Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield) discussions

[WhiteLionFeva]

Yeah, I think they're taking the piss a bit calling Portsea a part of the metropolitan Melbourne area. It's a 110km drive, for ****'s sake!!

The chaps and gals of Portsea usually take the chopper. A mere 15 mins across the bay.

 

[Dylan12]

Lions Springfield-bound by year's end: Swann

THE BRISBANE Lions expect their move to a new training and administration base to be confirmed by season’s end.

Speaking on Thursday, Lions CEO Greg Swann said the club’s move to Springfield, west of Brisbane, was almost complete. With a commitment from the Ipswich City Council and funding from the AFL, Swann said the Lions were waiting on submissions to the Queensland government.

"We’ve got a commitment, we will be going to Springfield," Swann said. "We’ve got a commitment from the council there, we’ve got some submissions in with the state government we hope are being reviewed in the next month. "Hopefully we’ll have an announcement before the end of the season about how it’ll all work."

The new facility will include a 10-15,000-seat boutique stadium, which will host matches for the Lions’ AFLW team. When the move to Springfield initially stalled four years ago, Swann described the chase for a new training and administration base as a "stone in our shoe".

"Sometimes these things take time," he said. "Ultimately it’s about funding because we don’t have spare cash flying around. "We need assistance from councils and governments and at this stage it’s looking really positive."

Standing alongside coach Chris Fagan at the launch of a partnership with the Institute for Urban Indigneous Health’s Deadly Choices Program, Swann said he was delighted with the club’s on-field progress this season, despite winning just three games.

"I said earlier in the season, we’d lost nine games in a row, but it was the happiest club I’d been in. "There was no whinging and bitching and finger-pointing because we knew we were gradually getting better and the results would come. "There’s a real excitement about it and with six games to go, we think we’re really improving and hopefully these next six games set us up to go into next year really looking to make a significant improvement and rise up the ladder."

Swann said any consideration for applying for a priority pick would only come once the season had finished.

 

[Fatcat08]

Worth noting that the land for the Broncos extension came from the State Government not the Brisbane City Council. BCC are historically extremely frugal with their allocation of funds to sports, unlike melbourne councils which seem to throw money and land all over the place for them. If you look at training facilities for sporting teams in brisbane the reds are at ballymore which was provided by the state government, the firebirds were supposed to be at the BCC created state netball centre but were forced to leave due to BCC prioritising commercial interests and will now have their headquarters at the qld govt site QSAC. The roar had to move to Logan to get new facilities. There's a pattern there which basically says if you're a national sporting organisation, then the BCC are quite happy to have brisbane associated with the brand, but don't ask for anything in return, because its not happening.

Its largely due to the fact that the team are associated with Brisbane anyway by name, so what benefit is it for them. In Melb each council is competing against each other for a variety of things, but mainly people, businesses and land value which all equal revenue. BCC just don't have that, so they don't bother. The Brisbane Roar move to Logan, they're still known as the Brisbane Roar. The Brisbane lions move to Springfield/ICC they're still known as the Brisbane Lions and people who come to the games (which are the main revenue boosters for councils) still come to Brisbane. Now in 30-40 years as the population in surrounding areas increase, there may be options for teams to relocate games to other surrounding areas and it may come back to bite them, but as it stands there's little incentive.

 

[WhiteLionFeva]

We could just become the Springfield Lines.

 

[SizeMatters]

Springfield is better than anything we have been offered. Will be absolutely stupid not to at least take them up on it. It's Springfield now. No ifs, buts or maybes. About *ing time too.

 

[MacMum]

Beggars can't be choosers......Springfield will be better than what we have right now.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Beggars can't be choosers......Springfield will be better than what we have right now.

It will be bloody fantastic.

 

[Dalions]

It will be bloody fantastic.

Absolutely!

 

[Skoob]

It was mentioned that in search of options, there was a criteria matrix of 60 items to tick off on. These would have included affordability, ground suitability based on a range of needs, room for expansion, parking etc.
Springfield ticked 49 boxes. The next best, just 30. It wasn't discussed in detail what the full matrix included, nor where Springfield didn't tick boxes but presume being in Brisbane might have been one. Still, absolutely by far ticking the most boxes. Cost is huge and the real alternative was to just go without and potentially go down the gurgler.

 

[jackess]

It will be bloody fantastic.

Yeah a $70mil facility would be great regardless of location

 

[Skoob]

Yeah a $70mil facility would be great regardless of location

It'll be like moving from a heritage listed one bedroom flat to a brand spanking mansion on acreage in terms of space and architecture.

Over the last five years, there have been a number of occasions when the team simply couldn't train due to flooding. A synthetic ground will drain up to 500mm/hour. It simply won't ever be too wet to train on.

 

[Eons]

It'll be like moving from a heritage listed one bedroom flat to a brand spanking mansion on acreage in terms of space and architecture.

Over the last five years, there have been a number of occasions when the team simply couldn't train due to flooding. A synthetic ground will drain up to 500mm/hour. It simply won't ever be too wet to train on.

Will there be an indoor training area like the Bombers setup?

 

[Hollow Knight]

Will there be an indoor training area like the Bombers setup?

In terms of an indoor synthetic oval? Nope.

An outdoor synthetic oval will still meet our needs though, the drainage benefits covered by Skoob above.

 

[Viceregal]

and since we *do* have to play when it is raining there is no reason not to train when it is raining occasionally!

 

[M Malice]

Will there be an indoor training area like the Bombers setup?

