The Game Future NRL Stadiums part II

[Perth Red]

I can imagine how well a Canberra home final for GWS (Greater Western Sydney) will go down in western Sydney with the few genuine fans they have. I'm sure they are just playing politics but seriously does anyone actually care about this team? GWS representing Canberra as a part of western Sydney is such a joke. I'm sure the local ACT AFL fans only turn out because it is their only chance to see top level AFL and that being the case, they would turn out to watch anyone.

I think your last bit is the whole point! Double your membership and fanbase and corporate support. For a new club in a region no one is that interested it isn't a bad strategy to reduce costs to the administration.

 

[The Great Dane]

Ok so as it stands Canberra’s situation is;

Raiders want state/federal gov funding to move there headquarters from Bruce to there own block of land as well as develop a center of excellence there.
ACT gov probs wouldn’t want to give them any money because raiders currently pay them to use stadium and office space for there headquarters. There only chance seems federal funding or media pressure once Canberra make a finals series.

The Raiders pay $1 dollar to rent their current HQ, so I don't think that the government is going to lose sleep over them moving out.

The real reason that they're lukewarm on the Raiders moving to Northbourne Oval is that it's as close to in the middle of the city as you can get and they've had their eye on selling the land to a developer for years, but are too scared of the public backlash if they kick the Raiders out.

Everyone knows that Bruce stadium is old and run down. Not in the best spot for a stadium due to no entertainment bars/pubs/accommodation nearby. Civic stadium is clearly the best option.
ACT gov (Barr) seems hostile to rugby league for some reason, trying to convince the public that a 8000 arena is a better option.

Barr's not really hostile to RL, he's not really hostile to any sport, he just doesn't care about any sport other then AFL, which he is fanatical about.
So it's not that he wont build the new stadium because he hates RL (or RU or soccer for that matter) it's because he sees this as an opportunity to get a boost for AFL and simply doesn't care about the consequences to other sports or the fact that the sports that he is adversely affecting are more popular within his constituency and that they actually have a permanent presence in the ACT.

Also, he doesn't actually believe that an 8k arena is a better option, he's just throwing that out there to muddy the water and buy time until a time when he can look like he's being reasonable by saying 'all right you can have a 30k stadium, but it has to be a multipurpose stadium so that the GWS can be tenants too, so it's profitable' (of course GWS don't pay rent, but hush hush), thus getting what he wants without looking like the complete cock he is to the masses that aren't paying attention (until GWS pull out of the ACT a few years later of course).

The best option would be to create bad media publicity about getting the game and talk down the facilities that Bruce have. If the Canberra Raiders make the finals next season there will be more options available in the media to convince the public of a new stadium in civic. The World Cup in 2 months time has 3 games at Bruce. After the WC Some articles bagging the stadiums facilities and location would be ideal.

The 8000 arena option is for 1 team and wouldn’t pass the common sense law.
A 30000 seat indoor stadium that can be changed into a 8-10k arena for basketball and a 15k mini stadium for touch rl in the off-season seems like a reasonable solution. Stadium Engineers make it happen.

Good luck getting articles bagging the stadium from anyone other the the Canberra Times (even they won't out right bag it), and the Canberra Times don't have the national pull to have any real affect.
You'd need a paper like the Daily Tele to do it, but they treat Canberra like an ugly cousin.
And frankly I think that articles bagging the stadium would be used by Barr as a reason why we must make the stadium multipurpose so that it's "economical" and we can then rush the stadium through.

What really needs to happen at this point is for the NRL, ARU and FFA to actually come in and help the Raiders and Brumbies lobby for a new rectangular stadium, and threaten action (such as taking away the right to play finals games in Canberra) if they don't meet their demands.

You also neglect another possible option that may or may not be feasible, the Raiders building their own stadium at Northbourne, this would be the best option for the Raiders if it's economically feasible, because frankly Northbourne is a better spot for a stadium then the Civic pool, we wouldn't be beholden to the whims of the government anymore and for at least some time we'd own the best rectangular stadium in Canberra, so we could charge our competition to use it effectively making money from both Raiders and Brumbies, Wallabies, A-league, etc, games.
Again it'd be great for the Raiders, if (and it's a big if) it's feasible for the Raiders group and a developer to build and own a stadium and if the Raiders group is willing to take that sort of risk.

 

[The Great Dane]

I can imagine how well a Canberra home final for GWS (Greater Western Sydney) will go down in western Sydney with the few genuine fans they have. I'm sure they are just playing politics but seriously does anyone actually care about this team? GWS representing Canberra as a part of western Sydney is such a joke. I'm sure the local ACT AFL fans only turn out because it is their only chance to see top level AFL and that being the case, they would turn out to watch anyone.

