By Andrew Logan
April 28th 2008 @ 10:46am
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Ignore him and he’ll go away.
At first I was furious. Then disbelieving. And finally, I just felt that Ken Edwards was more to be pitied than blamed.
You probably don’t know who Ken Edwards is, which wouldn’t be surprising. His official role is chief executive of ANZ Stadium in Sydney, which hosted the annual NRL Anzac Day clash between the Roosters and the Dragons in front of a meagre crowd of 21,596 spectators.
Edwards apparently thought, despite a crowd which was officially 25.8% of the stadium’s capacity, that the game had “paved the way for (rugby league’s) rebirth”. Rugby league seems pretty healthy to me, and even if it had a slight sniffle, I’m not sure how a one-quarter-full meteor crater in a sterile zone at Homebush would help it recover? Anyway, the killer line was to follow.
Edwards said “There are people in the game who just want to talk about their childhood memories standing on the grass bank at a suburban venue. Maybe it’s time they moved aside for a younger generation that wants to get the game moving”.
Get the game moving. Riiiight. Get the game moving no doubt, to a stadium that Edwards manages, regardless of whether or not it is a suitable venue for the size of the expected crowd.
Owning a stadium is a bit like owning a hotel. As long as it’s full, you’re making money. If it’s not, you’re losing. So what you need to do is get as many rooms rented out as possible. Quality tenants? Who cares! It doesn’t really matter who they are or what they want it for, as long as they don’t steal the towels, or leave too many dodgy stains on the sheets, and if you have to give ‘em a discount to get ‘em in the door, well, that’s just business. It’s all about cashflow.
So of course you get CEO’s making sweeping statements about how the fans should get in touch with the real agenda of sports these days. That agenda by the way, is clearly less about watching a good game in a full venue where you can buy a steak sanger for three bucks or a beer for two, and more about doing backroom deals with football franchises so you can fill a lemon of a stadium in the middle of nowhere and bugger the fans.
It’s not the business aspect I mind - we all have to make a quid. It’s people like Ken Edwards in trying to pass this off as some sort of naturally occurring trend in sport, instead of an artificial coercion of fans into going to a stadium they don’t really want to go to because they have no other choice if they want to see the game live. No really, goes the refrain, that’s what the fans want, they just don’t know it yet!
Anztelstraolympic Stadium is an ordinary place to watch any code of football. That’s just a fact and it doesn’t matter how you spin it, it remains true. Perhaps the only time there has been any atmosphere there was when the Socceroos won their way into the World Cup in 2006. Watching a rugby union Test there has always been like watching a space shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral. You know there’s some action taking place, and you can see some people scurrying around, but it’s a really, really long way away.
Combine distance with the natural reticence of rugby supporters to make much noise, and you could be excused for momentarily thinking you were at a really big funeral, or maybe an Australian Democrats rally. Even the NRL Grand Final with a packed house is slightly surreal – the place is so big and seats so far from the action, that even when it’s full it still feels like a half-empty country town nightclub.
Poor Ken Edwards, despite how much he might like to think so, isn’t actually in the glam and hip sports business, he’s in boring old commercial property leasing. Which means that while we can’t blame him for trying to rent out his oversized, poorly situated collosseum, we can certainly feel entitled to raise an eyebrow when he comments on the mindset of the sporting public in Australia, and the trends which exist therein.
Real estate agents are always trying to talk up lemons, and will invariably tell you how this suburb is just about to go gangbusters, and all the savvy investors are buying up here before prices go through the roof etc etc. This is pretty much the line you are hearing from Ken Edwards Realty.
What to do? It’s easy really. Whenever an annoying agent is in your face talking rubbish, just ignore them. Eventually, they’ll go away.
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Read Steve Kaless: ANZ Stadium: The temple without a soul.
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Andrew Logan said | April 28th 2008 @ 11:28am | Report comment
Dear Roar Readers,
Those of you who read the site exhaustively will have no doubt come across Steve Kaless’ excellent article on ANZ Stadium entitled “The Temple Without A Soul”. Funnily enough, I didn’t see it at all until after I had written the above rant on the awful statements by that stadiums CEO in the weekend SMH.
So regardless of the apparent similarities in my article and Steve’s, and particularly the similarity between my “meteor crater” metaphor, and that of “Jerry” who called it a “crater on the moon”….all I can say is….great minds think alike!
Regards…
sheek said | April 28th 2008 @ 12:43pm | Report comment
I don’t think too much thought went into Olympic Park precinct post Olympics 2000. There was an arrogance on the part of developers & administrators that fans would come simply because “it (the stadium) was there”.
