Analysis Stadium deals - what, how, when - why we need a new one and the SA footy paradigm shift happening

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In the pro column is its a decent location.

Thats where the pro column ends. You just know it will be over the top expensive, it will price the average joe out of it. I dont get why anyone would want to stay there. Its a ******* stupid idea
In the almost certain Con column, the SMA will tie minimum hotel revenue to other Adelaide Oval yardsticks to make Port and Crows keep their white elephant afloat
 
it's not like AO is at West Lakes lol walk 5 mins up King William and everything is right there. plus you have these electronic scooters now, you don't even have to walk.
 

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Feb 20, 2013
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it's not like AO is at West Lakes lol walk 5 mins up King William and everything is right there. plus you have these electronic scooters now, you don't even have to walk.


But why? Why would I pay more to be further away from bars, restaurants, shops etc? Going to the football/cricket would be 1 part of the reason someone would get a hotel in the city. Its just so inconvenient for literally everything else.
 

jac147

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Jun 10, 2015
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Has this hotel got a name yet? Is it going to be picked up by one of the hotel chains and be branded for example, the Hilton SMA
 

Jojay

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Excuse my ignorance... is this a common thing (a hotel tacked onto a sports stadium) with other stadia around the world?

Just a bad idea from a place like Adelaide... one of the benefits of redeveloping AO was that it would re-invigorate the CBD - now they're saying f**k the CBD, you can eat/sleep etc right there.

Just sma/snafl snouts in the trough sh!t
 
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why would anyone stay at that hotel tho, the oval is the only thing its near
Yeah, it's not like there's a shortage of hotels in better locations a few minutes walk from the oval, even without the new casino hotel being built at the other end of the footbridge or the 5-star Crowne Plaza being built on Frome St. It's madness.
 
But why? Why would I pay more to be further away from bars, restaurants, shops etc? Going to the football/cricket would be 1 part of the reason someone would get a hotel in the city. Its just so inconvenient for literally everything else.

well it's not for you or I like I said it's for the people who are easily sold the "experience" "the AFL package". again I don't think it's inconvenient to walk up King William and have everything in our tiny CBD accessible. all the Melbournites would do is walk over to the Casino and Jamie's.
 
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well it's not for you or I like I said it's for the people who are easily sold the "experience" "the AFL package". again I don't think it's inconvenient to walk up King William and have everything in our tiny CBD accessible. all the Melbournites would do is walk over to the Casino and Jamie's.

That's the thing, you'd do it once. Where is the repeat business coming from?

There is an entire lack of business case in this whole venture, and you know for damn sure when its running at a loss, the SACA and SANFL wont be out of pocket.
 
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why would anyone stay at that hotel tho, the oval is the only thing its near
Unless you are mobility impaired, ridiculously lazy or a doing a quick FIFO to definitely only go to an event why would you even bother with it then? You're not getting a quick entry into the ground, bypassing the normal crowds. You don't get a view of the field from your room.

I wonder if the Crow centric SMA looked at their crowds are full of pensioners and by lazy logic extrapolated that a significant majority visiting would be too, so a sales pitch of 'You don't need your Zimmer at AO!' is a surefire money spinner.
 
That's the thing, you'd do it once. Where is the repeat business coming from?

There is an entire lack of business case in this whole venture, and you know for damn sure when its running at a loss, the SACA and SANFL wont be out of pocket.

As someone who travels for business regularly, I could see how a hotel in this vicinity would be an option to consider. There'd likely be a fair overflow from events at the Convention Centre etc.

But like most new things in Adelaide, it'll be 3 star quality and 5 star price, but for a boutique hotel in that location, it needs to be the other way 'round.
 
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well it's not for you or I like I said it's for the people who are easily sold the "experience" "the AFL package". again I don't think it's inconvenient to walk up King William and have everything in our tiny CBD accessible. all the Melbournites would do is walk over to the Casino and Jamie's.
That shows how stupid it is though. A hotel at Docklands or the MCG (minus view of the field), would be equally as shitty. I'd rather be staying at Crown or another CBD hotel, then fight crowds checking in / out. Plus it'd be extra walking to get around the Southbank, Swanston st., Lygon st. etc.
 
