It’s also the importance to the economy.
If you can bring a big sports event to the city, it will generate a lot revenue via tourism than a new art show or gallery will.
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Arts isn’t just a gallery or an art show. We’re talking about music, theatre, movies, television, festivals. More people are involved in all those forms of entertainment than watch sport.
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True, but stadiums also get used for big music concerts too.
The Sydney Football Stadium was poorly designed and had problems from the start. Some of the problems were fixed, but it was still an uninviting venue I think and it needed a complete overhaul rather than demolition. Architect Philip Cox back in 1988:
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And it is - what seems to be lost here is that the money that is being spent on the stadia is thanks to the poor asset recycling policy the NSW Coalition has - we shouldnt fund hospitals/schools/PT from one off injections of money (where its come from is a different story, for a different time) - we should be aiming to have continual, consistent streams of money for those areas.
Now you’re conflating running infrastructure with running a service (which Infrastructure is an important component of) - its all well and good to build shiny new hospitals, but you’ve got to have the services to run them. Service delivery needs constant funding, so I wont repeat my first response in this post.
Definitely true at ANZ, the work needed at Allianz was fairly significant.
“The arts” (which I’ll use wankerishly, to cover all artistic pursuits) attracts as much money as a lot of sport does - the difference is that (particularly in Australia), its not given as much coverage so it’s played down, its also a lot more dispersed across the community then professional sports is.
What has been lost in the great Stadium debate is the role of the SCG Trust - they have let the stadium decay to this point for 30 years in order to improve the SCG. Then when the matter of stadium improvements was first broached, the Trust lobbied the Government to take over operation of Stadium Australia, despite piloting a sinking ship
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it - the SCG Trust is a politically-driven, historical anachronism that has had its time and needs to be replaced with a Government agency (Venues NSW) that is better placed to run the SCG/SFS as the assets they are
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Agreed. If it is state owned and/or funded, it should be controlled under the one, politically neutral umbrella. But to be honest, I can’t see that happening, especially if Parrot and friends have their way.
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Speaking of stadiums being upgraded:
Having been to the Sydney International a year or so ago, and going tomorrow if the rain holds off, a roof is a good idea.
But turning it into a multi-sport arena, no. Who are they going to get in there? They’ve said netball, but really, they’ve got the State Sports Centre for that. Kings won’t be moving there, I believe Qudos Bank Arena’s owners still have a stake and are a anchor tenant.
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NSW’s issue for me is that there’s just not the use justification for funding as many venues as they do. They’ve invested heavily in giving most NRL teams a local suburban home ground, but to me that makes me think they only need one centrepiece stadium - a rectangular ANZ - which would be totally sufficient for major events and where multiple teams need to share a ground.
A 25-30k seater venue, on par with the new Parramatta ground - would be far more appropriate for the scale of events that would actually be played there.
Scaling it down could then mean they could spend some of the extra money on making the transport links to the ground better - I would suggest a tram but that’s a bit beyond the current government.
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Some of the teams can be merged or moved, but no, that would piss a lot of people off.
St George and Cronulla should’ve merged, and the Steelers left alone with some assistance - I know in 1999 they were broke but seriously, the South Coast and 'Gong should have been left as a stand-alone area. Now Cronulla should just be told to GFTO to Perth. One more f**k up by the Eels or Manly and they can be shifted too.
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The reasons why most Sydney-based NRL teams have a local suburban home ground are pretty obvious: Nostalgia and because fans of at least five teams would most likely whinge and whine about having to travel to Parramatta, Homebush or Moore Park! 
Still stupid though. Obviously this will NEVER happen (or at the very least, is very highly unlikely to happen anytime soon) but the NRL would have plenty of room to enter most if not all the markets they’ve long expressed a desire of expanding into if the number of Sydney based teams was reduced from the current nine to just four or five.
Yep, I agree. The Illawarra & South Coast should still have their own team.
As sad as this sounds, the idea of moving the Sea Eagles and/or Sharks obviously isn’t going to get off the ground for as long as their respective local areas have their current idiots federal MPs.
