2024 Crowd Watch

[jim_57]

There is room to move, both closer to the ingoals & up. As you can see the current build doesn’t maximise the current available space, with there still being some if the old south hill in front of the stand.
View attachment 91062

In terms of going closer to the road, this plan was approved prior to the funding for the centre of excellence being taken away. This included additional seating, high performance facilities and offices.

View attachment 91063

I imagine if they could get the funding, they could get something similar approved again.

Personally if I was the club, I'd be looking at expanding the ET Stand as the priority and even include things like high performance in there, though I can appreciate that big grandstands are expensive & the club has to balance its debt.

Southern stand looks like it could be rebuilt or extended to double current capacity looking at that. Agreed that the Western stand should be the next priority, ideally design it to link up with a new southern stand eventually.

Like I said earlier I’m sure the NRL will be in their corner but it will still be hard to get funding for it.

 

[RedVee]

Doubt it would get that much

red v fanbase isn’t on board the team yet

Bandwagon fans would return for a semi.
I think. Hope.

 

[reanimate]

17,298 at Brookvale.

 

[Vlad59]

Andrew Travis? Who now works at a ticketing company? Well if someone who used to work in AFL Queensland 10 years ago says so, it must be true. Ignore the study by the quantity surveyors released this month that it can be built on budget.

Tony Cochrane actually. I got his title wrong. I’ll forgive myself for that as you get everything wrong especially about this stadium afl boy!

 

[Vlad59]

17,298 at Brookvale.

Great crowd

 

[League Unlimited News]

89,127 aggregate
17,825 average

Season 2.7m, average 19,270 from 141 games

 

[i0Nic]

89,127 aggregate
17,825 average

Season 2.7m, average 19,270 from 141 games

Do we expect the average to go up as we leave origin and get close to finals?

 

[DIOGENES]

After 19 Rounds
2023 Aggregate 2,592,774 Ave. 18,388
2024 Aggregate 2,717,134 Ave. 19,270

Up 4.8%
Average of 16,512 required from remaining 63 games for H&A record

 

[The_Wookie]

Tony Cochrane actually. I got his title wrong. I’ll forgive myself for that as you get everything wrong especially about this stadium afl boy!

He says he thinks it will be 1.3-1.5b based on his experience in stadium construction and management - and by this he means his ONLY experience - the rebuild and management of Carrara. A venue of similar capacity, but notably not having a roof of any kind.

The guy is also against expansion of any kind.

 

[yakstorm]

Do we expect the average to go up as we leave origin and get close to finals?

Traditionally they do. Having arguably 15 teams still in the mix for the Finals helps keep interest up, as well the weather traditionally starts to improve heading into September.

 

[shewi6]

Against roosters, Souths, dragons, tigers, dogs, Parra and possibly even Penrith, manly and warriors they would surely get more than 12k at the SFS. In most cases they would probably be outnumbered by opposition fans which is why they don't want to do that.

I don't begrudge them for wanting games at their home ground and they can play regular season games wherever they want, I draw the line at finals games though. No finals games should be played there IMO. Not just picking on the sharks there either, I wouldn't have any Sydney suburban venue host finals games.

Nah mate, sorrt to say it but you're just a f**king moron like me haha

 

[shewi6]

I'm not a Sharks fan & like many on this thread wish that their surrounding renovations hadn't taken so long & had included more significant work on the venue, but seriously the pile on is filled with some really incorrect statements.

Firstly the Sharks haven't made their stadium worse. The majority of the stadium is untouched, however as part of the work additional terracing has been/getting added to the family hill and a lot of the corporate & upper section in the Peter Burns Stand have been renovated.

Secondly, Shark Park will revert to its previous capacity once the work is complete. Because it is next to a construction site, as per state & federal laws, there has been a temporary reduction in the overall ground capacity. It's not that the ground can't hold more than 13,500 even now, it's just the club will be fined if they go over that. Their strategy for getting back to their previous capacity is to finish construction work.

