As a sports fan, I love a good stadium. As an AFL fan, we’ve enjoyed the ovals and upgrades to facilities that are announced on a regular basis. However, as an Australian taxpayer, I have to ask whether it’s all a bit too much.
In recent times, more than 1.8 billion dollars has been allocated to stadium builds – and yes, much of that comes from the Adelaide and Perth developments. $100 million of it will come from the AFL and various crickeet trusts.
The $1.8 billion rises to $2.5 billion if you factor in the last eight years (which includes a $464 million MCG Northern Stand Redevelopment, though admittedly only $77 million came from the Victorian government). The question we should all be asking is just how State Governments will find the $1.7 billion to build stadiums.
You have to remember that these are the same states complaining they don’t have enough funds, in particular South Australia and Western Australia, who complain about funding shortfalls every time the budget is due.
Apparently, though, they think nothing of spending an easy half billion dollars on professional sports infrastucture.
In Perth, NIB stadium has received approval for an $82 million stadium upgrade, while at the same time the government intends to spend another $700 million on a stadium that will be used maybe 25 times a year for AFL matches.
From a pure economic standpoint, wouldnt that extra $85 million best have been invested in the 60,000 seat stadium that will sell out perhaps twice a year, if only to justify the return on investment over time?
Instead, you have union, A-League, and potentially rugby league playing out of the little 25,000 seat rectangular stadium, cricket playing out of the WACA, and AFL having this massive tailored stadium more or less to itself.
In Adelaide, the economics border on ridiculous. The A-League club will play out of the 15,000 seat Hindmarsh stadium, while two AFL clubs will play out of the new, shiny Adelaide Oval they will share with cricket. Cricket barely utilises the ground to its current capacity, let alone requires the new one.
In Sydney, the SCG has approved a 186 million dollar upgrade – whole stadiums have been built for this recently – in a stadium that is almost never full, while the government is upgrading the showgrounds despite there being an 80,000-seat oval stadium right next door, and an underutilised 36,000 seat stadium across the city.
In Queensland the government has recently built Carrara, which aside from Commonwealth Games use will only be used for 11 AFL matches a year, while across the coast is a rectangular stadium that is also underused by its tenants.
Yes, I get that soccer, league and union are vastly better to watch in rectangular stadia. I just can’t justify it in the face of hospital closures and extensive waiting lists for critical procedures. I can’t justify it when funding for life saving medical treatments is being cut or is non-existent. I known where I’d rather our taxpayer funds go.
People won’t die if they have to watch Australian football at ANZ Stadium, people won’t die if they have to watch football at the new Perth stadium. Then there are other issues. There are 180,000 homeless people in Australia that need help – they won’t be able to sleep on the bright red Carrara terraces. Tens of thousands of people live below the poverty line – they wont be able to afford the food at ANZ stadium anyway. Thousands more are out of work and will not benefit from these stadiums one iota. The refugee issue gets no closer to being solved by building the stadium at Burswood, unless it will house the boat arrivals when they get here.
Where have our governments’ priorities gone when giant edifices which primarily benefit professional sporting organisations that rake in millions per year in profit are put ahead of public health and safety? Surely if we must build stadiums – and I get that sport is an essential part of Australian culture – then the public have a right to expect more bang for their dollar?
It’s not like the average community player will benefit. Most will never set foot on the turf, or do anything other than sit in one of the brightly coloured seats for which they have had to mortgage thir house, and sell their cars in order to buy a pie and a beer in a plastic cup.
Cricket and the AFL share grounds across the country, while rugby league, union and football have all been played on the MCG and Etihad. Not to mention the Gabba, Carrara and the SCG. It can be done, it should be done. Theroetically the more use you get out of a stadium, the cheaper it should be for patrons to enter. Compare AFL entry prices at the MCG with anywhere else in the country for most sports.
Stadiums should be for the consideration of all.
