians are very humble. We tend to keep our head down and get on with the job and then wonder why nobody else knows what we do down here and we’re not very good at telling the rest of the country and the world about our capability down here.
And of course, word of mouth is the most productive form of marketing and anything that can put brand Tasmania and our product on the map and bring people here is going to be effective and that’s what we’ve found.
The most effective way to market brand Tasmania is to actually bring people here and of course the Tasmanian AFL team will do just that. They will bring people here, they will see it for themselves and they will go and tell their friends and family what a great place Tasmania is and that’ll be significant for our tourism economy and of course tourism is one of our largest economic contributors here in Tasmania.”
Skills and development for young Tasmanians
As well as tourism and brand Tasmania, Kelly thinks the Devils will bring in unique opportunities for young Tasmanians to acquire new skills allowing them to stay in Tasmania to develop their careers. She said the Tasmania Devils Football Club have already started:
“They’re already working on in the background and skills development is a huge one of those. I understand that there’s already a prototype TAFE course this year for sports management and that will be available to anybody that wants to do it from 2026 onwards.
So I know the Devils are working with UTAS and TAFE Tasmania on developing skills packages for our kids and our local Tasmanians that want to go and do things like sports management because they need to develop the skills required to manage these high-performance clubs going forward and so I think the opportunities for our kids, young Tasmanians, the skills development opportunities not just across tourism is going to be significant for the state.”
Developing careers in sports management, sports foundations
As pointed out by sports technology expert Brad Van Wely, another expert guest in the Footynomics series, there’s a whole sense of careers now in sports technology and innovation — so not only do you get footballers getting a job but all the marketing, the graphic design, the construction and managing sports teams actually need those types of skills. There are careers in sports clubs and also charitable foundations attached to sporting clubs.
Kelly agrees:
“That’s exactly right, there is an army of people that are employed by every professional football club and AFL team in this country and so it will provide employment opportunities for Tasmanians.
And I think the other thing I’ve been interested to learn is that every AFL club have a foundation as well so the Devils are looking to establish their foundation which will be a charitable enterprise that will look to give back to Tasmania.
So I think the other thing about any successful business in Tassie is when business is successful we’re able to give back and I know we do that in our own business and I know the Devils are intending to do the same through their foundation.”
Supporting the North and North West of Tasmania
Whilst the Tasmania Devils will have the home base in Hobart and play games with Launceston, the AFL support package of $360 million provides upgrades to facilities in regional towns in the north and north west of Tasmania — Penguin, Burnie, Wynyard, Devonport and around the state — as well as a high-performance centre.
Kelly, being born and bred on the North West Coast, welcomes this aspect of the Devils establishment as a team for all Tasmanians:
“Of course, I think you know there’s obviously a lot of discussion and debate about where the stadium should be at the moment and I’m from the northwest coast I can’t agree more that Launceston is a more central location but again show me any state in Australia where their major sporting hubs are in a regional location and not the capital city.
I think that’s something we see in every state not Tasmania so I absolutely understand why that is going to be in Hobart but you’re right there is going to be investment into our local sporting facilities and we need that and I think without an AFL club here in Tassie those sort of investments in our infrastructure won’t happen.
And regional Tassie really needs improved sporting facilities for our kids. We have talented athletes in Tasmania that want to be able to stay here and do what they do best and become the best in the country in the world and they can’t do that without our increased investment and improvement in our sporting facilities.”
The Green Bay Packers
Kelly is attracted to the Green Bay Packers model of the NFL team playing around their home state of Wisconsin in pre-season and being accessible to fans across the state. Part of the foundation membership is reminiscent of the Packers who are community-owned. The Packers are one of the most popular teams in the NFL despite coming from a small town in a small state, something that Kelly thinks the Tasmania Devils could emulate:
“I think that’s been demonstrated by the original foundation memberships that the Tassie Devils put out there a couple of years ago.
I mean what a stroke of marketing genius. We have I think over 300,000 members already in the Tassie Devils and perhaps we only had to pay $10 or $15 a membership but it still demonstrated the absolute support from around the world — not just from around the country — people around the world bought those memberships.
So I think that’s you know a great analogy with the Green Bay Packers and you know look at the Jack Jumpers. I mean they’ve been incredibly successful — you can’t get a ticket to go see the Jack Jumpers.
Our Hurricanes won the BBL championship not that long ago. I just think we can absolutely put together a Tassie AFL team and I think it will get a huge following from around the world.”
Tassie pride around the world
Kelly believes the Devils could be one of many things that could build Tassie pride, alongside achievements in business and community:
“Look there’s a lot of great things that go on here in Tassie and it will be one of the most — you know — one of the things that Tasmania do that put us on the map. It won’t be the be all and end all and I think everybody knows that football is a sport and it will add to the other great things that happen here in Tasmania.
I mean you’ve only got to look just down the road at INCAT that’s just released the world’s first electric ship right here in Tasmania. 130 metres long — that’s being exported to South America.
There are amazing things happening all across this state and the Tassie Devils will be one of those things and I think the more of that stuff that we can do here in Tassie the better and we all work together to build our economy.
It’s not just one industry or one sport or one business that makes Tasmania’s economy tick. It’s all of us being successful and working together and we need the ongoing investment in our infrastructure down here.
If you don’t continue to invest in the state’s infrastructure the state will go backwards and things like tourism drive our economic engine down here in Tassie and without doing things to build on that important economic contributor there’ll be more burden on taxpayers to pay for things like public services because all of that income certainly helps to contribute to that and I think we need to continue investing in our state.
We need to keep bringing people here. Private business continues to invest so we should in the public arenas as well.”
INCAT is a great company. I interviewed founder Bob Clifford for The Airport Economist Argentina episode and was passenger on an INCAT ferry when we travelled between Argentina and Uruguay for The Airport Economist South America series. I couldn’t think of a better example of Tasmanian excellence abroad along with the Elphinstone Group. That augurs well for the Tassie Devils when they enter the national competition and become well known on the national and even international stage (even Katy Perry said at the 2024 AFL Grand Final that she’s barracking for Tasmania when they join the big league!).
Thanks to Kelly Elphinstone for providing those insights.
Professor Tim Harcourt is Chief Economist for the Centre for Sport, Business and Society at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and host of Footynomics – the Business of Sport TV series on Ticker News.
https://tickernews.co/shows/airporteconomist/
