Sydney needs a Central Stadium at Darling Harbour

oops a third post. yes, I am quickly converting from Euro's. same above, but our dollar is good at the moment, so it brings it back to the pack. I think A euro in 2005 before the euro crisis was worth 2 american dollars? Alianz Arena in Germany cost 350 million to build , and if you look at the price change, its getting up there. I do agree it looks amazing. Typically I think we share more in common with Germany than Brittain in terms of sport. In Germany, look at the article I provided above. Now you know, what I know. Germans like it cheap, they get a cheaper tv deal, and they are MAKING MONEY.....wow... yeah, thats right, unlike other leagues, with smaller revenue, they turn a profit. Probably because they keep costs down in player wages and in spending in clubs. Look at their membership situation, most grounds are always sold out. So look at their stadia - cheap to get into. Also, they do not build silly super stadia......no.....they build stands. Alianz being the exception (which has glitz)....they build stands. In Sydney, I implore you. Build stands, not stadiums, and throw a roof on those stands. There will be nothing like it in this country. And you will make a profit, and it will be cheap. ------->>>> Put it this way::: It will be "Modulated". You build the stands now, in modular style, then build the roof. Later when you have more money, build the restaurants and halls, ect, if you must. If you have the money, build it all at once. This is what Rugby League needs. And it should have a stake in the Stadium too. Eventually I would like to see the ARLC own such a stadium

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/apr/11/bundesliga-premier-league A link to the stadium, a kind of review I believe. This may well be a second tier stadium, but look at the JOY of the people. You could have a Millenium stadium costing you probably 1 billion, or you could build a German efficient stadium. 60k+ for just 200 million dollars. You could go a bit posh with restaurants, ect and make it 300 million or 250 million. It makes sense to me, financially and also atmosphere and viewing wise, it would be a pleasing thing.

Well I have been thinking about this for some time. All the reasons mentioned so far: this is why I suggested a design similar to wesfallen stadion from Germany, and it be based perhaps slightly west of the city (just outside) or at darling harbour if truly convenient. The westfallen has the largest stand in the world, its sight-lines are incredible, it is huge (up to 80k), it is compact, it is DIRT CHEAP, and yet, it is modern, and it has a roof. The cost to build it? A measly 200-300 million dollars. You can alter the seating to make some of it standing, shoving in up to 80k people. The "pov" people of sydney will be able to go then. :p All seated, it will house some 60k or so people, but if it were a large match, you could make standing room in one section, and possibly squeeze in 70k, or 80k. If you cannot build a stadium such as a copy of the millenium stadium, which I agree is superb, go for westefallen. When full, such a novel looking stadium will be truly imposing and atmospheric, and unlike anything else in this country. You will have the new Super Stadium. If you like, you can throw a roof on it like the one over in New Zealand, that is clear. Westfallen has a brooding and dark atmosphere, maybe in Sydney you prefer for it to feel open and "airy?" You could build it, like I said for 200-300 Million. Remember that Robina Stadium on the Gold Coast cold 160 million for 30k seats. Its basically a double of that with steep stands. Google the westfallen stadium - there is not a single bad seat in the entire house. As for placement, Darling Harbour is good, yes. But if you go slightly west and try and re-do the liverpool complex thing, that would work too, its very much central, and near transport enough. When am I ever wrong? I predicted the independent commision, memberships, new financial modeling, test football (4 nations), and stadium rationalization. A westfallenstadion copy (google it) would be incredible to watch league from.

Should build a 10,000 baseball facility by Central

I do not look forward to going out to Homebush for a game of any type. Getting there and getting home especially, and it takes a huge crowd for it to have any atmosphere. But I disagree about not driving there - that's the only way to go. The trick is to arrive and leave from a different direction to avoid the traffic, but don't expect me to give all my secrets away.

