Aboriginal Power Cup expands to Northern Territory for the first time

The Santos Aboriginal Power Cup is being delivered in the Northern Territory for the first time, expanding a Port Adelaide Football Club community program that has reshaped pathways for First Nations students in South Australia for almost two decades.

Power Community Limited, the football club’s community arm, has confirmed nine schools across the Territory will take part in the Cup this year, engaging around 200 First Nations students in a model that links sport, education, and cultural connection. The expansion brings the Power Cup framework to Top End classrooms and ovals for the first time, with delivery shaped by local community leaders rather than imposed from outside.

National Indigenous Times reported on Wednesday that the program’s arrival marks a significant moment for young people across the Territory. Programs such as the Power Cup are built on a basic idea, that visibility translates into possibility, and that young people are more likely to stay connected to school, sport, and culture when they can see strong First Nations role models in front of them.

Larrakia and Wagiman man Braedon Talbot, a community leader involved in the Territory rollout, said the work needed to be measured in long-term outcomes. He said the program is about more than participation. It is about long-term change for community, classrooms and the next generation of Territory leaders.

The Power Cup uses football as a hook for school engagement, with academic targets, mentoring, leadership workshops, and cultural activities built around training and game days. Students who maintain attendance and progress in their studies are eligible for the Cup carnival and supporting programs run through the year.

AFL greats, including Shaun Burgoyne and Steven Motlop, are part of the program’s presence in the Territory, bringing experience, credibility, and a deep understanding of what works for young First Nations players moving between community and elite pathways.

The expansion has been welcomed as a place-based approach that adapts to local priorities. Local voices are central to how it is delivered, ensuring it reflects the realities of remote and regional NT schools rather than replicating a southern model.

For Port Adelaide, which becomes Yartapuulti during Sir Doug Nicholls Round, the Cup expansion fits a longer pattern of cultural programming that has made the club one of the AFL’s most active in First Nations community work.

For NT students, the program offers something more practical, a structure that connects them to their education, their peers, their culture, and a club whose colours and history have already become part of footy culture in the Top End.

The Cup’s rollout aligns with the AFL’s 2025-2028 Game Development Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan, which aims to lift First Nations participation in priority Local Government Areas through community-co-designed programs.