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*. Given the best capture for AFL games is going to be for when fly in, view game, fly out is the plan, when this hotel inevitably goes to s**t, the SMA are going to be asking the AFL (and Gil will likely comply), to schedule more Thursday and Monday night games at AO. Another way we are going to be collateral damage in their poor business practices.
 

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From what I understand the rooms won't even face the ground, ie you can't watch anything from your room. (I know REH mentioned the couple caught rooting at a baseball game at some stadium in America).

That was 1990, the first full season of baseball, at the Toronto Skydome now called The Rogers Centre - owned by Rogers the big telecommunications company that compete with Bell Canada for internet, pay TV, Free TV, telephony, wireless services and sports business services, as well as have other divisions that don't compete with Bell Canada. Then copy cats followed, up to a half a dozen times or so.

They also own the arenas the Vancouver Canaucks and Edmonton Oilers NHL sides play in. They also own The Toronto Blue Jays MLB team. Via a 50/50 JV with Bell Canada, the 2 own 75% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team, Toronto Raptors in NBA team, Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League and Toronto FC in the Major Soccer League.

They bought the Skydome in 2004 for $25m CAN, which probably was a bit of a discount as they owned The Toronto Blue Jays who play 81 games a year there. The whole stadium and hotel cost $570m CAN to build, up from its original budget of $150m CAN. It was the first Private Public Partnership to build a stadium in North America and the proponents said they would avoid the financial and engineering disaster of Montreal Olympic Stadium that had a retractable roof that never worked properly. The Montreal stadium, like the rest of the 1976 Montreal Olympic's debt, took the Quebec Provincial government and city of Montreal, 30 years to pay off.

It was first proposed in 1982 after a CFL Grey Cup final was washed/flooded out with torrential rain and the push for a retractable roofed stadium started. It took nearly 7 years to finally open it in mid 1989 after the initial suggestion. Construction time was only a couple of months late and the Blue Jays didn't play their 1st game of the season in early April at their new home as planned, but had to wait to early June 1989.

The $112m hotel was thrown into the mix about 18 months before the official opening as the financial modelling was so hopeless they wanted a new revenue stream. But the hotel proved to just add to the financial disaster. From all my studies over the years, this was the first time ever a hotel was built as part of a major stadium. I think its now up to double digits around the world - not including race tracks like The Bend or Bathurst where building a hotel on site, away from big city centre makes a lot of sense. 70 of the hotels 350 rooms over look the field.

When the Sydome opened, the 70 rooms that overlook the field, in peak hotel season back in 1989/1990 MLB seasons, were charging $600 CAN per night.

The initial funding included the local and provincial governments contributing $30m CAN each, the feds the crown land for free, and selling 30 x $5m CAN packages, not by tender but private invitation which got companies a 10 year lease of of a Superbox - there were 160 of them, with options for renewals, parking spaces, plus 99 year leases for advertising rights for the 30 companies including the 3 Canadian brewers who got pourage rights, Coke got exclusive pourage rights for their $5m, banks and media companies got exclusive long term rights for their $5m, which meant others didn't compete and drive the prices up. It was a complete * up of short term thinking.

The stadium then became heavily laden with debt, $400m CAN by 1993 and was a flop. Sound familiar?? Docklands?? The provincial government gave guarantees and had to help bail it out. A year or so after it opened the then new NDP provincial government's inquiry into the stadium financing, discovered it needed to host 600 event days a year, to make a profit.

Then when the 10 year leases were up and the new Air Canada Centre down the road opened up a few months earlier but deals negotiated up to 12 months earlier, companies were prepared to pay $500k plus for superboxes there to watch the Leafs and Raptors and not for the Blue Jays and that caused further financial problems in 1999, and the owners - 2nd or 3rd by this time, sought bankruptcy protection.