They built it there because it looks good on the application to the IOC, rebuilding a derelict part of the city and making it an "attractive" venue is what the IOC like. And there were people living there, the NSW government moved them up to Acacia Ridge in Brisbane and other capital cities. Homebush does look dead, unless there is more than 80, 000 people there, so move all the games to the SFS or SCG and get a new stadium that has atmosphere. Look at Suncorp, it has a capacity of 54,500 yet even with less than 30k sometimes, it produces better atmosphere than some packed stadiums. I loved watching the Wests v Parramatta in round 25 (i think), with over 30k in the SFS, it was great. That atmosphere makes people watch games on TV as well. It will be great when there are sold out stadiums all the time and the problem will be that there is not a stadium large enough for club games.

Mushi, nice quote - I like. You raise some valid points. Please note however that I was not saying this would work - merely getting others to think of how it could work before being dismissive of the notion. Certainly, parking is one enormous component that would need to be factored in. As I'm a somewhat recent addition to the Sydney population I bow to your knoweldge on matters such as heritage listed buildings, disruption to local business etc. These would also need to be considered though I'm not sure I'd agree that taking such things into account would equate to 9 figure budgets. I'm quite certain permissions wouldn't be granted to demolish heritage listed buildings in the first place and as for "thousands of homes and businesses" I'm inclined to think this is somewhat of an exaggeration. Apologies for paraphrasing but I also note that you mention distance from existing stadia and city culture as factors as to w why (a Central Stadium) wouldn't work. The distance betweenthe MCG and Docklands is app. 4km. The distance between Central Station and SFS is app. 3km. I'm notsure of the point you are making here. As for city culture, yes, Melbourne has sport ingrained in its culture. Is it a central (pardon the pun) part of the culture here? Probably not, but that's no reason to say that it couldn't be. Certainly most sydneysiders I speak with are very passionate about sport and the rivalry between VIC and NSW would also support this. As for Docklands having little infrastructure and thus having the opportunity to mould this around the stadium, I acknowledge that yes, this was advantageous. I still don't see though how for the proposed Central Stadium this would be disadvantageous. There is great proximity to restaurants, pubs, bars and most importantly public transport. Yes Etihad had a purpose built car park underneath it however this didn't always mean that it was full. Back in the day it was exceptionallu difficult to access (traffic) and expensive, The beauty of its proximity to Southern Cross Station is that it encourages people to use the public transport on offer. And Central (like SCS) is a major transport hub that provides access to most lines. Ok, so yes, there may be disruption and dissent amongst local business. I'm not sure whether that prevents the stadium from going ahead. There is generally opposition to most things being built - Docklands is a perfect example. Anyway all of this is pie in the sky. For me, I'd probably prefer, as others have suggested, an upgrading of capacity and facilities at SFS. As well as a light rail network supporting transport to and from the venue. This would obviously be the more economically viable option. I just don't think that the concept of the Central Stadium should be dismissed without first looking at if it could work. Cheers

And I’m reminded of Lloyd Bentsen’s quote [paraphrased for Dr King] “Mad Mex, I served with Dr King, I knew Dr King, Dr King was a friend of mine, you sir are no Dr King…and frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you chose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well taken” You gave no reasons why it would work in Sydney – only why it did work in Melbourne and here is one big difference (and there are many others such as distance of existing stadia to the proposed new ground and city culture): “Docklands itself held very little infrastructure back then in terms of bars, restaurants etc.” That is actually what makes it viable to build a new Greenfield stadium, very few businesses and residents to displace, no infrastructure to disrupt or remove. Yes you need to extend infrastructure to it but that approach, more often than not, cost less than the disruption and adjustment of existing infrastructure. Here we are talking about an area with extremely high population density in the centre of Sydney. In constructing the stadium and the necessary parking and clearance from neighbouring buildings you would need to demolish a slew of residential and commercial buildings – some of which I believe (but haven’t confirmed) are heritage listed mind you. Also you would need to demolish park land which is at this very moment being redeveloped for the local residents. So lets say somehow you do get clearance to demolish heritage listed buildings and displace thousands of homes and businesses and compensate the owners (so you are probably 9 figures in the budget before you put your first piece of steel into the earth) you are now struck with the problem that you need to build a very large structure over the top of Sydney most critical piece of transport infrastructure. So now you need to figure out a way not only to build this thing but build it in a manner which doesn’t destroy the entire Sydney economy. Whilst I don’t think it is impossible it is surely going to be far more expensive and time consuming to build a stadium where you don’t have unfettered access to the site and where you some how do not disrupt the very ground you are working on top of. So you have a stadium which will be far more expensive to build, on land that will be far more expensive to clear, that will meet strict opposition from the large number of local residents and businesses. To be placed in a city where the last large stadium built was a commercial disaster because there were insufficient large draw card events to sustain it (despite it being substantially cheaper).

