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#Home-ground dilemma as Eels look to move Nathn Hindmarsh's farewell to ANZ Stadium

bartman

Immortal
Messages
41,022
Personally, I prefer Parra stadium. Atmosphere would be amazing. And it kind of rewards the members for forking out hard earned cash for the year.
This. Hindy's wish aside, why not actually sell our home ground out for once in this miserable season, to send Hindy and Burt out in the best atmosphere we can muster.

IMO f**k all the fair weather fans or away fans who might miss out if seats sell out in advance - ticketed members fork out and put up with our shit through the whole season. The atmosphere would be shit in that cavernous impersonal stadium at Homebush, even if 50K people (presumably only on free tickets) bother to make their way there.
 

eels81236

Bench
Messages
3,641
Personally, I prefer Parra stadium. Atmosphere would be amazing. And it kind of rewards the members for forking out hard earned cash for the year.

This game is about the players, not the members.
Do players share the same passion for a particular ground as the fans do?
 

Gronk

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
75,413
THE Eels are fighting a losing battle to switch Nathan Hindmarsh's farewell game to ANZ Stadium as Parramatta Stadium officials are seeking $100,000 in compensation.
The Weekend Australian has learned the Eels are keen to play Hindmarsh's final game at Homebush to help accommodate more fans.
The game will also act as the final matches for Eels winger Luke Burt and St George Illawarra hooker Dean Young.
"I'm trying to take a commercial position for the club and the good of the game and for Hindmarsh who has been a legend of the game," Parramatta chief executive Bob Bentley said.
"They're taking a hardline approach in that you've got an agreement, that's what the agreement is and if you don't play your game there we're going to hit you up for 100 grand.
"That will have a major impact on the decision we make when we give it full consideration because I'll be starting 100 grand behind from where I need to be if we do go to ANZ."

Parramatta Stadium director Luke Coleman downplayed the extent of the dispute.
"We're in discussions with the Parramatta NRL club but I wouldn't say we've got a battle on our hands," he said.
"It's all fairly civilised.
"It's very much up to the club where they're going to play their games.
"We don't even know what day it's on yet because we haven't heard from the NRL."
The Olympic venue holds 80,000 fans compared with the 21,000-seat capacity at Parramatta Stadium and officials are optimistic that up to 40,000 people could turn up to farewell three of the game's favourite sons - particularly Hindmarsh, who is the heart and soul of the Eels.
While the Eels have an agreement until the end of next year to play their matches against South Sydney and Canterbury at ANZ Stadium, they are still contracted to play a certain number of games at Parramatta Stadium each season.
Shifting the Dragons game would breach that deal.
As a result, Parramatta Stadium has informed the club it will not budge on its stance of a $100,000 exit fee.
The parties have been in talks for more than a month.
Time is running out with the NRL needing to know by the middle of next week where the match will be played so it can finalise its draw for round 26.
It is not known at this stage if the Nine Network will select the Eels-Dragons game as one of its free-to-air games.
Heading into this weekend the Dragons were still in line for the finals while the Eels have made a late-season rally following the departure of coach Stephen Kearney and are desperately trying to avoid the wooden spoon.
The dispute over Hindmarsh's last game could not come at a worse time for Parramatta Stadium as its five-year contract with the Eels is up at the end of the season.
While there is no suggestion the Eels will abandon the ground entirely as South Sydney did when it left the SFS to head to ANZ Stadium for a better deal, it could still affect the number of home games the club plays there from next season. "It's obviously an opportunity for us to leverage the best outcome we can," Bentley said.
"We need to be flexible to accommodate our fans and make sure we don't get locked into a position that we can't get out of or it costs us to get out of.
"I don't think we'd be in a position to take all our games to ANZ but it might open the door to take a few more or even play a few games somewhere else like regional NSW for our country fans."
 

Tony Bongo

Bench
Messages
3,006
Personally I would be happy if they ditched the two games at ANZ and took both of them to regional areas but I wouldn't be happy if they played any more than two home games away from Parra Stadium next year. As I have said before I think loosing our hold on Parramatta Stadium is a risky move with the A League moving in.
I would be interested in knowing what the rest of our season ticket holders think. If it were me I would send all our season ticket holders a link to an on line survey and find out before making any decision.
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,661
Screw the fairweather fans I say!
If those fairweather fans will only be happy for the game to be played at Parra, then tough luck to them.
Put it at ANZ and pay the $100k. We'll get a great gate for all the diehards who want to farewell Hindy.

And if Parra stadium trust actually charges us the $100k, then we just give them 4 games next season.

Oh I know the atmosphere is better at Parra stadium, but the stupid thing is 10,000 seats short of what it needs to be. And the "trust" don't seem to be in any hurry to fix the problem. So let's take the better financial route and play more games at ANZ! Real diehards don't care about "atmosphere" - they make their own.
 
Messages
14,648
Personally I would be happy if they ditched the two games at ANZ and took both of them to regional areas but I wouldn't be happy if they played any more than two home games away from Parra Stadium next year. As I have said before I think loosing our hold on Parramatta Stadium is a risky move with the A League moving in.
I would be interested in knowing what the rest of our season ticket holders think. If it were me I would send all our season ticket holders a link to an on line survey and find out before making any decision.