It was an architectural and engineering marvel. But the financial modelling was completely hopeless and meant it was derided for years. It was the first stadium in the world to have a retractable roof that worked to cover 50,000+ spectators. Rod Laver Arena beat it by about 18 months, but it only covers 15,000 spectators so the cost structure was very different.

But Rogers buying it for 4% of its construction cost, means they now make a very nice profit out of its ownership.

In 2004 the previous owners sold the hotel for $31m to Renaissance Hotel group/ Marriott International as Rogers didn't think they could make money out of it and hospitality wasn't their specialty so they didn't buy that asset. Its changed its name a couple of times but is now called the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel. A couple of Blue Jay players have lived in the hotel during the season. Marriott International group apparently do well out of the hotel these days - 30 years after it was first opened.

The AO hotel will be booked out during the Test, big ODI and T20I games, weekends of some footy games, some other events, in January when the TDU is on and mad March when its hard to find rooms in Adelaide. They need about 60-65% patronage rates to breakeven.

It will all depend how they market themselves and what sort of star rating they give to their services. The SMA have called it a botique hotel which suggests they are going for Bill Shorten's favourites - the top end of town type tourists. maybe a few Chinese millionaires and billionaires. They will also try and get people to eat in the SMA restaurants -The Hill of Grace and Audi club restaurant, as the SMA go for that higher end of market and say stay at the hotel and walk 2 minutes to great dinning on level 3 restaurants in the eastern stand.

I think it will be a break even type operation after its initial glow of being a shiny new hotel. At a cost of $42m and 128 rooms this is a pretty cheap hotel to construct and the break even equation is a lot better than the hotel at the Skydome back in 1989.

Wouldn't be surprised if after a few years the SMA sells the hotel, or contracts out to Accor Group or one of the other international hotel chains to run it for a fee, enough to pay off debt and interest repayments as a minimum and try and sell services directly to hotel guests eg, tours of the oval, roof climb, game day, restaurant meals etc.
 
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That shows how stupid it is though. A hotel at Docklands or the MCG (minus view of the field), would be equally as s**tty. I'd rather be staying at Crown or another CBD hotel, then fight crowds checking in / out. Plus it'd be extra walking to get around the Southbank, Swanston st., Lygon st. etc.

of course it's stupid, that's why it's happening in SA. everything we do is about just doing it because it seems like a big modern thing people do and copping the problems in a few years down the line.
 
Jan 6, 2018
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That was 1990, the first full season of baseball, at the Toronto Skydome now called The Rogers Centre - owned by Rogers the big telecommunications company that compete with Bell Canada for internet, pay TV, Free TV, telephony, wireless services and sports business services, as well as have other divisions that don't compete with Bell Canada.

They also own the arenas the Vancouver Canaucks and Edmonton Oilers NHL sides play in. They also own The Toronto Blue Jays MLB team. Via a 50/50 JV with Bell Canada, the 2 own 75% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team, Toronto Raptors in NBA team, Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League and Toronto FC in the Major Soccer League.

They bought the Skydome in 2004 for $25m CAN, which probably was a bit of a discount as they owned The Toronto Blue Jays who play 81 games a year there. The whole stadium and hotel cost $570m CAN to build, up from its original budget of $150m CAN. It was the first Private Public Partnership to build a stadium in North America and the proponents said they would avoid the financial and engineering disaster of Montreal Olympic Stadium that had a retractable roof that never worked properly. The Montreal stadium, like the rest of the 1976 Montreal Olympic's debt, took the Quebec Provincial government and city of Montreal, 30 years to pay off.

It was first proposed in 1982 after a CFL Grey Cup final was washed/flooded out with torrential rain and the push for a retractable roofed stadium started. It took nearly 7 years to finally open it in mid 1989 after the initial suggestion. Construction time was only a couple of months late and the Blue Jays didn't play their 1st game of the season in early April at their new home as planned, but had to wait to early June 1989.

