The Glenorchy Stadium's main purpose was to be home to the proposed Tasmanian AFL team. It was way back in 1990 when this idea was first tossed up after Tasmania defeated Victoria in a State of Origin match at North Hobart before 18,651 spectators. Fremantle were instead given a licence, so in 1996, an appeal was made in April after a couple of months preperation. The appeal was neither approved or disproved, with the AFL instead saying it was very impressed with the submission, but needed something else, something big. So the State Government and AFL Taskforce decided that a multi-million dollar upgrade of the North Hobart Oval would help their appeal. However, due to the oval's location and small room to expand, and also thanks to the Glenorchy City Council by appealing to upgrade their KGV Oval, the Government and Taskforce piled a list of grounds that could be upgraded, and also two areas that could be turned into a stadium. The list of seven was made up of the North Hobart Oval, the KGV Oval in Glenorchy, York Park in Launceston, the Bellerive Oval in Clarence, the TCA Ground at the Domain, a flat area near the Hobart airport and the Hobart Showgrounds in Glenorchy. On November 29, it was announced that $34 million dollars would be spent on building a stadium at the Showgrounds if the AFL granted the licence. So the latest submission was sent to the AFL, and the next year and a half was spent trying to prove to the AFL that Tasmania was worthy of a team. But in 1998, the AFL said that it could not accept the submission.

The bid was never made again, but in late 2000, Football Victoria accepted Tasmania into the second biggest league in the country - the VFL - and although a limited pre-season meant the team was well behind in fitness, they surprised many by winning 5 games including an historic 26 point victory over Geelong at York Park. They also scored the highest crowds by a mile, with the highest in each region being 4,968 at North Hobart for the match against ladder leaders Werribee, 4784 against Carlton on a Friday night at York Park and 3,401 against the Murray Kangaroos in Round 4 at Ulverstone.