Stadiums Queensland row: Gold Coast is the home of broken sporting franchises
Bears, Giants, Cougars, Seagulls, Chargers and United have all been buried along the idyllic sandy stretch.
Weighed down by debt and left to sink by fickle fans whose only allegiance was to success, each team’s dreams of flourishing in Queensland’s second biggest city turned to ash.
In true Gold Coast style, some of these teams began with white-shoed sugar daddies.
Corporate crook Christopher Skase dropped $30 million playing the “Bad News Bears” out of Carrara Stadium.
Skase used to fly in on a helicopter for game day before he shot off to Spain and left an unpaid bill for the venue’s lights.
Clive Palmer went from football philanthropist to round ball pariah in just a few short years with Gold Coast United.
He wanted to cap crowds to avoid Government fees at Robina Stadium and the team was eventually kicked out of the A-League.
Yet the sports codes have all been willing to step over the corpses of others for a slice of the Gold Coast, convinced their product would bring the people and turn a profit.
The Suns (AFL) and Titans (NRL) are now making the same noises as other Gold Coast sporting teams in their death throes.
They’re both bemoaning the cost of the fees applied by the Government’s venue manager, Stadiums Queensland, while their results and crowds have been on a downward trajectory.
The Suns crowd at Metricon Stadium last year. Picture: Jerad Williams
The Suns say they signed a dud deal at Carrara, now known as Metricon Stadium, that costs them $1 million annually and a further $700,000 in maintenance.
The Titans haven’t signed a deal to play at Robina, now known as Cbus Stadium, since 2016 and say they’re better off paying $110,000 per game and taking matches elsewhere.
Cut the fees, they say, and we’ll survive and thrive.
Yet Stadiums Queensland isn’t a charity.
And taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to be donors to sporting failures.
SQ is far from the cash cow like critics have claimed.
It lost close to $30 million last year as venue hiring revenue shrunk by almost 30 per cent.
Profit is not the only goal when governments build stadiums, as the venues deliver broader economic and social dividends.
However, there needs to be a degree of fiscal discipline so they don’t suck cash away from causes more needy than professional sport.
Let’s not forget both the Suns and Titans started with promises which were much alike.
If taxpayers covered a fat proportion of their stadium costs the crowds would come and the bill would be repaid.
Steven Wardill, State Affairs Editor at The Courier-Mail.
And given the increasingly transactional nature of voters, these codes know politicians see sports stadiums as a way of attracting support.
The State Government tipped more than $70 million into Metricon’s upgrade for the Suns.
The Titans were only granted an NRL licence after the Government agreed to tip in $100 million for a rectangle stadium at Robina.
So it’s a bit rich to put a further pinch on the humble punter.
Sports Minister Mick De Brenni is right to say that the teams wouldn’t be whinging about fees if they were winning on the field.
“Ultimately each club is responsible for their own destiny,” he said this week.
“It is up to the clubs to develop a strong following through marketing … and on-field performances.”
Yet the clubs aren’t completely to blame.
Both Carrara and Robina are like islands by the beach with such poor transport links they’re near inaccessible for fans.
This planning flaw would have saved on upfront costs.
But there’s a long-term price at the ticket gate because getting to games is a logistical nightmare for families.
The Government has also failed to attract other tenants and events to the stadiums to spread the costs.
Three codes play out of Suncorp Stadium, for example, while Cbus has lost a soccer team and the Rugby Sevens tournament.
What’s occurring on the Gold Coast will repeat in Townsville if the Government doesn’t find alternative uses for the stadium being built for the North Queensland Cowboys.
Yet while de Brenni can blow hard about on-field performances being the cure-all for fixing each team’s finances, Labor can ill afford for more sporting carcasses to pile up on the coast.
They’ve tipped significant money into providing the Suns and the Titans with stadiums despite the record of sporting failures.
So it’s incumbent on them to make the investment pay off. And after the multi-billion dollar spending spree getting the Commonwealth Games to the coast, losing either of the permanent
sporting teams and being left with white elephant infrastructure would be a poor look.
Its long irked Labor that all the investment its governments have made on the coast has delivered little love from local electorates.
But Gold Coasters would turn on Labor, which finally got a seat back on the coast in 2017, if either team folded under their watch.
The Suns and Titans know this which is why they’ll probably get more taxpayer-funded gratuity in the way of fee relief.
However, the next time some rent-seeking sports boss walks into a minister’s office wearing white shoes and promising the world, government should consider running in the other direction.
^^^^ Courier Mail at it again: I’ll say it again: the difference between the GC and Brisbane is we just want to beat them at games of footy whereas they don’t want us to exist.