The $112m hotel was thrown into the mix about 18 months before the official opening as the financial modelling was so hopeless they wanted a new revenue stream. But the hotel proved to just add to the financial disaster. From all my studies over the years, this was the first time ever a hotel was built as part of a major stadium. I think its now up to double digits around the world - not including race tracks like The Bend or Bathurst where building a hotel on site, away from big city centre makes a lot of sense. 70 of the hotels 350 rooms over look the field.

When the Sydome opened, the 70 rooms that overlook the field, in peak hotel season back in 1989/1990 MLB seasons, were charging $600 CAN per night.

The initial funding included the local and provincial governments contributing $30m CAN each, the feds the crown land for free, and selling 30 x $5m CAN packages, not by tender but private invitation which got companies a 10 year lease of of a Superbox - there were 160 of them, with options for renewals, parking spaces, plus 99 year leases for advertising rights for the 30 companies including the 3 Canadian brewers who got pourage rights, Coke got exclusive pourage rights for their $5m, banks and media companies got exclusive long term rights for their $5m, which meant others didn't compete and drive the prices up. It was a complete fu** up of short term thinking.

The stadium then became heavily laden with debt, $400m CAN by 1993 and was a flop. Sound familiar?? Docklands?? The provincial government gave guarantees and had to help bail it out. A year or so after it opened the then new NDP provincial government's inquiry into the stadium financing, discovered it needed to host 600 event days a year, to make a profit.

Then when the 10 year leases were up and the new Air Canada Centre down the road opened up a few months earlier but deals negotiated up to 12 months earlier, companies were prepared to pay $500k plus for superboxes there to watch the Leafs and Raptors and not for the Blue Jays and that caused further financial problems in 1999, and the owners - 2nd or 3rd by this time, sought bankruptcy protection.

It was an architectural and engineering marvel. But the financial modelling was completely hopeless and meant it was derided for years. It was the first stadium in the world to have a retractable roof that worked to cover 50,000+ spectators. Rod Laver Arena beat it by about 18 months, but it only covers 15,000 spectators so the cost structure was very different.

But Rogers buying it for 4% of its construction cost, means they now make a very nice profit out of its ownership.

In 2004 the previous owners sold the hotel for $31m to Renaissance Hotel group/ Marriott International as Rogers didn't think they could make money out of it and hospitality wasn't their specialty so they didn't buy that asset. Its changed its name a couple of times but is now called the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel. A couple of Blue Jay players have lived in the hotel during the season. Marriott International group apparently do well out of the hotel these days - 30 years after it was first opened.

The AO hotel will be booked out during the Test, big ODI and T20I games, weekends of some footy games, some other events, in January when the TDU is on and mad March when its hard to find rooms in Adelaide. They need about 60-65% patronage rates to breakeven.

It will all depend how they market themselves and what sort of star rating they give to their services. The SMA have called it a botique hotel which suggests they are going for Bill Shorten's favourites - the top end of town type tourists. maybe a few Chinese millionaires and billionaires. They will also try and get people to eat in the SMA restaurants -The Hill of Grace and Audi club restaurant, as the SMA go for that higher end of market and say stay at the hotel and walk 2 minutes to great dinning on level 3 restaurants in the eastern stand.

I think it will be a break even type operation after its initial glow of being a shiny new hotel. At a cost of $42m and 128 rooms this is a pretty cheap hotel to construct and the break even equation is a lot better than the hotel at the Skydome back in 1989.

Wouldn't be surprised if after a few years the SMA sells the hotel, or contracts out to Accor Group or one of the other international hotel chains to run it for a fee, enough to pay off debt and interest repayments as a minimum and try and sell services directly to hotel guests eg, tours of the oval, roof climb, game day, restaurant meals etc.
I did a tour of the Skydome about 20 years ago. The rooms overlooking the field were great. The idea of getting a group of friends together for a game, an atmosphere similar to a private box in which you could cater for to suit you're own specific desires would be a big drawcard.
 
