A lot of the suggestions earlier for cheap stadiums had no cover at all. One of the worst things you can do is be watching football on a hot day with the sun in your eyes. No shade is a bad idea for A-league. Id rather be rained on that that. Which would also be a heavy possibility. If we did hypothetically have the money, rather than building new stadiums, why not try to purchase already made ones? Another question is, if a club owns their own stadium, how do they cover maintenance costs etc? Would it become a burden? The FFA should be continuously and constantly lobbying stadiums for better deals. It would be ridiculous if clubs folded due to money issues when they were unable to get a better stadium deal from publicly owned stadiums.

we've already taken a step in the right direction with aami park which has a capacity of 30,050 and can be expanded

Id imagine there would be massive insurance fees, council rates, electricity water etc cost, cost of hiring a full time ground staff, cost of hiring security etc. I think it would be great, but i think its something we dont really know the true facts about. Are stadiums financial information publicly listed?

I originally thought this development was going to replace Olympic Park for a Collingwood training facility but now i think it's been called off.

Apparently SFC are locked into the SFS for another 6 years, so this conversation is academic. However,if Sydney got to average 20K it would make it easy to stay at Moore Park. In Sydney's case the focus should be not on reducing the size of the stadium but rather looking to fill it. Getting 10K in a 4 million city is inexcusable, and heads ought to roll for that.

Perception in the market place is that SFC is an "Eastern Suburbs" team, so a concerted effort must be made to engage the St George, North and Inner West areas.

Not dragging the discussion off topic, just making the point that in a city the size of Sydney before shrinking the stadium we need to think of growing the crowd.

In the case of West Sydney whenever they come on board (and they will) IMO Parramatta Stadium is the way to go. The only problem is parking, but that doesn't seem to deter the leagueies. The size of the market warrants the 25-30K capacity stadium that Parra is, and IMO the stadium size is about right.

Can it be expanded?

Not in it's current form.

Although it was built with foundations strong enough to hold a 45,000 seat stadium, the "bubble roof" will have to be disassembled, the stadium expanded then a new roof put on again because the current bubble roof is too small to fit 45,000 seats. All this will cost more than building a completely new 45,000 seat stadium! Daniel Grollo is a smart man!! lol

Although it was built with foundations strong enough to hold a 45,000 seat stadium, the "bubble roof" will have to be disassembled, the stadium expanded then a new roof put on again because the current bubble roof is too small to fit 45,000 seats. All this will cost more than building a completely new 45,000 seat stadium! Daniel Grollo is a smart man!! lol

Blame the architects, not the builder.

Well Hindmarsh is perfect and I would rather them spend the money to find ways if possible to fill in the corners and maybe make that gateway to the western suburbs and big entertainment complex considering we have the entertainment centre pretty much next door than to build a new retangular based stadium.

besides with this whole Adelaide oval redevelopment no way the government is going to fork out more money to build a new rectangular stadium. We have to find ways to upgrade and renovate hindmarsh again.

Im also interested to see whether the New York Cosmos will be the 20th MLS team and the cost of building a stadium in the New York City area.

Expanding Hindmarsh is quite a difficult exercise and it is in the wrong location to harness the full potential of the market. At the very least they should put a roof on all the stands but in my view this would be a waste of money. A 20-25,000 seat rectangular stadium in a central location is required. I do not know how a Government can justify spending all of its money on a venue effectively for AFL with a small extra benefit to cricket and lock out any expansion of other sporting facilities for 50 years but that is what they proposed to legislate to do. It is criminal.

Expanding Hindmarsh is quite a difficult exercise and it is in the wrong location to harness the full potential of the market. At the very least they should put a roof on all the stands but in my view this would be a waste of money. A 20-25,000 seat rectangular stadium in a central location is required. I do not know how a Government can justify spending all of its money on a venue effectively for AFL with a small extra benefit to cricket and lock out any expansion of other sporting facilities for 50 years but that is what they proposed to legislate to do. It is criminal.

wrong location? how so?

World's best practice is to build stadiums as close as possible to the city centre's cafes and restaurants and tourist venues and with a direct link to or at the transport hub for the city. Spending multipliers as high as 2.5 occur in these sorts of locations when compared to more remote locations. This increase in economic benefit is one of the drivers for the Government moving AFL from AAMI Stadium to Adelaide Oval and although Hindmarsh is not as remote as AAMI the argument still stands. There would be bigger crowds and an increase in economic benefit above that generated by a similar capacity stadium where it is now.