I’ve said this before but there’s a bit of disco stu taking over these threads. The last 2 seasons have seen monstrous increases in crowds more than I’d say even the most optimistic fans would have predicted. That’s great but there’s no guarantee that growth will continue or even be sustained. Suddenly just wanting every single stadium to see significant increases in capacity doesn’t make sense.
I think the case for a bigger stadium in Melbourne isn’t as strong as in other places. The stadium is relatively modern and isn’t in need of a replacement or upgrade which already makes things unlikely. For the regular teams who play there the capacity is basically spot on. The storm this year average around 20K, this is whilst being the best team of the past 2 decades and the run away minor premiers. To me the capacity of the stadium from a storm perspective seems near spot on.
If tomorrow you could click your fingers and transform AAMI into Allianz it would be better for the big games but for the average club game I’d argue it would be about the same or worse so it’s hard to justify.
Also whilst they’re not ideal Melbourne does have big stadiums. Even if Melbourne built a stadium like Allianz are the really big events like origin going to be played there?
Im not saying it would have no benefits but Melbourne isn’t really screaming for a bigger rectangular stadium so I find the complaints a little overblown.
Now somewhere like Canberra or Newcastle on the other hand it makes a ton more sense IMO and Canberra in particular is crying out for a new bigger rectangular stadium. If the Canberra can get a state of the art 30K+ stadium that gives better protection from the elements we could see significant crowd growth. They might be able to attract a few more big events to the City. It’s shameful how bad the quality of stadiums are in our capital.
If they get 50,000, it’s the first time in Sydney, week 1 of the finals, since 1971. This would be massive if they get it. There hasnt been a crowd of 40,000 more in Sydney since 2011, Dragons Vs Tigers.
This is a much more realistic goal. 40K+ seems fairly likely and would already be a big result. Imagine if we had a decent run of form from some of these bigger Sydney clubs.