Sydney is a unique town my friend and you would know that if you lived here. We are not like everybody else.
We are lazy, stay at home if there is a whiff of rain, spoilt for choice, live in a city that is a nightmare to get around in and have 3 other major football codes to contend with, not to mention that we have a head office that has no control over the clubs it presides over and they selfishly do nothing major to promote the game as a whole or even their own home games let alone non home games. Add the coaches to the mix of basically muzzling the players from saying anything that might incite the opposition team and you have a lot of forces all working together to keep the game day attendance low and never really getting much bigger then where it currently is.
So yeah, Sydney is unique in many ways and therefore we need a very different and tailor made model that will mollycoddle the Sydney fan enough to make an occasional appearance on game day.
You may not like it, but tough, it is what it is. I for one would love to go even further and see the governments spend billions on rectangular all seater, made for purpose stadiums of all sizes from 3K to 70K throughout the whole nation. Build, build, build. If done right and in the right place where infrastructure of amenities and transport links are next door, then they would be great legacies for all rectangular football codes and the communities they are in. They can be a great asset and not considered a drain on the public purse if planed correctly. I think your mindset is glass half empty and can't see the knock on effect if we build the right facility in the right location and community. These mini stadiums can become the heart of the communities recreational activities and bring in people that would normally not participate or engage in local sports or events being held in or around these new and exciting assets.
Remember a nice new shinny stadium in a local area will foster more business, sponsors and development of shops, bars, restaurants and cafes depending on location. People will feel the buzz. Local clubs that use these facilities could do a hell of a lot of promotion and even door to door knocks and or to schools and sell their brand directly. Remember the majority are small 3K to 12K stadiums. They are community based and don't need to draw tens of thousands of people from a wider community to fill them. Local community competitions and game day events and activities around game day are great ways to entice mum and dads to take the kids out without the hassle of driving or just a stop or two on a train or bus. Local and hassle free while supporting your local team is a great motivator. The community spirit if setup and promoted right would lift through the roof and people would start to develop a great pride in their clubs/team and community. Shops and businesses could and would start to add local club paraphernalia in their premises and add more colour and vibe to the community would start to become common place.
A lot of suburbs are dying for something that can connect their community and bring people together, it is smart business. Smart mini stadium infrastructure is a great business model that sports loving Aussies could get right into if we did it right, but unfortunately we haven't looked into it, because all most people see is the upfront cost. What they haven't thought of is the long term positive legacy and those local communities would swell in pride and loyalty to the clubs and teams that they represent and how it would turn them into life long supporters of those local sporting clubs and all the growth that that would create in support and revenue within their region.
If a government body were to do what I am suggesting here and build a say 8K-10K mini stadium in a strategically advantageous location next door to a train station and shopping centre(commercial centre), then they could use it as a test model and see how the local community responds. It needs to be somewhere where there are second tier league, soccer and union football clubs so that it gets maximum use. Then we can see what people want and what it has contributed to the community socially and economically. But like I said, if done right and in the right place, it should be an outstanding success and then you will see all the local football clubs of all persuasions getting together and putting their collective hands out for their mini stadium funding, just like we saw when Penrith built their privately funded COE and all the other NRL clubs then realised that to compete that they too needed to build their own COE.
Sure I know it is a lot of public money that we are spending on recreational amenities, but if they can return a positive outcome both from a mental and physical health perspective for thousands of participants and spectators alike and be financially profitable, well isn't that partly why we have a social contract with Government in the first place?
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