It would be about 4-5000 seats too small for the super rugby on a bad year.

Bingo Melbourne's the freak of nature here. No point competing with an obvious drug-cheat ;) And don't forget the trams Timmuh, without those trams Melbourne might be as messy as Sydney to get around in, what with the criss-crossing Met rail service and the highly unreliable Siemens machines...

Or we can all watch the game on T.V. I'm sick to death of people who believe sport has to be a great event for you to take pleasure in it. I mean clearly the majority of Sydneysiders anyway beg to differ on this, with their 9, 7 and 10 game-day footy fixes. Sport is already too expensive these days, by creating a game-experience sport will stop being a thing for the everyman and start being about the upper crusts of society. And don't give me tripe about the everyday Australian bloke/lass is now as shallow as the marketing execs (don't) give us credit for being.

Hey now the confessions come. Need we cut your Credit cards up for you or have you got that covered already ;) Don't agree with the world-class tag tho. I like the design of the place, during Origin particularly (of course Wall & Bees games too) the atmosphere actually feeds off the design and vice versa IMO. However I wouldn't categorise it World-class. And I implore thee Chig to please not give MC and Pip and RedB particularly more ammo to keep this stupid Sydney-Melbourne rivalry thing anymore air. I should add that while my land of birth has a similar rivalry between the Land of Auks and Red and Black Swandris, I equally dislike this smaller city tries to get even with stupid results sydnrome.

But MC how would you know what females want/let alone what they're thinking? There's been a gender imbalance in the rhetoric on this website for too long and your comments here are not helping. And ground rationalisation has made every game at the G just like every other frickin day at the G! Note: I do know you are married (allegedly to a Kiwi, so I've heard) so maybe you do know something about women and their desires as customers. But please remember Aussie rules actually appeals to the Women's sensibilities in that it's all about making a connection between the smaller inter-connected picture, creating a web-like big picture. RL is more of a boys' own domain with bashing and crashing and the occasional dummy spit... :D

Was that an endorsement Brett? No way are the Manly-Wests derbies going to be taken away from Brookvale/Leichhardt...providing me and my friends have anything to say about it. Also when the CC bears get reacquainted with their old bunnyrace competitors upon re-entry, there will not be any Collingwood v Carlton here my friend.

No it isn't!!! Codewars are the lifeblood of this here website *cough cough* :D I like the idea, problem is I don't read 200 plus comments in an article expecting there to be no concrete measures of my time being used wisely. Also the parallels with Melbourne is a bit rich as Melbourne has proven that it supports big sports events (whioe neglecting it's less mainstream codes of course) Also Chig just so we're clear the Codewars are not actually about sport, they're actually the tip of the Anti-Sydney and consequent Anti-Melbourne rhetoric which was given rise to by the NSW Govt unwillingness to truly punish those rebel Freesettlers from settling! Y'see they're about as effective now as they always were...:)

Build the light rail down Anzac Parade past the SFS, from cntral, running it past NSW and into the La perouse area. That'll fix the SFS travel issue. They've been talking about that ever since they ripped the tram tracks up I think ...

