Been meaning to make this post for a bit. Have finally found time.
A. The NRL won't (or definitely shouldn't) cede the Gold Coast to AFL. It's one of the fastest gorwing cities and will be 1 million+ in short order.
B. Even though on-field performance hasn't improved, there are a lot of exciting developments off the field that are setting the Titans up for improved attendances and connection to the city.
For the stadium, there are two main things that needed to be focussed on and they are slowly but surely being addressed.
Amenities around the ground and Transport. The stadium itself is very good and only needs small incremental improvements over the next 20 years to keep pace with other stadiums + maybe look for a cheap way to get better airflow into the stands on hot days. Reassess around 2040 to see if capacity increases are needed and add an extra tier of seats, if needed up to 40k.
Amenities around the ground
The stadium was built on a greenfield site in the western side of the city. When it was first built there was only really cow paddocks around the ground. If people complain about nothing to do around the ground at Accor Stadium, this was multiple times worse. See below for what the area around the ground looked like in June 2008.
View attachment 102260
Since 2008, there have been a number of developments around the ground. See below for what it looked like in April of 2025. Still lots of development planned around the site:
Orange -
Lakeview
Dark Blue -
Cascade Gold Coast
Light Blue -
Greenheart Robina Parklands
Purple - Was meant to be Olympic Village, but will be developed soon. Too prime a piece of real estate.
Brown -
Paloma House development
Yellow - Can't seem to find info on it, but remember there being a development planned for here.
Red - Same for here
View attachment 102272
The density around the ground will invite more developments in terms of hospitality. Would love to see a mini Caxton street built between the station and the stadium, however unlikely. The Parklands only just opened in the last month or so. Great draw card for families and would love for the Titans to try to integrate it into gamedays (thinking South American Festival during Carnival, Markets on Sundays before games, get Bond University and Griffith University involved in Tailgates; similar to college football in America, etc.). Lots of opportunities to improve the overall gameday experience and increase the gameday experience from 2 hours to 4 or 5 hours. Also spreads out arrivals, which improves the transportation experience overall.
Transportation
Transportation is the area that is a bit slow going. As it is on the Gold Coast. Serviced quite in the rail corridor. Anywhere East of the stadium, requires walking and multiple changeovers of buses unless you're lucky enough to live next to one of few the event bus stations run on gameday. In the medium to long-term, light rail should hopefully run through to the stadium. Stage 3 of the Light Rail down to Burleigh needs to be completed first. Below are a couple of options for the route put forward.
View attachment 102271
This would help immensly to connect the stadium to the eastern parts of the city. To give an idea, at the moment, it takes me 60 minutes (two buses) to get to Cbus. If this was built, it would take me around 20 minutes.
Ontop of this, they are building 3 new heavy rail stations currently, with the crossriver rail project. These stations will be in Pimpama, Hope Island, and Merrimac. This will increase rail access further for the Western Suburbs. Plus if they ever extend the Heavy rail from Varsity to the Gold Coast Aiport, the whole of the Southern Gold Coast will be covered quite well and will bring an extra 50k+ people within a 20 minute Train ride to the stadium.
All-in-all alot of improvement since inception with even more either planned or logically happening within the next 15-20 years. Just need the team to have a period of top 8 finishes and you will really start to see these improvements bare fruit.
