Posts by Paul Campbell
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I was thinking about my analysis above and I realise that $50/person/game is a number only vaguely pulled out of a hat from the available numbers - could be larger (less that 20k people at every game?) could be smaller? (lower interest rates?) .... but it's an interesting number to play with .....
so let's step out of the box a little, let's decide that we want to spend that all that money on Otago rugby .... what if we don't take the risks of cost overruns and attendance possibilities .... instead of building a new stadium we just give $50 to everyone every time they attend a game at the existing venue .... what would be the result? better attendance? more civic pride? ....
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Had a strange conversation with someone on the street the other day - a woman wanted me to sign her petition - I countered with something like "I raised my kids without hitting them, I don't see why others can't ..." what followed was a stream of disbelief, then invective along the lines of "what were you thinking? why didn't you? that's what's wrong with this country" .... we parted obviously living in different worlds ... I'm just waiting for the next petition, the one that makes it mandatory ....
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Actually in the US the stadia are often owned by cities but usually built with the intent of making money or at least breaking even - when things go wrong (like overly optimistic attendance numbers) the city often gets stuck holding the can. They are also usually built with a single tenant in mind - a football team or a baseball team - part of it is the "we're not a real city unless we're have a football team" mindset - since there are a limited number of teams they can play cities off to get the best funding deals.
I think that having a trust that is given $200M by the various city and regional authorities that's not directly responsible to them would be a bit silly - the current trust's fronted by a member of the rugby union's board of directors - personally I'd like to see the city (and region) get some income from a money making enterprise like this - hopefully to pay off their investment over the medium to long term $200M plus interest over 30 years (back of the envelope calculations follow - lets say say $20M/year - which is about right for a household mortgage) would be the return you would need to make it financially viable - assuming you're filling it with 20,000 people at a time you need to pull in $1000/seat/year so with 20 games a year that would mean $50/seat/event.
So $50 admittedly back-of-the-envelope, might be half as much, might be twice as much - what does it mean? you can either think of that as the amount they have to raise tickets by to pay off the public if you want to do user-pays (but remember the current union seems to be running at a loss as it can't pay the city what it's currently owed so it may actually be more) or, if not,. you can think of it as the amount of subsidy the city is giving each person every time they attend the venue - this just covers the capital costs of course, not the running costs
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Rebranding Maxim? you mean it's NOT a brand of condoms ....
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As I understand it it's the wrong shape/size for cricket and I'd guess it's probably only going to be used as a live music venue for stuff larger than the town hall and the Regent - which is about nothing - just look at the outdoor/under cover concert in the Oval this weekend - they got about 1000 people, not 10k and nowhere near 30k and that was some of the best bands in the country big name overseas acts seldom make it out of Auckland - maybe they'll get 1 act that will pull that many people a year, maybe not? - the University's going to rent some space under the stands - as far as I can tell the economics rest on renting space and rugby, the rest is wishfull thinking.
I'm not against the city building facilities for its citizens to use - but it's not a public facility like the Edgar Center or the library or the clubs and socs building is for students - I bet my kids soccer games are not going to get moved inside there on rainy days, all we'll be able to do is rent seats there - what I think the city council should do is to instigate public debate on the issue - encourage people to talk about it, don't try and shut down the discussion and push it through as they are doing at the moment - a single public meeting held at a time that most people can't get to with only 24 hour's notice isn't really enough and frankly smelled of tokenism - by all means come up with a funding plan, explain what wont get funded if we fund a stadium
- hold some public meetings, let the letters to the editor run hot and fast and then let people vote on it, give them the time work through the issues - democracy is a good thing - there's a local body election coming up that would be a perfect time -
Well I didn't really, don't even live there - but it's a pleasent 30 minute walk down to the uni and I do try and walk down and catch a seminar once a week, but then I didn't come back for the rugby either - in fact I came back because my kids were becoming teenagers and I wanted them to grow up in a safer place - somewhere where you could do some stupid things (like burning couches even) and not get shot by a cop or a passing yahoo but still find out you'd done something silly ... after all some life lessons you learn by screwing up, not from listening to your parents and I think kids, teenagers especially, need space to do that.
We also wanted them to grow up in somewhere other than the US which I believe is very inward looking - awash in it's own media and not aware of the rest of the world - I think NZ is wonderfully refreshing in its outlook on the world - sometimes a bit parochial - as the ODT shows us constantly and the "so what do you think of NZ" question that no foreigner who's been here more than a month can ever answer (I'm stuck with an evil accent after so long away).
Honestly we wouldn't have settled back in Dunedin if I'd had to get a job - I've had the luxury of being able to work at my old one for the past couple of years eventually I'll have to make one here myself or move on.
I've moved here from a city that in the last decade was seduced by a stadium upgrade, the city council pushed it through without much oversite and over the objections of the public - we didn't get to vote - sure they got the football team back - but the city ended up being screwed financially, all those rosy projections came to naught and social services suffered as a result - homeless programs didn't get funded, people slept on the street
I doubt that will happen in Dunedin - but I do think that a football business should be financially viable, it shouldn't depend on the public purse - after all the local club is already several million in the hole to the council that it looks like they wont be able to pay back - so we're giving them a stadium .... if anything we (the citizens) should demand equity, how about a 50% of the union and their profits if there are any, maybe a performance guarantee .... after all if they're not going to be a winning team no one's going to go see them the team will continue to not live up to its financial commitments and we'll lose even more money ... after all this time when they couldn't pay we gave them a stadium
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well at least there's one thing I can agree on - let's close George street to traffic (and make Filleul and Gt King streets and Moray Place one way for buses and other traffic)
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My favorite (from probably 30 years ago) was "Police Stoned During IRA Raid"
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Well being slightly more serious about the issue the whole stadium thing does actually sort of point out the divide in the city the original article was talking about .... I work at home and tend to socialize with people who work at or around the university ... as I said no one I've talked to about the issues has been in favour of it, I'm sure there are people who are - I just don't run into them day to day.
Personally I've lived in big cities that have spent millions on stadiums - all I've ever seen were disasters for the cities. Ive become convinced that if professional sport can't afford its own facilities it's not financially viable (or trying to feed at the public trough). Having one of the members of the board of directors of the local team head up a group that's pushing the city to pay $100M for a stadium for them and the team itself not putting any money up (I'd expect at least 1/2, or a financial setup where the city's investment was paid back over time) seems wrong to me.
In my case I'll be paying a couple of thousand dollars extra in rates for something I wont be using much, if at all - for me at least I'd be better off just paying higher ticket prices when I do use it - user pays if you will
Sure I know - "the stadium will be good for local business" but I don't see the Chamber of Commerce or the Business Round Table asking for their members to be taxed to support the stadium ... I guess it wont be that good ....
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Are you real :-) can you explain the car park? how will the 30,000 people fit in the 200 cars? are they magic cars?
(ps :-)