Pretty much, and even then the novelty was dying off badly until GWS started to look like contenders for a "flag".

The really sad thing is that what they really want is their own club to support (an ACT club), but they're never going to get it by showing up to other clubs games, because why would the AFL bother expanding to Canberra when they've already got the market squared away, it'd be a massive waste of resources.

It's also starting to look pretty obvious that once the AFL is ready to expand again and GWS is well established (after the AFL has gifted them a handful of premierships of course) that the AFL is going to pull GWS out and expand to wherever, then one of the new teams will pick up the deal in Canberra that GWS left behind, and the Canberra AFL fans will be no closer to their dream of their own club to follow.

 

[Raiderdave]

The Raiders pay $1 dollar to rent their current HQ, so I don't think that the government is going to lose sleep over them moving out.

The real reason that they're lukewarm on the Raiders moving to Northbourne Oval is that it's as close to in the middle of the city as you can get and they've had their eye on selling the land to a developer for years, but are too scared of the public backlash if they kick the Raiders out.



Barr's not really hostile to RL, he's not really hostile to any sport, he just doesn't care about any sport other then AFL, which he is fanatical about.
So it's not that he wont build the new stadium because he hates RL (or RU or soccer for that matter) it's because he sees this as an opportunity to get a boost for AFL and simply doesn't care about the consequences to other sports or the fact that the sports that he is adversely affecting are more popular within his constituency and that they actually have a permanent presence in the ACT.

Also, he doesn't actually believe that an 8k arena is a better option, he's just throwing that out there to muddy the water and buy time until a time when he can look like he's being reasonable by saying 'all right you can have a 30k stadium, but it has to be a multipurpose stadium so that the GWS can be tenants too, so it's profitable' (of course GWS don't pay rent, but hush hush), thus getting what he wants without looking like the complete c**k he is to the masses that aren't paying attention (until GWS pull out of the ACT a few years later of course).



Good luck getting articles bagging the stadium from anyone other the the Canberra Times (even they won't out right bag it), and the Canberra Times don't have the national pull to have any real affect.
You'd need a paper like the Daily Tele to do it, but they treat Canberra like an ugly cousin.
And frankly I think that articles bagging the stadium would be used by Barr as a reason why we must make the stadium multipurpose so that it's "economical" and we can then rush the stadium through.

What really needs to happen at this point is for the NRL, ARU and FFA to actually come in and help the Raiders and Brumbies lobby for a new rectangular stadium, and threaten action (such as taking away the right to play finals games in Canberra) if they don't meet their demands.

You also neglect another possible option that may or may not be feasible, the Raiders building their own stadium at Northbourne, this would be the best option for the Raiders if it's economically feasible, because frankly Northbourne is a better spot for a stadium then the Civic pool, we wouldn't be beholden to the whims of the government anymore and for at least some time we'd own the best rectangular stadium in Canberra, so we could charge our competition to use it effectively making money from both Raiders and Brumbies, Wallabies, A-league, etc, games.
Again it'd be great for the Raiders, if (and it's a big if) it's feasible for the Raiders group and a developer to build and own a stadium and if the Raiders group is willing to take that sort of risk.

Todd should come out & confirm , a new roofed rectangular venue with a capacity , permanent or able to be modified up to 30,000... will host an NRL prelim final should the Raiders win the right to host it
thats the NRL doing their part

 

[Russell Crowe's Band]

I was staying in cbd and seemed to take ages to get there, as I had ltd time I took a cab which wasn't cheap. Nothing seemed to be around the place, Canberra would be so much better off with a central stadium, reckon you'd get a lot more out of town fans coming down for a sleep over if you could stay in the city and walk to the stadium, big boost to local economy from spending.

The one cab company in town is spewing about uber. f**k canberra cabs with 100 aids filled dicks.
Get uber next time.

 

[Coparugby]

Looks like a bus depot

The ball would bounce off it.

 

[herbert henry1908]

The Raiders pay $1 dollar to rent their current HQ, so I don't think that the government is going to lose sleep over them moving out.

The real reason that they're lukewarm on the Raiders moving to Northbourne Oval is that it's as close to in the middle of the city as you can get and they've had their eye on selling the land to a developer for years, but are too scared of the public backlash if they kick the Raiders out.



Barr's not really hostile to RL, he's not really hostile to any sport, he just doesn't care about any sport other then AFL, which he is fanatical about.
So it's not that he wont build the new stadium because he hates RL (or RU or soccer for that matter) it's because he sees this as an opportunity to get a boost for AFL and simply doesn't care about the consequences to other sports or the fact that the sports that he is adversely affecting are more popular within his constituency and that they actually have a permanent presence in the ACT.