Major Stadium Grants in 2011-12
Skoda Stadium (Sydney Showgrounds) – $20 million
Metricon Stadium (Gold Coast) – $144 million
Sydney Cricket Ground – $186 million
Melbourne Cricket Ground (Southern Stand) – $55 million
Simonds Stadium (Geelong) – $29 million
Adelaide Oval – $570 million
Burswood Stadium (Perth) – $700 million
NIB Stadium (Perth) – $82.5 million
Bellerive OVal (Tas) – $21 million (applied for)
WIN Stadium (NSW) – $29.8 million
Penrith Stadium (NSW) – $5 million
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Total: 1.8 billion
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Adrian
Guest
You have hit the nail on the Head! Brilliant point!
Jaceman
Guest
Lunacy - govts build infrastructure which the codes pay rentals for and maximise the use of the ground and provide lots of jobs and enjoyment.. Health is a Black hole which you cannot adequately cover so your argument is pointless..
Cameron
Guest
How would you like it if you needed to go to the emergency room and the government cared more about stadiums looking good than you dying from something that could have been fixed in a couple of hours, but because the government spent all of it's money on stadiums, couldn't help you live?? What kind of person are you?? I would rather have the best and most medical staff and facilities in the country that has the best and most medical staff and facilities in the world than have the bragging rights of having the best stadium in the country for a few years or the most stadiums in the country.
Cameron
Guest
How would you like it if you needed to go to the emergency room and the government cared more about stadiums looking good than you dying from something that could have been fixed in a couple of hours, but because the government spent all of it's money on stadiums, couldn't help you live?? What kind of person are you?? I would rather have the best and most medical staff and facilities in the country that has the best and most medical staff and facilities in the world than have the bragging rights of having the best stadium in the country for a few years or the most stadiums in the counrty.
Jaceman
Guest
The punchline for NRL is if you are willing to invest some money in a stadium to show you will stick around, then govts may invest with you. This part private/part govt funding model works well elsewhere. However why would govts invest money unilaterally in ground seating if the club goes elsewhere at the drop off a $ rental eg Bulldogs, Bears, Wests, Souths, St george, Manly (remember Central Coast). Dont say they havent got any money because they could easily trade off future years rental income for upfront investment..
NeeDeep
Roar Pro
I agree with Redb's comment - there has to be a balance and yes, hospitals, schools and roads are important, but so is the general morale of the population, which is improved by liesure & entertainment activities. The state government in WA had a new sports arena on the radar probably 5 or 6 years ago and has put that off until now, in favour of a new hospital, improving several educational facilities and other public works, which it deemed (correctly) were more important. The time has now come for the new stadium and it's probably a little overdue - but given what it has been delayed for, I think most WA punters would be OK with the timing. This state pumps a lot of money into the federal coffers and at this time I think we get back about 2.5% of the federal annual road budget, despite being one-third the land mass, 10% of the population (and growing faster than any other state) and rouglhy 60% of the countries exports. We get a little tired of the moaning from over East, when the federal government says it might actually spend a couple of dollars back over here, where they're getting the money from in the first place! JG can go wandering around Sydney & Melbourne, handing out bucket-loads of cash and that's OK - but not in Perth or Adelaide??? I would like to see the GF go on the road at some point in the future, the same as the SuperBowl in the USA (which is allocated out 10 years in advance to cities with NFL teams and sold out years in advance, regardless of who's playing). I don't see any reason why Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth, should miss out on the financial bonanza that accompanies the AUSTRALIAN Football League Grand Final. If this is truly the AFL, then the other cities deserve a chance on a rotating basis to host the event and for that, you will need a stadium with the capacity to do so. You can still have the big show in Melbourne & Sydney a little more often, as they are the bigger population centres at this point - granted. But eventually, Gold Coast, Hobart & maybe even Canberra deserve a chance to stick the hand up and nominate to host the GF, if they've got the facilities to do so. Supporters will travel - even from Melbourne. Not sure about SA, but over here we get a little bit tired of getting funding for "detention" camps, or being talked up about uranium dumps and everything else that the Eastern States doesn't want in it's back yard, but howled down if we're actually going to get something nice - like a new sports arena. Would love to see the next detention centre set-up at Visy Park, Fitzroy Gardens, Toorak or the Lexus Centre.
cos789
Guest
All rectangular grounds in Queensland are run at a profit.
