I fully agree. I would add that, given the obscene salaries paid to players and the size of revenues from TV rights, the clubs can well afford to dig deeper into their own pockets.

An interesting article.

The long road takes us to a misspent taxpayer dollar.
But I think his conclusion should travel down a longer road of investigation, with a question of who derived the most benefit from the wasted expenditure.

The sportsman as Icon, its adherents and beneficiaries, gives a clue to the answer.

Given that a taxpayer dollar spent, should derive the most benefit to the majority; one could easily conclude at a glance, weekend sports at the local level, would win hands down on numbers, then why shouldn’t the dollar fall on local sporting arenas? But alas!

The major driver of elite level sport is the media. The media, elite sport and sponsorship are joined at the hip.
Sport is in the most part Native in the mind of the fan, and it’s the fans who are in major proportions, sitting in front of television sets.
Each Native tribe “needs” its own Icon, a stadium!

The conclusion in view of the facts posed in this article, can only be drawn that the sense in the apparent waste of taxpayer money, can only point to greasing the palm of sponsors and media interests. Buying votes. How much is a vote worth?

Obviously there are no votes in building social housing for the ever increasing homeless populations for example, which are screaming out fir taxpayer dollars missing in action.

Dan

We need to build dams, not sporting facilities.

Crowds are the result of prices/transport options rather than new stadiums. Even more so when all the in house refreshments/food cost an arm and a leg. If the rip off merchants stay then the crowds stay away!

Politicians live in a world of privilege, have no real idea how the battlers manage, cost of living rising faster than wages, energy prices going through the roof while those who could do something to help, i.e., pollies sit on their hands!

We shouldn't have to pay international prices for our domestic energy products. Be it locally mined coal, oil, gas! But rather the price to us should reflect the actual cost of production! When it doesn't the numbers in stadiums reflect the unaffordability of energy transport/housing just to mention the most obvious!

We need new blood in our parliaments and those need to have experienced struggle street and not be in the pockets of international/foreign investors? Were this not true what we pay ourselves for our own mined by us, minerals, would only reflect the actual cost of production!

One of the tools of the pollies is to introduce MSR thorium and 1 cent PKWH prices. That ensured by retaining this new energy product in public hands, or in local competing for your dollar, co-ops! Then export that carbon-free energy as a huge surplus to become a real energy super power. For returns unmatched by coal! Where volume massively outstrips margins! Always has, always will!

Not too far ahead in time, we will not be able to give coal away, need to be transitioning to tomorrow's dispatchable, base load alternative while we can!

MSR thorium will serve us for 100 years while solar voltaic needs to be replaced every 25 years at significantly higher prices that reflect the passage of time! We can build the reactors here/lease them to our energy customers/sell locally mined thorium!

Even then, all other energy products will cost them significantly more!

Therefore, not even in the same ball park, renewables, are massively penny wise pound foolish!
Alan B.

Has no one noticed that it is the large construction contractors, & their fully unionised work force that gain most by the construction of stadiums, rather than sports players or fans. I guess the construction leads to some large donations from construction companies, & keeps the unions happy.

I suppose that the political parties gain a few votes from fans, but I doubt it is anywhere near as many as they hope.

One of the few sporting venues which repays the tax, or rate payers money spent on them is Mount Panorama race circuit. Not only do race meetings bring huge crowds, but many detour to Bathurst just to drive around the circuit. I'll bet there are not many going to Sydney, or Townsville to see the football stadiums.

So these things are mostly payola generators & not much else.

Do it once and do it right as typified in Melb., M.C.G which has stood the test of time! If memory serves it was built with unionized labour! It's not unionized work that is the problem just politicians seeking to buy votes from a sports loving public! And the cost of everything else meaning, families need to prioritize their incomes! And based on need rather than unaffordable sport!
Alan B.

Might be good places to build a tent cities for all the homeless people.

Thanks Chris Lewis for the article.