Also must take issue with the call that the SCG's heritage is only 'almost the equal' of any in the nation. I personnally wouldn't split the MCG and the SCG, both have 150+ years of history with countless unforgetable moments, milestones and personalities. If anything, I would think the preservation of the member's and ladies stands at the SCG would actually put it ahead in the heritage stakes

Good point on the trouble with the location, for all their beauty Sydney's waterways are most unhelpful when it comes to transport especially near the city. As someone else pointed out Homebush was selected because there it was a convenient big area of mostly empty space. It also had the favourable point of being almost the exact geographic and demographic centre of the greater sydney area. Of course Sydney covers a huge area (according to Wikipedia about 50% bigger than Melbourne) so wherever you put something there's always going to be some people for whom it is a long way away. If you live in the east or far south of the city, you're going to find Homebush annoying. Of course if you live anywhere but the east or inner west you're going to find moore park annoying. The same argument could be deployed for any site you mention

I'm reminded of Martin Luther King reading this article. He famously said "peope see things as they are and ask why. I see things and ask why not?". I'm seeing a lot of comments here that are pointing out as to why the central stadium idea won't work. Not seeing much on how it could work. Let me tell you a story. 10-15 years ago suburban AFL clubs were struggling. The Victorian Govt was crippled and the MCG was the only big stadium in town. The AFL lobbied private investment and the Docklands Stadium (Colonial as it was back then) was built. And guess what? There was outrage from clubs, outrage from fans and even outrage from players (at the rock hard surface). Essentially fans of suburban grounds such as Moorabbin, Whitten Oval, Princess Park, Windy Hill et al, were furious tha their homegrounds were declared unviable and future home games would be played at Colonial. The incentive for clubs to go there was that back then they were unable to turn a profit at their traditional home ground. Upkeep and outdated facilities were criping clubs. Docklands itself held very little infrastructure back then in terms of bars, restaurants etc. Despite all of this adverse publicity, the first game played at Colonial (Essendon v St Kilda - from memory) attracted in excess of 50k (very near then capacity). Over the years Teslstra Dome and now Etihad Stadium has thrived. Yes there has been contentious issues (rock hard surface and some clubs have stillstruggled to break even - though this has been largely rectified with a new recent agreement between the stadium and the tenant clubs) however fans have unanimously voted with their feet. Bars, restaurants, office buildings, residential buildings now all liet the precinct. Perhaps the success of it all though can be attributed to one factor. Its proximity to Southen Cross station. Fans commute weekly from up to two to three (sometimes more) hours away to make the trek into see their team play. And they can make a day of it because of the surrounding entertainment. Now people go on and on about Homebush and its proposed redevelopment. What in God's name is a roof going to offer. The weather in Sydney is pretty damn better than Melbourne (as a Victorian residing in Syd I can attest to this). Is it for atmosphere? Well, it aint going to help if you only have 20k in the ground. And if its 50-60k plus, the atmosphere is good anyway. Homebush really reminds me of Waverly, a ground that was trumpeted as the future sporting home of Melbourne, located in the fast growing south eastern suburbs. A rail line was to be built and it was going to be the bees knees. Today Waverly is a residential housing complex, with no rail line and also training ground for Hawthorn. Largely, its unrelevant in the sporting landscape of Melbourne. Now I am not proposing Homebush will go the way of the old VFL park, however I am struck at how this government is attempting to make it relevant. It is purely (the refurb) a means to potentually hosting the World Cup final. Well homebush also hosted the Olympics and look at the successful growth of the stadium since then (note my sarcasm). With rgards to SFS, yes you could refurb, but what about transport? It, as others have mentioned, is a nightmare to get to. The optuions are to buils some form of rail network that caters for this or alternatively, explore the potential that a stadium at Central could offer. Infrastructure. Tick. Transport. Tick. Bars. Tick. Restaurants. Tick. Remember, people thought Doclands wouldn't work. Perhaps it aint as silly as it sounds?

Sydney doesn't need any new stadium. In fact the SCG is perfect for the crowds cricket and AFL get. If there is money to spend ANZ should be upgraded to 90,000 capacity with supporters closer to the action. Why another white elephant when most NRL clubs don't get near SFS crowds anyway.