Sydney's stadium upgrades: the Good, the Bad and the NSW Premier

The NSW government recently announced massive plans to throw over $1.5 billion dollars at various stadium upgrades around Sydney in an effort to build a stronger sporting infrastructure for what the Premier Mike Baird described as “the greatest city on earth”.

The Premier has his sights set firmly on establishing Sydney as one of the sporting capitals of the world.

“A global city like Sydney needs world class sporting venues and this investment will ensure fans and sporting teams have the facilities they deserve,” Mr Baird said.

The first item on the drawing board is western Sydney’s main colosseum. Priority at this stage is firmly focused on a new 30,000 capacity stadium in Parramatta which will be home to the A-League’s Western Sydney Wanderers and NRL club the Parramatta Eels. The outline sees the current Pirtek stadium being demolished and construction on the new complex to be completed by 2019.

Other items on the agenda include a $200 million indoor stadium near the city and a hi-tech rectangular stadium of up to 55,000 seats at Moore Park that will be the second stadium built. It will be built at the location of the current Allianz Stadium but work isn’t expected to begin until the Parramatta venue is open. This, on top of a few unconfirmed stadium upgrades and possible indoor facilities, make for a new age, revamped sporting culture within Sydney.

These new changes are massive boosts for Sydney’s main three codes in rugby league, union and football.

The Football Federation Australia (FFA) in particular has been clammering for upgrades such as the proposed changes to ANZ for years as the FFA boss David Gallop looks to “turn football into Australia’s number one sport”. The new stadiums in Parramatta and in the city will be a new home base for the two Sydney A-League sides, who will be looking to build a strong platform for their clubs going forward as they try to compete with a predominantly rugby league fan-base.

The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) is in a similar position to the FFA as it vies for support in a rugby league mad city. But with increasingly stronger crowds and overall support within NSW over the past few years due to strong outings from the Waratahs, these new proposals will be another stepping stone for an ever increasing rugby community within Sydney to thrive. The stadium could see a return to the levels of popularity and crowds not seen since the introduction of the Super Rugby competition in 1996.

With a 55,000+ stadium at the disposal of the ARU, the Wallabies and Waratahs can again showcase the strengths of the great sport and who knows, a new Parramatta stadium could see more focus placed in rugby in the western suburbs and rejuvenate the areas proud rugby history.

Possibly in the most need of these new changes is the NRL. With the majority of the competition being played in Sydney every round of every year the National Rugby League has found it’s crowd numbers dropping significantly in years gone by as more fans are being lured away by rival sports, the quality of television coverage, costs of attending the live game (don’t get me started on stadium food prices) and a general disinterest of a stale stadium experience.

NRL Chief Executive Dave Smith believes “there is no doubt having world-class stadia in both the city and western suburbs would encourage more people to games” and with any luck revive the slowly depleting crowd issues.

In saying this though, NRL crowd numbers at Allianz Stadium are already quite low. The new upgrades risk further highlighting small attendance by increasing the capacity of the stadium without the volume of fans increasing which, in turn, will simply make a medium crowd look like a small crowd.

Peaking at just a touch over 20,000 attendance for the Roosters-Storm week one finals game, it can be argued that the NRL simply doesn’t benefit, or need, an upgrade to Allianz stadium. Much like Parramatta though, other teams out of the inner city would gain much more from a project like this. One such venue is the Manly Sea Eagles home turf at Brookvale Oval that has been dying for newer, larger facilities for years now.

Neither Cronulla Sharks or Penrith Panthers have stadia that can hold more than 20,000 despite recording solid crowd numbers over the past five years, especially this season following a rejuvenated Sharks outfit’s push into the finals.

It begs the question if the money from the Baird government is really going to the right place or if it has just been prioritised for the huge one off events that are hosted in the City such as grand final day and State Of Origin.

Premier Mike Baird has not only put his money behind the project but also wants to make sure that Sydney is the real winner in all of this. He’s made demands of the NRL to ensure the new upgrades won’t be going to waste. Sydney, and the new stadiums, must host the NRL grand final each year and at least one State Of Origin game per year for the next 20 years.

This might all look to be rainbows and lollipops but with projects of this size and magnitude there are always going to negatives and disadvantages.

Although the three codes just mentioned have new horizons to look forward to there are more than three sports in Sydney.

Despite Melbourne and Victoria clearly being the tennis capital of Australia, Sydney still plays host to Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tournaments at the Olympic Park complex. However, multiple times in previous years play at the APIA International has been halted and rescheduled due to rain delays or has experienced extreme heat that is hard for crowds to bear. This has led to Tennis Australia (TA) pushing for an enclosed stadium with a retractable roof to counteract this.

Unfortunately for TA, Olympic Park and the APIA International tournament there was no mention in Baird’s plans to accommodate the tennis complex which could further damage the tournament’s, as well as Sydney’s, reputation for hosting world class tennis tournaments.

A surprising omission from the announcements were any major sporting upgrades for the SCG which will no doubt be a huge missed opportunity for NSW cricket who have had next to nothing crowds in the domestic Sheffield Shield competition for a long time.

With only entertainment based work announced for the Moore Park stadium there won’t be any real benefits towards ground and pitch maintenance as well as fan experience to encourage higher fan attendance.

On top of all these single sport benefits, the economic and social advantages that come from large projects are always going to be evident. Hundreds of new jobs will go to construction and trades during the building phases, new employment will be implemented at the completion of the stadiums towards retail and food opportunities, all the way from security guards to cleaners. The new plans will pave way for nearly a thousand new jobs over the next 15 years.

You have to hand it to Mike Baird for his commitment to the NSW sporting industry. As a lover of sport and a man in power he knows where he wants his State’s capital to be and he’ll do what is needed to get there, “We want to be the best city in the world and, as part of that, you need sports facilities, you need cultural facilities.”