Stadiums
October 12th 2010 07:08
Here in Dunedin, like every other place in the country, we've just had the local council elections. Several of the people who've been longstanding on the council have gone, including the Mayor.
And one of the reasons, I suspect, is that this crew went ahead and began the building of a stadium without the real support of the community. It's put us in debt as a city, and at this point it's hard to see how we'll ever make any money out of the place.
We don't have the population, and already the local rugby organisation (itself in debt) is struggling get people to come to games. Gone are the days when everyone would turn up on a Saturday afternoon to see local rugby played. Now that it's all gone professional and is broadcast on television, who wants to go out in the cold and watch it?
But even apart from that, it's going to take some very special events to get the stadium up and running and profitable. It's looking increasingly like an ugly white elephant. We can only hope that the Old Boys' Club that seems to have been the the group mostly behind it have got the nous to figure out how to make it pay. They haven't been coming up with any great ideas so far.
In the meantime, you look online with some degree of envy at places where cowboys stadium tickets are available and think, our stadium is never going to be a patch on that. These overseas places can afford to build massive stadiums such as the Georgia Dome (get your Georgia Dome Tickets here!) because they have the population to match the cost.
The Arrowhead is another one of these big places - located in Kansas, which might be why they're advertising arrowhead stadium tickets for Wicked, that offshoot musical based on a couple of the characters out of The Wizard of Oz. Kansas City has a population of 475,830, compared to which our minimalist population of about 130,000 is chickenfeed.
Thanks to the Kiwiblog site for the photo of the Stadium in the process of being built.
And one of the reasons, I suspect, is that this crew went ahead and began the building of a stadium without the real support of the community. It's put us in debt as a city, and at this point it's hard to see how we'll ever make any money out of the place.
But even apart from that, it's going to take some very special events to get the stadium up and running and profitable. It's looking increasingly like an ugly white elephant. We can only hope that the Old Boys' Club that seems to have been the the group mostly behind it have got the nous to figure out how to make it pay. They haven't been coming up with any great ideas so far.
In the meantime, you look online with some degree of envy at places where cowboys stadium tickets are available and think, our stadium is never going to be a patch on that. These overseas places can afford to build massive stadiums such as the Georgia Dome (get your Georgia Dome Tickets here!) because they have the population to match the cost.
The Arrowhead is another one of these big places - located in Kansas, which might be why they're advertising arrowhead stadium tickets for Wicked, that offshoot musical based on a couple of the characters out of The Wizard of Oz. Kansas City has a population of 475,830, compared to which our minimalist population of about 130,000 is chickenfeed.
Thanks to the Kiwiblog site for the photo of the Stadium in the process of being built.
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