Once everything is done, the legal capacity for the ground will return to 20,147. Whether they can draw more than the 18,985 they had in 2019 is debatable, but the ground will hold more than Leichhardt, Campbelltown, Brookvale and Kogarah, and be comparable to WIN & Belmore.

Finally, there is still room at Shark Park to expand if they wish to. The ET Stand could easily be replaced with something that could stretch the full width of the ground.

View attachment 91052

There is also the terracing going in front of the shopping centre & apartments on the other side. I'm not sure who gets to commercialise the space on top of the centre & apartments, which have great views of the fields, but maybe someone else closer to the club can provide those insights.

View attachment 91053

Encouragingly the Quest Apartments & Shops are now open and supposedly the Leagues Club is getting close to completion. Whilst it is unlikely to help this year, it should mean that from 2025 the Sharks are in a position to draw bigger crowds.

Hopefully off the back of the work done & their form, the club can become a bit like Manly and consistently fill the ground out.

Not sure how you are coming to the conclusion that the ground will go back to a 20k capacity or that the terracing will help with that.

If you compare pictures pre and post development you will see there used to be fairly significant grass hills either side of the eastern stand.

The leagues club extension and hotel has encroached on those spaces by about half. I imagine the capacity of terracing would be less than a fully standing area hill.
Plus we all know that suburban grounds with grass hills have been getting reduced capacities more and more over the years because of health and safety and emergency egress issues.

Not much point saying it could hypothetically be upgraded to a good standard because the sharks don't have the money to either extend the west stand or replace it and being privately owned means government more than likely won't pay for it.

Hell, the reason they don't have a centre of excellence yet, despite having government grants approved, is because they can't come up with the money to pay their share like every other sydney team has done.

Anyway it is what it is and will probably be like it for a long time, but I won't sit back and agree with people who say it is 'great' and it looks good because it is 'full'.
I will call out shit crowds and stadiums like I do for kayo as well.

Edit- Just a counter to your first point as well. Yes they didn't physically make the stadium worse knocking down any stands or such but, when you decrease the stadium capacity by nearly half and lose a lot of your corporate facilities, then yes that is worse.

It wasn't that great to start with and it didn't get better, ergo it is worse currently.

 

[parrawentyfan]

I'm not a Sharks fan & like many on this thread wish that their surrounding renovations hadn't taken so long & had included more significant work on the venue, but seriously the pile on is filled with some really incorrect statements.

Firstly the Sharks haven't made their stadium worse. The majority of the stadium is untouched, however as part of the work additional terracing has been/getting added to the family hill and a lot of the corporate & upper section in the Peter Burns Stand have been renovated.

Secondly, Shark Park will revert to its previous capacity once the work is complete. Because it is next to a construction site, as per state & federal laws, there has been a temporary reduction in the overall ground capacity. It's not that the ground can't hold more than 13,500 even now, it's just the club will be fined if they go over that. Their strategy for getting back to their previous capacity is to finish construction work.

Once everything is done, the legal capacity for the ground will return to 20,147. Whether they can draw more than the 18,985 they had in 2019 is debatable, but the ground will hold more than Leichhardt, Campbelltown, Brookvale and Kogarah, and be comparable to WIN & Belmore.

Finally, there is still room at Shark Park to expand if they wish to. The ET Stand could easily be replaced with something that could stretch the full width of the ground.

View attachment 91052

There is also the terracing going in front of the shopping centre & apartments on the other side. I'm not sure who gets to commercialise the space on top of the centre & apartments, which have great views of the fields, but maybe someone else closer to the club can provide those insights.

View attachment 91053

Encouragingly the Quest Apartments & Shops are now open and supposedly the Leagues Club is getting close to completion. Whilst it is unlikely to help this year, it should mean that from 2025 the Sharks are in a position to draw bigger crowds.

Hopefully off the back of the work done & their form, the club can become a bit like Manly and consistently fill the ground out.

Thanks heaps. What a great post with lots of useful info.

