And it’s been a particularly volatile time of late.

In football, soccer and basketball - to name but three - the Tasmanian make-up has undergone more cosmetic changes than Michael Jackson, and with some similarly scary results.

A new-look statewide soccer competition kicked off this month. Respective regional championship winners Glenorchy and Riverside Olympic stepped up (and promptly met each other at Windsor Park on Saturday) while Northern Rangers' withdrawal leaves the league with nine teams and a weekly bye.

The women's equivalent now operates with a similar geographical imbalance as a New Zealand team playing in the Australian competition.

The withdrawal of Taroona and Launceston City leaves the competition with six teams, one of which is 300 kilometres away from the other five.

Ulverstone may be the reigning champions and the benchmark team, but their trade-off for enjoying a top-flight monopoly over three-quarters of the state is a seven-hour bus trip for every away game (and eight against Kingbrough).

Meanwhile the withdrawal of North Launceston Eagles leaves the Northern Championship men's, women's and under-18s competitions with a more numerically and geographically pleasing eight teams, four each from the North and North-West.

Basketball has experienced more of a disruption among its leagues than its clubs resulting in a vastly different ecosystem for the discerning hoops fan.

The New Zealand National Basketball League is the antithesis of soccer's A-League.

Instead of a 10-team competition featuring one from Kiwi-land and none from Tasmania, the NZNBL is a nine-team competition including one based in Tasmania and playing games at both ends of the state.

It's a radical approach that Football Federation Australia or indeed the AFL and NBL might like to consider.

The demise of the SEABL competition has set up an intriguing scenario in the Launceston market.

As the Southern Huskies take a step up both in terms of competition (to the NZNBL) and altitude (to the Silverdome), the Launceston Tornadoes take a sideways step into the newly-formed and named Victorian-based NBL1.

How Launceston basketball fans react to this geographical and gender shift will be interesting to observe.

However, few sports seem to experience ice ages with as much frequency as football.

While the State League make-up may not have changed, it does imply nothing exists north of Legana or west of Longford.

The ill wind that relieved the competition of Burnie and Devonport has blown away North-West feeder clubs like Smithton and Natone and follows similar devastation on the opposite side of the Tamar Valley.

Such has been the decline in footy in this former hotbed that in November 2017 Winnaleah went into recess for just the second time in its 110-year history after finding itself the only remaining team in the North East Football Union.

Lilydale had left in 2010, Ringarooma and Branxholm went into recess soon after before Bridport and East Coast joined the NTFA.

The curtain duly came down on the NEFU which had run for 80 years and featured a long list of other former competing clubs including Derby, Legerwood, Alberton and Pioneer.

To some degree, a strong NTFA competition has picked up the ball with Scottsdale playing in its Premier Division while Bridport, East Coast and Lilydale renew hostilities in Division 1. However, these clubs aside, the North-East is to footy what women are to the Federal Liberal Party.

Just over 183 years after Charles Darwin visited Tasmania, his survival of the fittest theory continues to find a home in the state's sport.