Skoob has a better memory than me for what was said last night but IIRC I saw an artists impression of an indoor training facility, how large I don't know. The outdoor all weather synthetic facility was full size though.

 

[Len S]

Worth noting that the land for the Broncos extension came from the State Government not the Brisbane City Council. BCC are historically extremely frugal with their allocation of funds to sports, unlike melbourne councils which seem to throw money and land all over the place for them. If you look at training facilities for sporting teams in brisbane the reds are at ballymore which was provided by the state government, the firebirds were supposed to be at the BCC created state netball centre but were forced to leave due to BCC prioritising commercial interests and will now have their headquarters at the qld govt site QSAC. The roar had to move to Logan to get new facilities. There's a pattern there which basically says if you're a national sporting organisation, then the BCC are quite happy to have brisbane associated with the brand, but don't ask for anything in return, because its not happening.

Its largely due to the fact that the team are associated with Brisbane anyway by name, so what benefit is it for them. In Melb each council is competing against each other for a variety of things, but mainly people, businesses and land value which all equal revenue. BCC just don't have that, so they don't bother. The Brisbane Roar move to Logan, they're still known as the Brisbane Roar. The Brisbane lions move to Springfield/ICC they're still known as the Brisbane Lions and people who come to the games (which are the main revenue boosters for councils) still come to Brisbane. Now in 30-40 years as the population in surrounding areas increase, there may be options for teams to relocate games to other surrounding areas and it may come back to bite them, but as it stands there's little incentive.

Thanks for the local insights, really helpful for us down here.

 

[Skoob]

Will there be an indoor training area like the Bombers setup?

Luckily, once construction is complete, there will be $100 left in the budget, enabling the purchase of 50 x $2 ponchos, for just such an emergency.

 

[WhiteLionFeva]

Just being able to fit all the players in the gym at one time would be great.

 

[Gadzorks]

In terms of an indoor synthetic oval? Nope.

An outdoor synthetic oval will still meet our needs though, the drainage benefits covered by Skoob above.

And our wet season is when it's hot so outdoor in the rain is fine.

 

[pulpdriver]

* it,

it really feels like the light at the end of the tunnel is dissipating. My god, there is light.

 

[bombersfan4000]

Worth noting that the land for the Broncos extension came from the State Government not the Brisbane City Council. BCC are historically extremely frugal with their allocation of funds to sports, unlike melbourne councils which seem to throw money and land all over the place for them. If you look at training facilities for sporting teams in brisbane the reds are at ballymore which was provided by the state government, the firebirds were supposed to be at the BCC created state netball centre but were forced to leave due to BCC prioritising commercial interests and will now have their headquarters at the qld govt site QSAC. The roar had to move to Logan to get new facilities. There's a pattern there which basically says if you're a national sporting organisation, then the BCC are quite happy to have brisbane associated with the brand, but don't ask for anything in return, because its not happening.

Its largely due to the fact that the team are associated with Brisbane anyway by name, so what benefit is it for them. In Melb each council is competing against each other for a variety of things, but mainly people, businesses and land value which all equal revenue. BCC just don't have that, so they don't bother. The Brisbane Roar move to Logan, they're still known as the Brisbane Roar. The Brisbane lions move to Springfield/ICC they're still known as the Brisbane Lions and people who come to the games (which are the main revenue boosters for councils) still come to Brisbane. Now in 30-40 years as the population in surrounding areas increase, there may be options for teams to relocate games to other surrounding areas and it may come back to bite them, but as it stands there's little incentive.

It seem to be anything rugby there is an open cheque book, anything else is a no.

Its not the Melbourne councils. They are pretty tight. It's only until recently the state government stated to open its cheque book for anything sporting out side of the Australian open, most of the old tridational club ground are run down & cricket Victoria doesn't have a venue to play a first class game out side of the mcg. It's the state & federal governments that have the open book for grounds in NSW & Sydney. All you need to do is look at the NRL clubs grounds that the tax payer flipped the bill for mean while the nrl places a leagues club near it and calls the place home

 

[BrizzyBandit]

Not really a "like for like" comparison. Brisbane City Council is the biggest geographical cbd council in Australia. More than 2 times (closer to 3 times) larger than Melbourne. As for the point about how many clubs are in their council region, many more than us I can assure you. Furthermore, we only have 1 AFL team in Brisbane and home base will be outside this area.....go figure.

Dont get caught up on the semantics of council sizes etc..... let me as a long time Melbourne based supporter put things into context.

Dandenong whilst technically apart of the greater melbourne area is a horribly long way out of the city. A really good run is a 40 minutes out of the cbd... a bad run is comfortably over an hour which is very frequent (peak hour most days).

Greater Melbourne is a crazy size and has approx 4 million people in it.... if you guys drive for an hour you're on the gold coast... or half way to Noosa.....

If you really want to compare... I think Springfield drive times/accessability stacks up really well.

 

[dlanod]

An outdoor synthetic oval will still meet our needs though, the drainage benefits covered by Skoob above.

Drainage into the creek running under the site, if my memory's right?

 

[dlanod]

Dont get caught up on the semantics of council sizes etc..... let me as a long time Melbourne based supporter put things into context.

Dandenong whilst technically apart of the greater melbourne area is a horribly long way out of the city. A really good run is a 40 minutes out of the cbd... a bad run is comfortably over an hour which is very frequent (peak hour most days).

Puts my 30 minute afternoon drive of 7.5 km into perspective.

 

[Skoob]

Drainage into the creek running under the site, if my memory's right?

They'll move the creek, but not too far. It will provide the vital pathway for the hovercraft.