Unless they somehow miraculously recover sometime during the next few years, it wouldn’t overly bother me if the Parramatta Eels were moved somewhere else though!
I don’t really have an opinion on these Sydney stadium rebuilds, although since hearing about it to me it sounds like they assumed that they could just cut and paste a popular decision made by the former WA Liberal Government and assuming it would work in NSW, without taking into account local context that made the decision to build a new stadium so popular in WA (The state not having a stadium of international standard, existing stadiums falling apart and apart from some minor upgrades untouched in about 40 years, existing stadiums not suited to an upgrade for a number of reasons).
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Same goes for SA, Adelaide Oval renovation happened due to Port Adelaide wanting to move to the city to stay alive, Crows followed. The want for a city stadium was there for SA as AAMI Stadium was just too far out from the city.
If anyone thinks they are traveling to Homebush to watch the NRL they are wrong. It’s called Sydney Olympic Park and has been called that since before the Sydney Olympics. It is a pity that the RAS initially promoted the Royal Easter Show as being at Homebush, as the old abattoirs were indeed in Homebush, as the name has stuck despite it being wrong for almost twenty years.
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Wash your mouth out!
This speculation has been going on for 30 years, and as far as I’m concerned the Sharks will be in the Shire for at least 30 more!!!
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Yeah…maybe only in the NSW Cup. Like Newtown…
Unless John Morris can perform miracles. Wouldn’t be the first time someone from Scone saved rugby league. 
I remember when this happened in the AFL about 25 or so years ago when the AFL started the process of building docklands stadium.
Initially there was a ton of backlash about it - everyone loves the suburban grounds and going to games there, but the facilities honestly were woeful at most of them. Most had wooden benches, extremely basic toilets and the food selection was pretty woeful.
Even getting to some grounds were pains in the arse - they never bothered to extend the train to waverly (as the initial plan was) so you’d train it than get a shuttle bus, and others relied on tram connections.
When they opened Docklands it was a revelation for the fans and the teams. The fans had comfortable seating, great sight lines, good facilities and excellent transport links - not forgetting a roof. Due to the great facilities at docklands (along with the 2006 comm games) it caused the MCG to pick up there act and make the experience better as well.
the teams liked it because even though they kept the suburban grounds they didn’t have to spend as much on maintenance and it was good for the community as these grounds became more available for public use.
All in all, consolidating grounds in the AFL, although troublesome at the time worked out for all involved
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There were moves after the Super League era to rationalise the number of venues in Sydney, but a number of the teams won out - funding for suburban grounds has always been patchy and limited in scope which has resulted in ground like Brookvale being one of the worst in the competition.
What the NRL should have done is what the AFL did with Docklands and rationalise home grounds, but unlike the AFL the NRL never wee willing to put up their own cash, relying on state and local government to be the bank
The rationale behind a ~40k stadium at Moore Park is to be attractive for international events which require stadia of that size. It also offers flexibility for multiple larger events to be held in the city over a weekend
It was never going to be sustainable longer term - its sad (particularly as a former Steelers fan), but a reality.
AAMI Stadium was also a dump
Officially, it was Homebush Bay until 2009 - prior to that it was just a colloquial place name, no different to Kings Cross
#sharks2perth
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The biggest issue with moving Cronulla is I still believe they own their ground and the surrounding land. No other club could boast this. If they were in that much trouble they’d probably sell their ground first and take out a lease first.
As for rationalisation, the fact the Macquarie A-League bid got up means Campbelltown will probably be upgraded for the Tigers to keep playing there. Taking Penrith out of Penrith isn’t a great idea either (unless you want to change their name to West Sydney Panthers or something), that would be like making Geelong play 11 home games in Melbourne. Even making Manly leave the North Shore would be a massive free kick for the World Game and Rugby Union (3 of Sydney’s club teams, who are more popular than the Waratahs are based there). It’s not like South Sydney leaving southern Sydney given the number of clubs around to leave a presence in the area.
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People sitting on their arses in stadiums or watching sport on TV is most certainly NOT promoting physically activity in any way, shape or form.
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Lmao. Way to miss the point.