This is an article written by Nicholas Gruen, an independent analyst commissioned to do a cost benefit. He’s saying what lots of people have been saying from the beginning - stop bullshitting about the cost when you’re not even counting car parks, infrastructure, any costs outside the building itself. Also a barely veiled reference to hiding costs by opening everything up to old mates, the privatise by stealth route. It’s a good read, not anti stadium at all, just honest and sensible.
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Hobart’s Macquarie Point stadium presents AFL with a harsh political reality – the negotiating table beckons - ABC News
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If only the federal government made a more decent contribution this wouldn’t be an issue. Albo too busy lining the pockets of the NRL and his best mate Peter Vlandy’s instead.
240 million taxpayer bucks to a white elephant created by some dopey regional LNP stooges and Gil? Yeah, must be Albo and his NRL mates holding this disaster back. Cripes
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How is something a white elephant when it hasn’t been built yet? Lol. It’s actually infrastructure in Australia, that Australians will use and is a requirement for the club to be financially viable. It was also the requirement of the licence. Who’s gonna travel interstate to go watch their team play at bellreive, it even gets shocking crowds for the bbl.
But yeah a small 240 mill contribution from the feds and forcing the afl to chip in (literally no other league in the country ever does this for stadiums) when you’re giving $650 mill tax dollars to the NRL for an overseas rugby league team ($310 mill of which simply going to the other 17 nrl clubs and expansion of the code itself in other Pacific countries) isn’t a conflict of interest at all. Especially when albo’s a rugby league super fan and he and peter v’landy’s go out for lunch in Sydney regularly together. I encourage you to take a look at all the dodgey funding to the nrl recently, where they never have to even contribute a cent, unlike the afl and it’s clubs, who are always forced to, even for the most minor and trivial of projects.
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I’m happy for you to present the dodgy NRL stuff, that isn’t the subject of the thread though. I believe it’s been discussed in the Aus Politics thread and the question of soft diplomacy in fraught times was the central plank of that discussion.
The LNP govt in Tassie have tried to force this through and Gutwein, who was chief chump at the time then jumped ship like the other bloke, has come out and said ‘it’s obvious’ that the stadium won’t be built anywhere near the scheduled year. Three years late at best and every one of those years the taxpayers of Tasmania are on the hook for 4.5 million on top of the already massively blown out budget before a pre fab concrete slab has been erected. They’re still banging on about all the concerts and, FMD, ‘conferences’ that will be held there. Now they’re also talking about the ‘opportunities’ for UTAS Launceston and Bellerive given that the team will have to play all their home games between those two grounds for the first few years.
They engaged their own expert and he gave it a resounding FUKK NO, get your ■■■■ together, come up with a real budget, and stop trying to get it done quick and nasty.
I’m all for a Tassie team but this looks like and smells like utter horse shitt.
I don’t mind the soft diplomacy part and the $340 mill going to the actual png team, despite it being excessive. However, the so called security agreement Vlandy’s let slip it is not the case in his press conference, which wouldn’t have gone down well with the government, as their m.p’s were out spruiking there is some security deal to the media. Nobody provided any evidence of this either. I also don’t think png will refuse any offers of cash from China in the future, just because of this nrl team.
Anyhow for me though, it’s the other $310 mill that is disgraceful, as a gift to all the nrl clubs in Aus, whilst also expanding the code intentionally on the Aussie tax payers watch (which isn’t even an Australian sport like our game, so how is that in our national interests?). That’s wrong and only happened due to a significant Sydney centric conflict of interest from the p.m.
With regards to the 4.5 mill, it’s chooks feed for a state government and of course there needs to be some repercussions for not building the stadium, otherwise the afl approve the licence, the devils come into the competition, now all of a sudden government doesn’t wanna build the stadium because it’s political dynamite. Then the afl are stuck in the position of having to withdraw the licence, which they’d never do.
I also think 4.5 mill only covers the revenue losses incurred by the club from not having a new stadium with corporate facilities, food and drink, merchandise, reserved seats, traveling fans and the money all that brings in with a new stadium. I’m actually surprised it’s not higher. That goes to the devils anyway, not the afl.
I agree on gutwein backtracking, that’s why you have a contract in place which they signed, you can’t then change the terms later. The delays have occurred due to all the political back and forth though and the project having to go through a million different processes before being approved.
The one last thing I’ll mention, is 750 mill was always ambitious, however the report has been picked to peices from the guy that runs the famous sports industry site, showing the economist was coming up with some of the most ridiculous proposals to inflate the price, so the real figure sits somewhere in between closer to 1 billion, which should be sourced from private investors anyway.
No idea who you’re talking about but if he’s from a sports industry site you might think he’s a little onside with enlarging the sports industry. 1 billion is ambitious. I mean they weren’t even factoring in underground car parking. It’s been known from the outset that they hadn’t wound in infrastructure. The Libs there are already saying “thanks to Mr. Gruen but we could ask another economist tomorrow and they’d say the opposite” - get the fark out, you asked him to do it and it was exhaustive. They won’t even consider other plans even though they’ve been shown to be far more beneficial and more in keeping with that city’s natural appeal. There’s barely more than half a million people in that state, the hospitals are farked, youth unemployment is rife and if you reckon they should swallow 5 million a year in extra taxes so some fat rich carnts can make a quick killing that’s your fine opinion. I don’t think it is though. There’s better options and they’ve just been flatly ignored. Where is the common good in that?
Tassie government never had a clue what to do with Macquarie Point when the land became available. They wasted a million plus on consultants and whatnot and it would have been a huge sigh of relief when the idea of a football stadium came along and relieved them of any other ideas. A few people are going to make a killing out of all this and the government will make a mess out of it all. I’m a paid up ‘founder member’ but I’ve got a horrible feeling that we’re gonna be embarrassed by the powers that be. You only have to look at the ferry fiasco.
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the costs will blow out and the timeline too for building the stadium. Also expect there to be issues with the roof.
We cant even have a ferry terminal ready and the spirit of Tasmania is in Scotland for the next 2 years paying port fees.
At worst they could be sailing out of Bell bay. But the govt is bereft of ideas.
Most tasmanian I know will keep their existing side, and tassie will be a second side. if we can get support like the basketball side has it will be good. Imagine finals will be sold out and games against big vic clubs will be hard to get a ticket - Pies, Ess, Carlton, but they will likely always be in Hobart.
North tasmanians will get sick of travelling to hobart for the footy. Given its almost as easy to head to Victoria and go to the G. Especially as there will likely be parking concerns early days.
And Hobart fans can be fair weather, picking and choosing who they will watch, e.g sellout v dons one week and 5,000 v north the next week.
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You’re forgetting the nailed on roo supporters in Hobart. Will be 5008 at that game.
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The interesting thing will be if AFL clubs get a bit of a uplift in membership sales due to Tasmanians being eligible for a state based membership that’s ticketed.
I can actually see that happening. like during covid when dons were playing in launceston were people signing up just to get access to tickets first as they were hot property.