Also, he doesn't actually believe that an 8k arena is a better option, he's just throwing that out there to muddy the water and buy time until a time when he can look like he's being reasonable by saying 'all right you can have a 30k stadium, but it has to be a multipurpose stadium so that the GWS can be tenants too, so it's profitable' (of course GWS don't pay rent, but hush hush), thus getting what he wants without looking like the complete c**k he is to the masses that aren't paying attention (until GWS pull out of the ACT a few years later of course).



Good luck getting articles bagging the stadium from anyone other the the Canberra Times (even they won't out right bag it), and the Canberra Times don't have the national pull to have any real affect.
You'd need a paper like the Daily Tele to do it, but they treat Canberra like an ugly cousin.
And frankly I think that articles bagging the stadium would be used by Barr as a reason why we must make the stadium multipurpose so that it's "economical" and we can then rush the stadium through.

What really needs to happen at this point is for the NRL, ARU and FFA to actually come in and help the Raiders and Brumbies lobby for a new rectangular stadium, and threaten action (such as taking away the right to play finals games in Canberra) if they don't meet their demands.

You also neglect another possible option that may or may not be feasible, the Raiders building their own stadium at Northbourne, this would be the best option for the Raiders if it's economically feasible, because frankly Northbourne is a better spot for a stadium then the Civic pool, we wouldn't be beholden to the whims of the government anymore and for at least some time we'd own the best rectangular stadium in Canberra, so we could charge our competition to use it effectively making money from both Raiders and Brumbies, Wallabies, A-league, etc, games.
Again it'd be great for the Raiders, if (and it's a big if) it's feasible for the Raiders group and a developer to build and own a stadium and if the Raiders group is willing to take that sort of risk.

If it’s multi purpose that would be an absolute tragedy for the rugby codes. I can’t see the ACT having enough money to build anything with moveable stands, so you’d pretty much end up playing on an oval.

Re the raiders building their own. I just don’t see how this is feasible. You’d be looking at 200m to build just a bare bones stadium, 300m for something genuinely decent.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Pretty much, and even then the novelty was dying off badly until GWS started to look like contenders for a "flag".

The really sad thing is that what they really want is their own club to support (an ACT club), but they're never going to get it by showing up to other clubs games, because why would the AFL bother expanding to Canberra when they've already got the market squared away, it'd be a massive waste of resources.

It's also starting to look pretty obvious that once the AFL is ready to expand again and GWS is well established (after the AFL has gifted them a handful of premierships of course) that the AFL is going to pull GWS out and expand to wherever, then one of the new teams will pick up the deal in Canberra that GWS left behind, and the Canberra AFL fans will be no closer to their dream of their own club to follow.

I always kind of felt the GWS strategy with Canberra was a back up plan in case Western Sydney doesn’t work. There’s no way known the AFL can continue to keep losing the money they are on them. At some point it’ll need to improve or they may face a tough decision.

 

[Perth Red]

I always kind of felt the GWS strategy with Canberra was a back up plan in case Western Sydney doesn’t work. There’s no way known the AFL can continue to keep losing the money they are on them. At some point it’ll need to improve or they may face a tough decision.

The ninth game is worth $57million according to afl. Last year the afl spent $39mill on the two teams that gave them the ninth game content. It's costing a lot but still turns them a profit.

Two new nrl teams is likely to cost $30-35mill a year. Surely we could sell a ninth game for that if afls is really worth the much?

Raiders and nrl need to do some serious pr work and lobbying to make sure any new stadium is rectangular, in the city and has the best outcomes for the cities two most popular sports. Timemfor raiders and Ruggers fans to unite!

 

[herbert henry1908]

The ninth game is worth $57million according to afl. Last year the afl spent $39mill on the two teams that gave them the ninth game content. It's costing a lot but still turns them a profit.

Two new nrl teams is likely to cost $30-35mill a year. Surely we could sell a ninth game for that if afls is really worth the much?

Yeah but it’s worth that much probably in any market. Western Sydney certainly isn’t turning in.

So whilst they may not be losing money directly, there’s a definite opportunity cost.

The question is, how long are the AFL prepared to fund those two teams at a much higher level than the other clubs?

 

[Perth Red]

Yeah but it’s worth that much probably in any market. Western Sydney certainly isn’t turning in.

So whilst they may not be losing money directly, there’s a definite opportunity cost.

The question is, how long are the AFL prepared to fund those two teams at a much higher level than the other clubs?

