Westpac stadium management - We love you Shane...honest

Also, I think maybe NZ just doesn't have that live sports culture that other countries have. I reckon our crappy oversized stadiums are part of the problem. But more than that, kiwis are generally pretty reserved and at most rugby games there isn't much of an atmosphere. The idea of actively making noise and singing is a novelty for most kiwis - look at the reaction to Lions (as in UK and Irish, not Wellington) fans touring, or the Barmy Army with the cricket. Plus rugby is a game played in a straight line across the field. being able to see the whole pitch doesn't really make that much of a difference to how you see the game compared to the tv broadcast. If anything the tv is better because so much goes on in the bottom of rucks and so on that you need a zoom lens to see. Football, on the other hand, is a sport where seeing the whole pitch at once allows you to see things you wouldn't see on tv - the shape of both teams, space, runs off the ball, goalkeeper positioning, etc.

Basically, the average kiwi sports fan doesn't think that attending a live game is worth the money unless it's the ABs or some sort of final. 

Possibly the issue of blackout in (insert the the game locality, Wellington etc) needs to be raised again for future TV rights.

Veitch has been more responsive to the fans and has done a lot to examine why fans haven't been going to games as much. 

As for the stadium, making the seats yellow was a joke and as it turns out it didn't need to be rectangular either. Regardless, the design of the stadium has had some benefits. The fact that the stadium is an oval has made it more suitable to events like the Food Show. The concourse going around the whole stadium has been a feature. In regards to Fran Wilde, she was one of the reasons the stadium was even built there. If it wasn't for her they could have built it all the way out in Porirua. What attendance would we get out there?

Agree. For the first five years or so it was magnificent, we were all talking about how we had the best stadium in NZ. They had to forecast maintaining the same croud levels - budgeting for them to drop drastically would have been nonsensical, even if true with hindsight. We live in a different world now where stadiums have moved on, so we've got to renovate/upgrade/build new and get up with the play. 

The only mistake they made at the time in my opinion was the yellow seats. That was called out from the start and has continued to be an issue.

/fixed

The Breakers are the most successful sports club/franchise in NZ in terms of winning titles in an Aus/NZ league.However, they only started to get consistent high attendance after winning the Championship, as soon as they had a losing season attendance nose-dived

Unfortunately, the cost of a new 'boutique ' stadium and the reluctance of the Wellington Rugby Union to relinquish the holding of Test matches means the 'Tin will stay in its present form and sports have to deal with the existing stadium

A possible low-cost, short-term fix which requires further analysis, is to reconfigure the pitch by rotating it by 90 degrees, hopefully combined with minor re-configuration of the stadium to get the pitch as close as possible to seats on three sides 

This issue has been raised on this forum, but  don't know if the movers and and shakers at the Wellington Stadium have seriously considered such a reconfiguration for A-League, ITM  or Super Rugby

Well, "f*ck me with a pitchfork", as we say back home. Isn't this just a perfect First World problem?  

So, if I get it correctly: we don't want to pay more than $10 for a ticket to the game and caviar and champagne-on-tap should be included in the price. And, we do not want to pay for a SKY Sport subscription to watch our club if we live away from Welly, even if FFA complains that they don't get much from SKY. In fact, we would probably prefer to just watch it for free, on a TV or laptop screen with a sixpack from Countdown.  

What gives? Sorry for ranting but we are a perfect example of the Comfortably Numb from the old Pink Floyd song. If you can't be arsed to support your club, the broadcadster should not be obliged to support via donation to FFA either.

My suggestion would be to link the access to game broadcast (say Lightbox, SKY, whatever) to club membership. Say that it should be limited to those who bought the $50 no-ticket annual membership. The broadcaster may then have to offer a low price A-League package without all the extra crap that nobody is interested in.

Not sure if the pitch would fit if you turned it 90 degrees and even if it did you'd only have two sides closer to the seats (the ends) and the sides which are generally premium seats would be further from the pitch than they are currently.

No, they just want a fair deal. Ten years A League licence, continued coverage on Sky, Sky to offer a more realistic deal to Fox or the FFA for showing their product and as a bonus from Sky for them to get the EPL back and everyone would be happy and subscribed to Sky sports again.

