Butters Timeline: How obsessed Dogs won the race

After months of speculation, Zak Butters nominated the Western Bulldogs as his preferred destination on Saturday.

There was to-ing and fro-ing with several clubs throwing themselves at the Port Adelaide star, but the Bulldogs won out in the end despite strong overtures from Geelong.

SEN's Tom Morris has provided a full timeline of how it all went down.

Butters Timeline

• In mid-August, Geelong was essentially told by his management they had won the race for Butters, and the Dogs were essentially told they were second.

• The Dogs had 1 or 2 out of 10 confidence at this point that there would be a change of heart. Geelong just believed this was as good as close to a done deal as it possibly could be.

• That's when the reports came out that Geelong were ahead and there were reasons behind that because Geelong were told they were far ahead.

• On August 24, Luke Beveridge went on AFL 360 and said: “You’re always working out what we can do. Have you spent everything you can?”

• At this point, the Dogs were 2 out of 10 confident.

• In the 48 hours after that, the Dogs increased their offer, which was later accurately reported by Sammy Edmund.

• Now Geelong and Richmond believe this jump was significant. Up to $3 million across the life of the deal (nine years).

• And if it didn’t put the Dogs ahead of Richmond financially, it certainly stretched the gap by at least $4 million between the Dogs and Cats.

• It was one last throw at the stumps financially from the Dogs. They also tugged on the heart strings of Butters one more time.

• Fast forward 2.5 weeks and things had shifted.

• I can’t make this clear enough: This was an entire club obsession with bringing Zak Butters in.

• The president Kylie Watson-Wheeler was involved to a degree, Luke Beveridge obviously, the fact the CEO, Ameet Bains, and footy boss, Sam Power, are two former list managers, plus Michael Regan, the list manager himself, spent a decade at Port Adelaide so there were good-faith discussions.

• The Dogs had one last crack at asking Zak if he could live with the fact that if he didn't play for the Bulldogs and they won a flag, how that would sit with him.

• In the end it was a decision from the heart, but clearly the finances played a part as well.

• Butters' manager Peter Lenton told the Dogs on Friday afternoon that a decision was made.

• Butters did a medical on Friday as well.

• Lenton waited until after Geelong played Friday night to tell them. By the time they got on the flight back from Perth, the Cats knew they’d missed out.

• The financial turn of events played an important role, but the Dogs weren't just relying on money. They were relying on their entire full-court press from the entire club.

• They have been obsessed from a club perspective in getting Zak Butters in for 12 months and it reached a crescendo after August 24.