Not really as they needed two new teams to create the ninth game content. Where else would they start two new teams? They have their bases covered in every other major city. They're in it for the long game. They arent actually funding them massively more than some heartland clubs eg $21mill gws, Suns $17mill, $18mill st kilda, $17.6mill Bulldogs in 2016.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Not really as they needed two new teams to create the ninth game content. Where else would they start two new teams? They have their bases covered in every other major city. They're in it for the long game. They arent actually funding them massively more than some heartland clubs eg $21mill gws, Suns $17mill, $18mill st kilda, $17.6mill Bulldogs in 2016.

As I said earlier, I could easily see Canberra as a back up plan. Even Tasmania I think would cost less, ticket sales would be much higher.

 

[The Great Dane]

Re the raiders building their own. I just don’t see how this is feasible. You’d be looking at 200m to build just a bare bones stadium, 300m for something genuinely decent.

I'm not so sure about that.

The Raiders group by themselves could never do it no, but get a developer on board (the AFL did managed this when they wanted to upgrade Manuka, so there's interest in these sorts of projects in the ACT), maybe leave some space aside for apartments, shops, a multi storey car park (in a part of the city that has nowhere near enough parking spaces), maybe build a leagues club of sorts into it, etc.
Bid for local and federal funding, maybe get the NRL to come to the party (offer them free rent for all RL events held at the stadium until their loan is payed back in full), sponsorship deals and corporate deals would have to play a part, etc, etc, I mean obviously the Raiders would have to mortgage it, and they'd have to tighten the belt a bit for a time, but if there's a will there's way.

Nobody said it'd be easy but if we could pull it off it could be huge for the club, especially since we'd own the best stadium in Canberra.

Also as long as it had a steep incline, cover from the elements, and relatively good amenities it'd be fine for our needs, it wouldn't need to be the finest state of the art stadium in the world.

 

[Jamberoo]

Nothing worse than a multi purpose stadium.
Unless Canberra think they can get a Big Bash tema with a 30K Oval, Manuka is fine for Oval sports.

 

[Jamberoo]

Why is standing room not a thing for new stadiums on this forum. Is this a Sydney thing or a RL thing?
MCG has 5k, Etihad 3k, Adelaide Oval 10k. It is a cheap way to increase capacity and adds to the atmosphere.

 

[Vee]

The really sad thing is that what they really want is their own club to support (an ACT club), but they're never going to get it by showing up to other clubs games, because why would the AFL bother expanding to Canberra when they've already got the market squared away, it'd be a massive waste of resources.

It's also starting to look pretty obvious that once the AFL is ready to expand again and GWS is well established (after the AFL has gifted them a handful of premierships of course) that the AFL is going to pull GWS out and expand to wherever, then one of the new teams will pick up the deal in Canberra that GWS left behind, and the Canberra AFL fans will be no closer to their dream of their own club to follow.

Sounds like the NRL approach to Perth.

 

[The Great Dane]

Sounds like the NRL approach to Perth.

Not quite the same, but similar yes.

I'm not a fan of the way the NRL has been leading Perth on either.

 

[magpie_man]

I'm not so sure about that.

Would it be within the realms of possibility that the Brumbies could come to the party - if not as a partner, at least as a co-tennant?

 

[Captain Apollo]

Why is standing room not a thing for new stadiums on this forum. Is this a Sydney thing or a RL thing?
MCG has 5k, Etihad 3k, Adelaide Oval 10k. It is a cheap way to increase capacity and adds to the atmosphere.

We've never really been big on "SRO" areas in Sydney. In fact my late Father used to say if you stood up on areas like the old hill at the SCG during a rugby league game, if you didn't sit down and obstructed other people's views, you would quite literally get pelted with bottles and rubbish until you did or the police took the standee away. Pretty much been a crowd control issue. With things like Hillsborough and Heysel in Europe in the mid-1980s, that saw the push to all seater stadiums occur in many main stream sports.

 

[herbert henry1908]

We've never really been big on "SRO" areas in Sydney. In fact my late Father used to say if you stood up on areas like the old hill at the SCG during a rugby league game, if you didn't sit down and obstructed other people's views, you would quite literally get pelted with bottles and rubbish until you did or the police took the standee away. Pretty much been a crowd control issue. With things like Hillsborough and Heysel in Europe in the mid-1980s, that saw the push to all seater stadiums occur in many main stream sports.

Standing room is coming to the new Parra stadium though. Although it’ll be converted to seating for the NRL season.

I like the idea of standing room length of the field bars. I think it’d be a great way to sell a different type of game day experience.