As a season ticket holder, I have no problems with taking our home games to ANZ Stadium, because for each game we take there we get another, for free.

As an ANZ Stadium member, I would not object us playing all our games out of ANZ Stadium and I have said so since 2004 before I was a member, because ANZ Stadium would provide a guaranteed income.

Also I would not mind if we took a "Home" game to Suncorp like the dogs do (Vs. the Cowboys or Vs. the Titans), if we got the same compensation package they did for playing there. The problem is I don't know that we could provide the required attractions that the dogs do when they spend the week in Queensland promoting the game and the club.


As a season ticket holder, I am sorry to say that Parramatta Stadium is dated, and the only thing going for it is the sight lines. It needs a complete overhaul, knocking down the stands, leaving the terraces and starting again, Mezzanine decks, ANZ like food stalls, walk ways on each aisle.

Also I am sorry but this recent article is a beat up. If Parramatta Stadium wants $100,000 compensation, then give it to them. Because ANZ stadium will most probably offer us $100,000 for playing the game there, so it becomes a Zero sum game and the biggest issue is can we get over the number of attendees we need to activate a profit sharing agreement with ANZ stadium to make some money out of the day. One would think that if we let our Members, the Dragons members and every other NRL member into the stadium we might get close.
 

EelsFan05

Bench
Messages
2,868
Screw the fairweather fans I say!
If those fairweather fans will only be happy for the game to be played at Parra, then tough luck to them.
Put it at ANZ and pay the $100k. We'll get a great gate for all the diehards who want to farewell Hindy.

And if Parra stadium trust actually charges us the $100k, then we just give them 4 games next season.

Oh I know the atmosphere is better at Parra stadium, but the stupid thing is 10,000 seats short of what it needs to be. And the "trust" don't seem to be in any hurry to fix the problem. So let's take the better financial route and play more games at ANZ! Real diehards don't care about "atmosphere" - they make their own.

I'm not sure how it is 10,000 seat short of what it needs to be when I can't remember the last time there was a proper sold out game there.

If the Stadium Trust tries to stand its ground on the 100k it looks as though more of our games will be played out of ANZ in the future, which would be a pity.
 

mrt_spec

Juniors
Messages
164
ANZ is the the home for bulldogs/rabbits/other teams who don't have a real home.

We have a real home, it's not perfect but it's ours.

Improve it!
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,661
ANZ is the the home for bulldogs/rabbits/other teams who don't have a real home.

We have a real home, it's not perfect but it's ours.

Improve it!

Yeah - but to get it improved we might need to move away for a while so that the pinheads running the place realize they actually DO need to make it better.

Been a lot of talk of improvement for a long time!



Parra stadium = one of the best grounds in Oz to watch footy. But they're letting it get waaay behind in terms of size.
 
Messages
3,097
Size isn't the problem of Parra Stadium - we have maybe one full house a year? We are averaging crowds of 10-15,000 (as well as plenty less than 10K).

What needs to be redone is things like the toilets, food outlets etc (just like the SFS). That shouldn't cost that much.
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,661
I'm not sure how it is 10,000 seat short of what it needs to be when I can't remember the last time there was a proper sold out game there.

If the Stadium Trust tries to stand its ground on the 100k it looks as though more of our games will be played out of ANZ in the future, which would be a pity.

No offense, but just because you can't remember it doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

I SEEM to recall our game against the Wests Tigers being sold out this year.
I went and checked, and lo and behold, 19654 (sold out).
I checked last years game against the Tigers and guess what? 19654 (sold out).
Any guesses as to the 2010 crowd vs the Tigers?

The thing sells out all the time. We've already moved games against some teams to ANZ since we can't hold enough fans at Parra for those particular games. No guesses as to where the Tigers games will be held from now on??

Give us 10k more seats so we can play ALL our games at Parra stadium!!
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,661
Size isn't the problem of Parra Stadium - we have maybe one full house a year? We are averaging crowds of 10-15,000 (as well as plenty less than 10K).

What needs to be redone is things like the toilets, food outlets etc (just like the SFS). That shouldn't cost that much.

You know we're coming dead last right?

But yet our crowd average is way up on what it was years ago. Sure, it's dipped a bit since the late 00's, but that's to be expected after 2 dreadful years.


With the current size of the ground, there's not much point doing much promotional stuff. The common principle is 80% full = you need a bigger ground. So if our crowd average gets into the high 15000s then we're playing at a ground that's too small.


You guys might not like this, but we have a MASSIVE bandwagon. Go check the crowd averages for 2010 - we were hyped to be the comp winners, and averaged 17k per game.

If you plodders are comfortable saying that "we don't need more fans" then good luck to you. But that's pretty pig-headed isn't it???
 

bartman

Immortal
Messages
41,022
Because the knowledge that people can miss out might drive demand for ticketed membership - a more enduring and sustainable source of revenue for the club than one game of walk-up casual fans?
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,661
Because the knowledge that people can miss out might drive demand for ticketed membership - a more enduring and sustainable source of revenue for the club than one game of walk-up casual fans?

If you think that then you're a bigger fool than you present yourself as.
 
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