Jan 6, 2018
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of course it's stupid, that's why it's happening in SA. everything we do is about just doing it because it seems like a big modern thing people do and copping the problems in a few years down the line.
Tbh, that's sounds far more like the approach to development in Perth than Adelaide
 
Excuse my ignorance... is this a common thing (a hotel tacked onto a sports stadium) with other stadia around the world?

Just a bad idea from a place like Adelaide... one of the benefits of redeveloping AO was that it would re-invigorate the CBD - now they're saying f**k the CBD, you can eat/sleep etc right there.

Just sma/snafl snouts in the trough sh!t

The Dallas Cowboys have a hotel attached to their training centre at the Star in Frisco.

The Golden State Warriors want to build a hotel attached to Chase Centre.

Unfortunately for the SMA, the reason why these organisations have a good case for building hotels is because people actually want to tour their facilities because they are attached to actual clubs that are recognised world wide.
 

PowerBaz

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Jun 13, 2014
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Yep. At a city hotel you expect to be near bars and restaurants. O'Connell Street, Melbourne Street, the city are all a fairly reasonable hike away.


They will have their own bar inside the Hotel. They will be trying to drag people in too from the city, (Not sure that will work too well.)

I can tell you where they will send people - they lease and run these two places across the river already, do people realize this?

They are generating lots of ways to make money beyond screwing the AFL clubs. they also have a hospitality catering arm, I think they already manage Monarto Zoo.


749355
749356
 
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They will have their own bar inside the Hotel. They will be trying to drag people in too from the city, (Not sure that will work too well.)

I can tell you where they will send people - they lease and run these two places across the river already, do people realize this?

They are generating lots of ways to make money beyond screwing the AFL clubs. they also have a hospitality catering arm, I think they already manage Monarto Zoo.


View attachment 749355View attachment 749356

Do they run the Taphouse? Really? I dropped $150 there on a lazy afternoon last summer. If I'd known I would have spent my money elsewhere.
 

LFC2010

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Well as we know, we have the right to tell the SMA to grow the pie.

Thing is they are just taking on more overheads in this Hotel.

If AO isnt turning a profit for them what on earth is the business case for the hotel? It's absolutely bound for massive failure.

SMA and SANFL need to fold already. The AFL need to take over and negotiate supply deals. It'll be marginally cheaper and it'll result in more dollar for the clubs.

They are just the inept middleman no one asked for.

Yeah, I really hope that hotel becomes a white elephant for the fat cats at the SMA and SANFL. They wouldn't want to blame the clubs for the failure of it when it happens either.
 

PowerBaz

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Jun 13, 2014
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Do they run the Taphouse? Really? I dropped $150 there on a lazy afternoon last summer. If I'd known I would have spent my money elsewhere.


 

PowerBaz

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Jun 13, 2014
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Yeah, I really hope that hotel becomes a white elephant for the fat cats at the SMA and SANFL. They wouldn't want to blame the clubs for the failure of it when it happens either.


It probably won't fail - it will be very boutique and for the business person on a daily basis, then visitors and then sport - there aren't too many sports events on a 365 daily basis when you look at it.

The Oval from memory does the second most conventions to the Adelaide Convention Centre - build that profile too and where will they stay?
 
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I can buy a pint for $6.00 at my local so I refuse to pay $9.60 at the AO. Of course I cannot do that at AO but there are other alternatives.

While the Strath on North Tce is being renovated they have $6.00 pints on tap. Friday happy hour at the Sports Bar in the Casino has Carlton Draught for $5.00. There is cheap beer around the CBD if you know where and when to look. I am sure other posters will have other outlets for cheap drinks in the CBD. It might be a good exercise for us to compile a list prior to next season.

it has been said before but if all AFL supporters boycotted the bars and food stalls at the AO the message might, and I stress might, get through.
 

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