At times Sydney has really got into sport for short periods of time, such as the Olympics … but it seems the attention span of sydney siders is different to Melbournites or Brisbanites.

At various times Aussie Rules, Union, Basketball, and Soccer have had waves of popularity for a few years before there seems to be some burnout and a wish to see a new team or sport.

Sydney is a city surrounded by beaches … and there is a lot to do. Even in the middle of winter it is often warm and sunny enough to go to the beach.

Melbourne is colder, and for me this is a reason why in the winter the footy with a meat pie is a better option than the beach with a wooly jumper, which is why you can get 100 000 people to a game of tiddlywinks in the rain.

I think its just something about the weather, the closeness of the beach to the city, and the nature of sydneysiders … and that it isnt going to change.

In that light .. recent decisions of the AFL to expand to Sydney and Rugby’s Super 15 to Melbourne (instead of Western Sydney) will be interesting to see in the long term …

The Green Bay Packers have a town of 310,000 and yet sell out there stadium with a seated membership ticket having a waiting list of 74,000 people. It takes an average of 100 years to get a membership. This is how Rugby League should be in Sydney and Brisbane.

Anyhoo…

The main point is that they need to desperately demolish the ANZ stadium its a white elephant and will never be any good unless you can get an event every week that can draw 80k and that wont happen.

Build stadiums that are user friendly and close to railway lines et al.

You have a point a big spend on Homebush even if it took 20, 000 seats away would be good just to make it usable or should I say user friendly..

Who cares about the North Shore and Eastern Suburbs residents anyway. The sporting heartland of Sydney is in the West.

1 Pathetic stadiums. Surely when they were building Stadim Australia for the olympics someone should have pointed out that they were building a stadium for athletics – not a rugby/soccer/AFL/cricket/morris dancing/Iron Chef stadium. An OBLONG stadium to be used for rectangle-pitch and oval-pitch sports. Bad for all sports good for none. The stadium was built for asthetics alone. The stadium is to be viewed, it is not designed for spectators to view sports. NSW cut your losses, bulldoze the thing before it turns into an even bigger white elephant.

Sydney just doesn’t have a stadium even close to the best purpose-built stadiums in the world, such as the Millenium Stadium Cardiff, Melbourne Tennis Centre, Madison Square garden, PNC Park Pittsburgh, The MCG, or even the Gold Caost Titans (when the intended crowd size is considered). As for the SFS, I’ll never understand how someone could build a stadium so large and yet have such a small capacity.

2 Lack of infrastructure to get to and from sporting events at the pathethic stadiums. As anyone who has ever visited Sydney, let alone tried living there will understand, this point needs no explanation.

Clearly infrastructure and the way the govt does not plan for much in terms of road, transport or new venues is self evident.

It does not help that the SCG trust seems to interfere with every long term planning decision that gets us shot in the foot. For example Parramatta Stadium when built was restricted because of a ” phony ” environmental issue, building Sydney Stadium as a multi-purpose venue (code for not a real rectangular ground), Sydney Council being lobbyed by “guess who” to prevent Redfern from being a full capacity NRL venue and therefore not rival the SFS.

I for one don’t think Sydney ends at South Dowling Street but sporting infrastructure is being decided by wealthy people who have not connection with the paying population. Consider if Sydney FC played out of a Western venue, would they not drag more families there?

Admittedly ANZ Stadium is hard to grasp when 15,0000 – 20,000 show up for games. But the transport, ease of access, convenience leaves the SFS for dead. You would think that rugby league, football, rugby union would get together and lobby to have a boutique stadium at Homebush at 30,000 capacity. This should be enclosed, super modern ……..how hard is this really??

I think it has everything to do with culture as y’all have said. Melbourne has one less code of football (in the regular BIG GAME stakes) and it still gets biggish crowds for the other two codes. And Perth used to be in the ‘Glory days’ But Melbourne’s also the centre of other kinds of culture: and Warnies doin pretty well in a place that has had its ups and downs with him

It’s actually an issue happening in many parts of the world. Seeing as we have heaps of brainpower here, what are we gonna do about it as Mr Mac said? Goodness I am planning on living in Sydney one day after I finish Uni, I’d like to think the issues sort out before I make touchdown there

I think you’ll find there are people who will object to that (people who don’t travel west of Balmain so to speak). I would support a new stadium in the city if it was 5-10 min walk when you get of Central (maybe near Entertainment Centre). SFS is a good 30 min walk and when you get there you are practically in the Eastern Suburbs.

Otherwise make ANZ Stadium rectangular. It is our Olympic Stadium if anybody happened to forget…

Have to disagree with you about Socceroos and Wallabies. I think these teams get well supported in Sydney. Otherwise I can’t argue with what you wrote.

Cherubos makes a very good point. Much easier to watch games at home or at pub. Spiro, for me the SFS is actually a nightmare to get to. Homebush is a lot easier and I’d probably prefer the big games there. Although there is no real perfect place to for a stadium in Sydney I think.

But we should look for positives, and surely Sydney has always been the soul and heart of Australia’s yachting fraternity.

As it happens, the Australian yachting championships are on at this very moment, at the Illawarra YC and on Lake Macquarie…