As for the Stadium, the car parking underneath has always been an issue. In the idea of having people catching a train in instead of their car, the whole thing is a fail with trains being inconsistant, the parking at $30 was/is a straight rip, the $10 deal offered by the club on ST's was a brilliant and well liked/used initiative.

The Stadium design was criticised at the time and it was quite evident it was done with a successful Cricket side in mind which sadly didn't happen, also part of the deal was for concerts to be held there which the Nimby's in Thorndon have helped not to happen very often at all. It's location is excellent but the Oval layout is wrong. it should have been rectangular with rounded corners. It also would have made it easier to at some stage in the future to put a roof over.

As for the fans not showing up - this is generally across the board around the country too. Having crap times for our games doesn't help the "bring the family" scenario and the FFA have to accept sole responsibility with this. what is really wrong with having our games at 3pm on a Saturday? Sure it is only 1pm in Sydney but our games could have been used as the lead-in for their games over there. Instead our fixtures look like they are just an add-on and a "those bloody Kiwis can take it or lump it" type attitude.

@JV
Is it really the position of a lot of people on here?  Wanting it all for nothing?  I see a lot of people contributing money to a campaign to buy memberships for others (probably people they have never met) and paying for extra memberships for family etc to support the club.

So I'm not sure where the "nothing" portion is coming from.

@Mainland FC
And yes complaining about how our professional football team might be disappearing is certainly a first world problem.

Who is saying they shouldn't pay more than $10 a ticket? Who is asking for high end food at a cheap rate? I certainly said cheap food makes sense, I didn't say it has to be good food, just cheap so the family that cant carve $100 out of their budget for a luxury like going to a live sports event might be able to do it.

I know its hard to see the stadium and the prices etc criticized but you cant complain people don't turn up then not accept that something needs to change to appeal to more people.

Prices of the match-day experience might be cheap for you, that doesn't mean its cheap for the 20000 empty seats worth of people that don't go because they a) cant afford it, or b) don't know they can afford it.

So no they probably aren't asking for Caviar and champagne, probably an affordable punnet of chips and an affordable coke for the kids, which is probably as likely as Caviar anyway.


And in regards to blackouts that doesn't work unless its free to air, If I cant make it to the game (I know, its a first world problem that I have work and family commitments that I wont just drop because my Nix are playing) and want to watch the match and have paid for the service (i.e. paying for sky sport) but cant watch it because I am located in Wellington and they didn't sell enough tickets then that's a tad shark isn't it?

I know, first world f**king problem that someone might expect to get what they are paying for, big ask.

So unless TVNZ is going to shill out the cost of filming games and whatever amount FFA is expecting for the A League rights then no its not feasible in this day in age unless you plan to take something away from a paying customer.


God this "the nix and the stadium can do no wrong, everyone else has the problem" attitude I've seen bubbling out lately is really souring me.  

Except the pitch doesn't extend anywhere near that close to the stands. In theory I'm pretty sure it could fit the other way round without losing much, if any, length.

Drunk, you are on course for what I am feeling too. And the questions you raise are good - from my point of view anyway. So far from your response i see a person whom is passionate about their club and so much wish to see it survive and succeed. These are good attributes. Sure we might all at various stages get our best intentions wrong with a mis wording etc. We can't please everyone all the time. That is why this site makes for such a great outlet for everyone. If it did not exist would all these comments be appearing in the "Letters to the Editor" section of the DontlikeNix Post?

saying people who obviously put a sharkton of money and time into supporting the club want everything for nothing is pretty weak.

Obviously my comments about $10 tickets or caviar were meant as a hyperbole.  The point I am making is that we are seemingly stuck with the RoF for a while unless some sort of breakthrough is achieved with longer licence and the will to build / use / a smaller rectangular ground elsewhere.

EqualIy I am not against local coverage you paid for. I am all in favour of for example a delayed coverage in Welly on the game day. This has been done before in other codes and if SKY finds it technically difficult then they can put in on a delayed replay on Prime TV. 

I pay for Sky to watch the NRL and Nix live.  And if I'm not allowed to watch the Nix live because I am stuck at work even though I'm paying for the Nix live, and I got my season ticket, and all of my merch, but because of shark out of my control thats just not enough to let me watch the game as it happens, then I would likely say f**k Sky.