I was part of the record rugby crowd (109,000 plus) at the 41-35 All Blacks/Wallabies test of 2000. The atmosphere was truly awesome. I attended several Olympics events at the precinct & again, the atmosphere was electric. But I also thought at the time, post Olympics, there wasn’t enough to bring the crowds back on a regular, sustained basis.
Taking the train from Bondi Junction to the precinct & return is pleasant & easy enough. Driving there is also okay, providing you give yourself plenty of time & patience. But unless you’re anticipating a crackerjack encounter, why else would you be there?
Back in the ‘old’ days when tests were played in the arvo at the SCG, you made a whole day of it. There were plenty of pubs around Paddington, The Olympic & Captain Cook the most prominent, where you could drink &/or have a meal. Then a quick walk to the SCG. Afterwards, you could return to the same pub or go elsewhere, or out to dinner, &/or a party.
The Homebush precinct doesn’t have enough to attract apart from the game itself. Where are the pubs & restaurants that might encourage people to make a day/night of the occassion? Hotels at reasonable prices to sleep over. How about catching a ferry to the nearby wharf, & restaurants on the waterfront, with a quick shuttle to the stadium?
I think Homebush precinct still has the opportunity to be something special. However, it might require special people of vision & clout to make it happen. And if the various interested organisations were less greedy also. Volume counts.
Killer said | April 28th 2008 @ 5:07pm | Report comment
Loges, Killer here. Couldnt agree more.
As an avid fan of the Sea Eagles, i would be happy to travel to most grounds to watch them play but would find many an excuse when it comes to a game at Homebush. (I call it Homebush as i am unable to keep up with the generic corporate moniker that they have whacked on it this week).
By comparison, Brookvale Oval seriously needs an upgrade but when it comes to atmosphere, it oozes from every rusty turnstile and drips from every broken eve. Sure, if it is raining you will need your gumboots, hat and Codral but you will know you have been to a game of Footy.
I was there on Saturday night and saw a great game of footy, plus i was close enough to feel the hits and actually see the players faces. When i first started going to Brookie thirty years ago, i would take my footy and have a kick on the ground after the game. On Saturday night, there were kids, about thrity years younger than me, doing exactly that. Hopefully those kids wont be going to watch the Eagles at their new home ground in Homebush in thirty years time.
If this means i am a dinosaur, then call me T Rex.
Phil Coorey said | April 28th 2008 @ 7:12pm | Report comment
I hate the place and wouldn’t even considering taking my mother in law there…
Andrew Logan said | April 28th 2008 @ 10:44pm | Report comment
Unless of course Phil you were going to leave her there?
Wilso said | April 29th 2008 @ 9:50pm | Report comment
Loges, you could have stopped at paragraph four. Give me the grass hill (Brookie, No 1 Oval and Millamolong readily spring to mind) any day of the week but especially at the wekeend. A good game of footy is just the backdrop to hordes of happy kids doing their best Blocker Roach / Joey Johns impressions on the hill, smashing each other into the grass and rolling around in someone else’s half-eaten meat pie. Give the youngsters the grass and you’ve got a crowd full of families. Any real estate agent will tell you that a happy family makes a good tenant.
Cheers, Wilso.
Mitch said | June 7th 2008 @ 7:00am | Report comment
A little late with this comment, but I have always been irked by Homebush stadium feeling the need to service every sport possible (and their lack of engineering nous). I guess it is the nature of Australian sport, and Australians for that matter, that we love every sport going around, which makes it practically impossible to build a purpose-built stadium. By this I mean a stadium made for Rugby, and only Rugby (i.e Millenium Stadium, Wales, or Twickenham, London) or for Soccer and only Soccer, much like every European Stadium, famous ones such as Camp Nou, Barcelona, or Mestalla, Valencia.
Australian sport has to spread so much money over different sports that it cant afford to spend money on three different stadiums to cater for Cricket/AFL, Rugby and Soccer (although the Moore park complex has a fair crack). I suppose what I am trying to say is that trying to build a stadium that had to service many people for Olympics, just wasnt going to cut it afterwards, becuase engineering wise it is far too shallow, and the spectator is too far from the game. Make the tiers steeper damn it! They fit many people into smaller spaces in Stadiums all around the world, why make an empty shallow stadium?
Sheek makes a good point in that for a shrewd un-greedy businessman there are opportunities for reasonably priced bars, hotels and restaurants . Un-greedy being the operative invented label…