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Long regarded as the next expansion site of all Australian football codes, what exactly is the nature of the beast known as the Gold Coast? (Or is it technically just Gold Coast? Does it even have a “the” at the start? We don’t even know that much.)
Driving up from the south one sees an enormous stretch of buildings which, if entirely occupied, would surely comprise the largest city in Australia.
The high rises go on as far as the eye can see. People come from all over the world to see this famed party strip and its beaches, one of which even claims to be Surfers’ Paradise itself.
Long touted as one of the fastest growing and most important centres in Australia, sporting codes all over the country have clambered over each other to get a bite of this mouth-watering pie.
However, within the space of the past few months, the reality of the Gold Coast has become apparent.
Gold Coast Titans, in the NRL, are on the brink of bankruptcy.
For all the big-name signings they have made (and continue to make) they may not even see out their sixth season. If they don’t it would mean they didn’t even last as long as their predecessors, the Gold Coast Seagulls (which, incidentally, was the worst nickname in the history of sport).
Gold Coast United FC, in the A-League, saw Queensland’s richest man put his money behind them, then antagonise the system into punting him from the team he claimed would win every game of their inaugural season.
Gold Coast Suns played their first season in the AFL in 2011, with the likes of Gary Ablett Jnr and million-dollar league recruit Karmichael Hunt in their starting team. They managed to win a grand total of three from 22 games.
(The?) Gold Coast can’t maintain a rugby league team, can’t sustain an A-League team, and require enormous resources from the AFL to prop up an Aussie Rules team which finished the season with the wooden spoon in hand.
Perhaps you think this article is going to suggest ways the Gold Coast can turn it around and become the city the NRL, A-League and AFL need it to be. Sadly, you’re wrong.
The A-League is in the process of watching the ship called Gold Coast United FC sink.
The NRL will allow the Titans to fold but will prop up a fifth club in 25 years (not including the ill-fated Gold Coast Gladiators) to maintain their present TV schedule.
The AFL will keep the Suns afloat as a matter of pride and purely because they can afford to. But when the Suns can scrape themselves off the bottom of the league’s table for a season – to be considered a success – it won’t take long for Andrew Demetriou to start thinking Clive Palmer’s 5000 crowd caps were a good idea.
It’s no coincidence these three Gold Coast teams of different codes have a collective history of less than a decade. Because the Gold Coast is a lost cause.
It’s a city of high rise buildings with no one living in them. Of business people who commute to Brisbane do business. Of raucous Saturday nights on Cavill Avenue with a different crowd of backpackers every weekend.
Sporting administrators think just because the Gold Coast is in the most populous non-capital city in Australia it will succeed.
But Canberra, Geelong and Newcastle are doing better (from a sporting point of view) than this sprawling metropolis. Because they have engaged their respective sports at grassroots level.
On the Gold Coast there is no community, no grassroots level and hence no sustainable national teams.
Sporting teams won’t succeed on the holiday strip because that’s exactly what it is: a holiday strip.
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