Lachlan
Roar Guru
Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Richmond, St. Kilda and Western Bulldogs will all play home games at Etihad Stadium and MCG. The AFL will own Etihad Stadium by 2020. Western Bulldogs and/or Melbourne play home games Darwin. Richmond play home games out of Cairns. North Melbourne play home games out of Hobart's Bellrieve Oval and Hawthorn play home games out of Launceston. Geelong play most home games out of Simmonds Stadium. West Coast and Fremantle play home games out of Burswood Stadium. Adelaide and Port Adelaide play hoime games at Adelaide Oval. Sydney play home games out of SCG. Greater Western Sydney play home games out of Skoda Stadium and 3 out of Manuka Oval, Canberra. Sydney and Greater Western Sydney play against each other at ANZ Stadium. Brisbane play home games out of the Gabba and Gold Coast out of Metricon Stadium. Love it.
Kirk Lazarus
Guest
This really gets into the whole sports economics area. You may want to contact LaTrobe University sports ecnomist Liam Lenten about this one Wookie. Lenten has written a couple of articles for The Roar on other issues.
stabpass
Guest
Agreed, athough i can see Wookies argument about what apperars to be excessive stadium funding, the SCG ATM is a good example of that. Somewhere in the middle is where most people see it.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
Without the role models though the motivation for kids to play sport decreases. You can't tell me that there would be remotely as many kids swimming if we weren't winning gold medals at Olympic games. Or playing footy if they weren't going to games and seeing the best players perform in front of big crowds. Not much point paying for a pair of boots for a kid that doesn't want to kick a footy. It's pretty easy to argue that the best way to increase junior participation in sport is to increase elite level funding, either for better infrastructure or towards improvement in performance.
Redb
Roar Guru
oh dear... Accounting standards are accounting standards unless you think the AFL has paid off a few top CPAs ;) AFL clubs are non profit they plough everything back into the club to make it competitive and tend to over spend doing so. The salary cap model, income redistribution is a complicated model. In simple terms half the clubs should lose money, half make money based approximately on ladder position (with exceptions). Its no surprise Geelong with the same salary cap expenditure makes a profit whilst Port Adelaide struggles to keep up.
Tony
Guest
And the Melbourne Tennis Centre should never have been built. To hang with the economic benefits from professional sport - let alone encouraging the young to play sport & be healthy!
The_Wookie
Roar Guru
well strictly speaking, the clubs are required to show all income recieved for accounting purposes. If the grant puts them over, then they have for all intents and purposes made a profit. Not that I agree with this either, funding professional sporting teams is worse than funding sports stadiums, and not much worse than using AUSAID to pay for football programs in PNG and South Africa.
stabpass
Guest
In a ideal world we could have both, but yep, boots for all before 50mill for Balcktown sounds fair enough.
The_Wookie
Roar Guru
The Adelaide Festival Centre competes with the governments own Entertainment Centre, and Convention centre - instead of upgrading existing facilities they just dotted the landscape with new ones. Im not a huge fan of government funding of arts either. Take the Marion Swimming Centre for example, the states main aquatic centre at North Adelaide is badlty in need of an upgrade but no we went for the politically expedient option of build a brand new pool centre out in the south, Now we're going to have to fund the original upgrade as well.
Football United
Guest
Stadiums>>>hospitals.
The_Wookie
Roar Guru
The article kind of assumes that we live in an ideal world where governments dont fritter away money. With the political system the way it is theres alsmost certainly no way anything will change with regard to government spending. We can spend million on sport - because its literally a crowd pleaser - but there are many thing the government is prepared to slip through the cracks, and that to me is abhorrent. All Im asking for is a little prioritisation when it comes to finance.
ItsCalledFootball
Roar Guru
The funniest thing for me is how AFL clubs use government funding handouts to count as part of their profits and to show how profitable AFL is. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/afl-clubs-financial-premiership-stakes/story-e6frf9jf-1225815392261
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Maximus, Speaking of lasting for centuries ... Heres a little something John Skelton, poet to Henry VIII, King of England, wrote in his Image of Ipocracy in 1533 O lodre of Ipocrites, Nowe shut vpp your wickettes, And clappe to your clickettes! A! Farewell, kings of crekettes! Oh Lord of Hypocrites' Now shut up your wickets And clap to your clikettes Ah, Farewell, Kings of Crickets http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7919429.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jun/09/england-holland-cricket-match