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Bears, Giants, Cougars, Seagulls, Chargers and United have all been buried along the idyllic sandy stretch.
Weighed down by debt and left to sink by fickle fans whose only allegiance was to success, each team’s dreams of flourishing in Queensland’s second biggest city turned to ash.
In true Gold Coast style, some of these teams began with white-shoed sugar daddies.
Corporate crook Christopher Skase dropped $30 million playing the “Bad News Bears” out of Carrara Stadium.
Skase used to fly in on a helicopter for game day before he shot off to Spain and left an unpaid bill for the venue’s lights.
Clive Palmer went from football philanthropist to round ball pariah in just a few short years with Gold Coast United.
He wanted to cap crowds to avoid Government fees at Robina Stadium and the team was eventually kicked out of the A-League.
Yet the sports codes have all been willing to step over the corpses of others for a slice of the Gold Coast, convinced their product would bring the people and turn a profit.
The Suns (AFL) and Titans (NRL) are now making the same noises as other Gold Coast sporting teams in their death throes.
They’re both bemoaning the cost of the fees applied by the Government’s venue manager, Stadiums Queensland, while their results and crowds have been on a downward trajectory.
The Suns crowd at Metricon Stadium last year. Picture: Jerad Williams
The Suns say they signed a dud deal at Carrara, now known as Metricon Stadium, that costs them $1 million annually and a further $700,000 in maintenance.
The Titans haven’t signed a deal to play at Robina, now known as Cbus Stadium, since 2016 and say they’re better off paying $110,000 per game and taking matches elsewhere.
Cut the fees, they say, and we’ll survive and thrive.
Yet Stadiums Queensland isn’t a charity.
And taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to be donors to sporting failures.
SQ is far from the cash cow like critics have claimed.
It lost close to $30 million last year as venue hiring revenue shrunk by almost 30 per cent.
Profit is not the only goal when governments build stadiums, as the venues deliver broader economic and social dividends.
However, there needs to be a degree of fiscal discipline so they don’t suck cash away from causes more needy than professional sport.
Let’s not forget both the Suns and Titans started with promises which were much alike.
If taxpayers covered a fat proportion of their stadium costs the crowds would come and the bill would be repaid.
Steven Wardill, State Affairs Editor at The Courier-Mail.
And given the increasingly transactional nature of voters, these codes know politicians see sports stadiums as a way of attracting support.
The State Government tipped more than $70 million into Metricon’s upgrade for the Suns.
The Titans were only granted an NRL licence after the Government agreed to tip in $100 million for a rectangle stadium at Robina.
So it’s a bit rich to put a further pinch on the humble punter.
Sports Minister Mick De Brenni is right to say that the teams wouldn’t be whinging about fees if they were winning on the field.
“Ultimately each club is responsible for their own destiny,” he said this week.
“It is up to the clubs to develop a strong following through marketing … and on-field performances.”
Yet the clubs aren’t completely to blame.
Both Carrara and Robina are like islands by the beach with such poor transport links they’re near inaccessible for fans.
This planning flaw would have saved on upfront costs.
But there’s a long-term price at the ticket gate because getting to games is a logistical nightmare for families.
The Government has also failed to attract other tenants and events to the stadiums to spread the costs.
Three codes play out of Suncorp Stadium, for example, while Cbus has lost a soccer team and the Rugby Sevens tournament.
What’s occurring on the Gold Coast will repeat in Townsville if the Government doesn’t find alternative uses for the stadium being built for the North Queensland Cowboys.
Yet while de Brenni can blow hard about on-field performances being the cure-all for fixing each team’s finances, Labor can ill afford for more sporting carcasses to pile up on the coast.
They’ve tipped significant money into providing the Suns and the Titans with stadiums despite the record of sporting failures.
So it’s incumbent on them to make the investment pay off. And after the multi-billion dollar spending spree getting the Commonwealth Games to the coast, losing either of the permanent
sporting teams and being left with white elephant infrastructure would be a poor look.
Its long irked Labor that all the investment its governments have made on the coast has delivered little love from local electorates.
But Gold Coasters would turn on Labor, which finally got a seat back on the coast in 2017, if either team folded under their watch.
The Suns and Titans know this which is why they’ll probably get more taxpayer-funded gratuity in the way of fee relief.
However, the next time some rent-seeking sports boss walks into a minister’s office wearing white shoes and promising the world, government should consider running in the other direction.
^^^^ Courier Mail at it again: I’ll say it again: the difference between the GC and Brisbane is we just want to beat them at games of footy whereas they don’t want us to exist.