Again if it was free to air then I would be all for it.  But when I'm scraping together any disposable income I have after feeding and housing my family to pay for sky to watch the Nix, I'm going to be pissed off when that's still not affording me the right to watch the bloody game live.

While you could do this in theory, it makes more of the seats much much further away from the pitch. Not sure why it's being touted as an idea.

I think the idea is to have a temporary stand on one of the long sides, which I imagine is far too time-consuming, costly and damaging to the pitch to be realistic. If you could easily drop in a stand it would be a great solution to our stadium problems, but it would take some pretty clever design work.

The stadium reconfiguration as a more permanent solution is being discussed in much more detail on another thread 
https://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/wellingto...

We wouldn't have this debate if we pulled crouds of 15k at home games. The football culture in wellington is small. idea's on how to fix it. simple Brain wash everyone. Fixed

Bite the bullet and call them the New Zealand Nix then market accordingly.

Ah, have just now read Nix Ownership thread and see I'm not alone with ^

They can at least be called the “ThePhoenix”.

There is no need to add New Zealand to thename.

But I would never be ‘happy’ with thischange, but if its inevitable to survive, what can we do?

4 games in Wellington, Auckland and ChChwith an odd one somewhere else?

Don’t suppose Westpac management, orWellington Council are gonna get too excited by that prospect either

And for that reason I'm out.

Aren't 4 games better than no games?

Yes, I suppose they are. But there is no way that the seven members of my family who currently buy season passes would continue to do buy them. A couple of years ago four of us went to the Dunedin game- no change from $1k. We love our football, but not to the point of bankruptcy. BTW, it is a Wellington team, a massive part of the appeal, and a travelling roadshow is anathema to football....as if you'd ever see Real Spain, or Lancashire Liverpool, or London Fulham etc.?

Memberships are everything, we keep being told- well in that instance it's minus 7.

Yeah, I'm actually of the same opinion. And I come from Wellington too, originally. But times change and you have to think of the children. The stakes are pretty high here. You're basically saying you'd rather lose a Wellington A-League team than have a travelling NZ-branded one, if that's the only way to get the "approved metrics" (LOL) 

But quite a lot of people younger than ourselves might disagree.

Quite a lot of people younger than ourselves rely on people our age to pay for all that stuff.

But your ‘season ticket’ would only get you 4 home games in your chosen centre, so would be quite cheap.

Not many would take up the national season ticket option I should think.

The issue really is would Wellington people retain the level of support for a team they don’t see at ‘home’ very often.

But if the approach gains more non-Wellington people than people it loses in Wellington, then it’s a winner overall I guess.

4 games = $45 ?

This thread has veered way off topic, but anyway, I don't think that the touring approach would work. Firstly, from a purely practical point of view it would cost more to have a team travelling for 2/3rds of their home games. The home advantage would be reduced because players would have travelled and not slept in their own beds, and wouldn't be as familiar with the stadium. 

More importantly though, I just don't think the public would get behind it. There wouldn't be a "local" feel feel to the team and I don't think that the NZ identity would capture imaginations. Football is a sport with a culture of local identities and the community feel of goin g to games and cheering on your side would be lost, but at the same time the novelty factor which draws crouds in Auckland and Christchurch currently would also die off. You'd only get a small core of football tragics in each centre going to their games and that just wouldn't be sustainable.

Put simply, the club would lose its soul. What would happen to the yellow Fever? What would happen to the community engagement efforts? Making the club everyone's effectively makes it no one's.

Quite right. Perhaps not made myself clear enough- if there was no "Wellington" Phoenix, we would not buy season passes. And we buy seven every season now. If people outside Gtr. Welly want to support the Nix (and quite a lot seem to) then good on them, but they all understand that it is clearly a Wellington side. Football is and always has been highly parochial, unites communities around their team and fosters strong local connections. If this was devolved into the NZ Standalone Professional Team then that's gone in a heartbeat. It will rip the guts out. Then for us, with great sadness after all these years, it's "adios".

I usually travel to a couple of travelling roadshow away games in the course of a season and that is bearable and doable. Would I travel to more? I very much doubt it.

Vaguely related to thread title:

Anyone know what's the deal with parking on Friday at the Stadium and the $10 all day parking (is there a time limit for these cars to leave the car park before the game)?

Good call Junior, what is the story about it. I like to get at the stadium an hour before kickoff just to make sure I get a decent park.