I do find it disappointing that their main stand facing the camera seems to now have a big ‘wall’ so to speak and they don’t seem to have much wriggle room to change it. I was actually pretty excited they might do something like CommBank’s corporate stand but backing into the club which would have been cool.

Glad to see capacity will get back to normal eventually - seems to be taking forever though! If they can leave enough room to get it close to 25k one day with the other 3 sides then that will be good enough.

 

[yakstorm]

Not sure how you are coming to the conclusion that the ground will go back to a 20k capacity or that the terracing will help with that.

The figure I've quoted is the legal limit the ground is allowed to hold if there is no construction work. It also aligns with the figures the club has put out there around what the venue will be able to hold at the end of construction.

As I put in my post, it's debatable whether it will still be able to hold that many, but at this point in time, unless someone on this forum is currently involved in the project or doing the certifications, then anything is is pure speculation and guess work around how many people can sit in a square meter of grass or whether alternate allocation methods, like terracing can fit comparable numbers in.

The ground will be able to hold more once construction is done above the 13,500 limit currently imposed and it is going to be larger than some of the capacities other Sydney venues which host NRL fixtures have.

 

[Timmah]

The figure I've quoted is the legal limit the ground is allowed to hold if there is no construction work. It also aligns with the figures the club has put out there around what the venue will be able to hold at the end of construction.

As I put in my post, it's debatable whether it will still be able to hold that many, but at this point in time, unless someone on this forum is currently involved in the project or doing the certifications, then anything is is pure speculation and guess work around how many people can sit in a square meter of grass or whether alternate allocation methods, like terracing can fit comparable numbers in.

The ground will be able to hold more once construction is done above the 13,500 limit currently imposed and it is going to be larger than some of the capacities other Sydney venues which host NRL fixtures have.

The big deal to me isn't the venue itself, it's the construction timeline. This stuff started in 2019? 2020?

They were forced to play elsewhere for two seasons due to the construction and yet now they've moved back and for three seasons and it's still a construction site and at reduced capacity. I get COVID and supply chain but we're talking five full seasons now? They knocked down and rebuilt the SFS in that many years.

 

[Vlad59]

He says he thinks it will be 1.3-1.5b based on his experience in stadium construction and management - and by this he means his ONLY experience - the rebuild and management of Carrara. A venue of similar capacity, but notably not having a roof of any kind.

The guy is also against expansion of any kind.

I heard the interview. He said 1.4 to 1.6 billion. Nice try but bullshit.
And he’s not against expansion. He’s against a 19th side and said quite clearly Melbourne needs to lose teams.

 

[Wb1234]

The big deal to me isn't the venue itself, it's the construction timeline. This stuff started in 2019? 2020?

They were forced to play elsewhere for two seasons due to the construction and yet now they've moved back and for three seasons and it's still a construction site and at reduced capacity. I get COVID and supply chain but we're talking five full seasons now? They knocked down and rebuilt the SFS in that many years.

View attachment 91094

They are relying on a developer to finish the construction work that benefits them

he had no problem finishing off the 800 units and retail which he made profits from

obviously the lc isn’t a high priority for him cause he makes no profit from it

 

[Timmah]

They are relying on a developer to finish the construction work that benefits them

he had no problem finishing off the 800 units and retail which he made profits from

obviously the lc isn’t a high priority for him cause he makes no profit from it

Then the NRL should step in and demand the club plays elsewhere until the capacity is something greater than 12-13k? One season ok, two seasons pushing it, third season its beyond a joke now

 

[Wb1234]

Then the NRL should step in and demand the club plays elsewhere until the capacity is something greater than 12-13k? One season ok, two seasons pushing it, third season its beyond a joke now

That would do wonders for the value of the hotel they (arl) just bought on site there

it’s a dump to be sure but it’s their dump

 

[Timmah]

That would do wonders for the value of the hotel they (arl) just bought on site there

it’s a dump to be sure but it’s their dump

Pressure on the developer to finish the LC = the stadium returns to capacity sooner = more interest in the hotel = more profits