EXCLUSIVE: AFL in push for new, third stadium
Charles Happell
Written on Tuesday, 19 March 2013 14:00
The AFL is seriously examining plans to redevelop either the Punt Rd Oval or Princes Park into a boutique, 25,000-seat stadium - to help ease the financial burden on smaller Victorian clubs hobbled by onerous Etihad Stadium deals.
Already, the league has had preliminary plans drawn up as part of a feasibility study into both the Richmond and Carlton precincts.
In the Punt Rd plans, a footbridge would be built directly from Richmond train station over Brunton Avenue and Punt Rd to the ground. The attractiveness of the ground is its proximity to public transport and ease of parking at the MCG - where the AFL would not schedule clashing fixtures.
The Princes Park option would be less expensive because there is already capacity for 15,000 at the ground. It suffers, though, from lack of public transport access, apart from tram routes, and easy parking.
North Melbourne's Arden St ground has also been floated as an option but is even more remote, in terms of public transport and other infrastructure, than Princes Park.
Either way, the AFL sees the third-ground option as a panacea for many of its problems and is pushing hard to get a deal done.
Having been frustrated in its attempts to buy back Etihad Stadium from its owners, and continually held back by the financial problems of its smaller Victorian clubs such as the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne, the league has taken the dramatic step of exploring this proposal to help redistribute some of its gate-takings revenue.
At the moment, tenant clubs at Etihad Stadium - including St Kilda, the Bulldogs and North - need to draw crowds upwards of 20,000 to make any money at all on home matches, and upwards of 30,000 to draw any meaningful revenue. Occasionally, when an interstate club such as Gold Coast or Port Adelaide comes to town and plays in front of 10,000 or 12,000, the tenant clubs have to write the stadium owners a cheque.
The introduction of GWS and Gold Coast to the competition brings to eight the number of non-Victorian clubs, increasing the likelihood of these small attendances.
Any redevelopment of Punt Rd or Princes Park would cost between $100 million and $150 million and the finished product, like AAMI Park, would be an all-seater, all mod-cons stadium, primarily designed to cater for smaller and medium-sized Victorian clubs playing non-Victorian opposition.
The proposal was brought up at a club CEOs' conference in January and is sure to get another airing at the CEOs' and presidents' meeting tomorrow, at which the contentious subject of equalisation funding will be addressed as part of the ongoing - and increasingly fraught - rich-v-poor debate among clubs.
It is believed the Richmond board has not yet met to formally discuss the plan, but would set up a working party as soon as practicable.
One senior Richmond official said: ''This idea of a boutique stadium will become a hot topic this year, a big ticket item for the AFL. It will help solve many of the issues facing the competition because the league would own the stadium''.
The one drawback to the Punt Rd plan is the recent construction of the ME Bank Centre - home of Richmond's training and administration offices, as well as an Indigenous education centre - on the western side of the ground, and how that would fit into any redevelopment.
AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said yesterday the league was having difficulty in persuading Etihad's owner, Melbourne Stadiums Ltd, to sell the stadium ahead of the official handover date of March 8, 2025, when the AFL takes ownership of the Docklands' site.
If the league was able to broker such a deal - and it has been reported Melbourne Stadiums Ltd is asking for $250 million for the remaining 12 years of the Etihad contract - then the need for the third stadium would become redundant.
An AFL spokesman tonight said the league had no comment to make on the matter.
http://www.backpagelead.com.au/afl/8860-exclusive-afl-in-push-for-new-third-stadium
