Stop the Stadium

Letter to the Editor, Otago Daily Times, 14 Oct 2008

The editorial (7.10.08) looking at the health of Otago rugby was interesting but unfortunately did not address the main issues facing this business. Professional rugby continues to present itself as a sport, while in reality it is part of the entertainment business and that is how it should be assessed. Any other business in this sector - think of a company or theatre players, for example - survives or fails on the audience it attracts.

Professional rugby chooses to live entirely outside of its ability to support itself. Attendance figures are not released by the Otago Rugby Football Union but anyone can make the simple calculations that reveal the gate takings cannot pay the bills. A cursory glance of the grants made by pub charities reveal that the ORFU, either direetly or indirectly, has been in receipt of many hundreds of thousands of dollars from these sources alone.

The city still supports the ORFU by failing to insist the current overdue loan of $2 million is repaid. Worse still, the city and region intend backing a business that has shown itself to be incapable of running itself for years by building it a new stadium. Is it not time that full public disclosures are made of the financial situation of the ORFU, including the amounts received directly or indirectly from gaming trusts, the income received from gate takings, outstanding loans, land ownership etc? If not, then allow the ORFU to survive in exactly the same way any other member of the entertainment business has to without community subsidies and handouts.

Russell Garbutt
Dunedin

Related:
» NZRU get back in black
» Crowds hit new lows

Sunday Star-Times, 12 October 2008, p. A4.

The Carisbrook Stadium Trust has received just $30 of private funding towards the construction of Dunedin’s proposed new Awatea St stadium - $55,499,970 short of its target.

The revelation comes in a series of emails between trust commercial manager Guy Hedderwick and anti-stadium lobbyist Bev Butler.

And in a sign trust bosses are uncomfortable with Butler’s continued questioning of its activities Hedderwick sought advice from chief executive Ewan Soper about how to deal with her - but sent his request to Butler by mistake: “Hi Ewan - At what point do I tell her to piss off - Regards Guy”.

A short time later Hedderwick sent Butler an email apologising for sending “an email in error” and asked her to “ignore it and/or delete it”. But Butler told the Sunday Star-Times she would do no such thing.

Contractors have been called to tender for construction contracts to build the stadium which trust chairman Malcolm Farry has always promised won’t cost more than $188 million - a figure that hasn’t changed during the past several years despite hikes in construction costs.

The Dunedin City Council has agreed, in principle, to fund $91.4m although $20m of that has to come from sources other than rates. The Otago Regional Council has agreed to conditionally contribute $37.5m and the Community Trust of Otago $10m.

Butler said the trust was responsible for finding the balance from private funding and she was simply trying to find out, on behalf of the public, how it intended to do so.

The email that prompted Hedderwick’s “piss off” comments asked: “Can you advise whether any money received or unconditionally promised from the private sector for such things as naming rights, corporate boxes, or ground rents are considered by the CST to be operating revenue or as donations to construction costs? Can you also confirm what proportion of this income will be redistributed to the Otago Rugby Football Union? Bearing in mind that the required level of private funding for construction is ($55.5million), how do you anticipate that this disparity of ($55,499,970) is to be met?

Soper, in an email to the Star-Times, said the trust always endeavoured to respond to public enquiries. “We sincerely regret the email sent to Ms Butler on 1 October… Our response fell below the standards we set ourselves and we apologised to her immediately. We have offered to meet with Ms Butler to go through her enquiries in detail, an offer which still stands.”

Soper said the trust has a private sector fundraising target of $45.5m towards the total construction budget for the new stadium and an estimated $10m of bridging finance.

“We will achieve our fundraising target from the sale of memberships, seating products and corporate suites ($41.5m) and sale of sponsorship products ($14m).”

But he conceded that, to date, they’d raised nothing. Only registrations of interest for membership products had been received totalling 40% of the target. “The trust is currently in the process of formalising these registrations into contractual agreements.”

He remained confident it would achieve the required 60% of the target by February.

“The trust is not relying on donations to meet the fundraising targets, but gratefully accepts donations from individuals who wish to express their support for the new Otago Stadium in this way. We have received $30 in donations to date.”

Otago Daily Times, 11 Oct 2008

Chief executive Richard Reid says Otago rugby has lost $1.5 million during the past two years and the union has to make its financial health a priority….

He reveals the amount of cash the Otago Rugby Football Union has lost and “makes no apologies” for trimming $900,000 off its expenses this year.

“In simple terms, we have spent more than we have earned and have borrowed against our asset base [Carisbrook] to fund the business,” Mr Reid writes….

Otago finished a disappointing 10th in the Air New Zealand Cup, failing to make the play-offs.

Mr Reid admits the public has been starved of success on the field and mistakes have been made in recruitment and retention.

» Read more…

Otago Daily Times, 1 Oct 08

The Otago Rugby Football Union has responded to criticism it has fallen quiet on the Awatea St stadium, with chief executive Richard Reid saying the organisation is “right behind” the project.

Mr Reid said he expected no difficulty in signing an agreement with the Carisbrook Stadium Trust by late November under amended conditions put in place on Monday by the Dunedin City Council.

The council voted unanimously to place a late-November deadline for it to approve agreements between the trust and the ORFU for the sale and purchase of its assets, which include Carisbrook….

The union had to sign a commercial lease at the new stadium, something that was “well under way”, and organise the disposal and sale of Carisbrook….

Trust chairman Malcolm Farry said on Monday evening it had always been his intention to have an agreement with the union completed by the end of the year.

» Read more…

Otago Daily Times, 30 Sep 2008

The Dunedin City Council has moved to tighten the conditions it has set the Carisbrook Stadium Trust and other parties to meet before it would give the final approval for the Awatea St stadium - but has agreed only to a watered-down version of amendments asked for by three councillors.

Political grouping Greater Dunedin - Crs Dave Cull, Kate Wilson and Chris Staynes - went to a meeting of the council yesterday with a list of seven amendments to conditions the council set in March.

The three have generally opposed the stadium but proposed the amendments, they said, to decrease the risk the project posed to ratepayers….

Trust chairman Malcolm Farry last night said the trust could meet the timeframes included in the amendments that were carried, but the one relating to the rugby union was “unhelpful”.

Opposition group Stop the Stadium president Bev Butler said the move was a good attempt by Greater Dunedin to reduce the “enormous risk” posed by the project, but the council had fallen behind the Otago Regional Council in placing tight conditions on the trust.

The Greater Dunedin councillors wrote a series of amendments to the original conditions which were designed to give the trust a list of milestones to reach as it continued the project.

The amendments added timeframes and funding targets.

» Read more…

Related:

» Swing over stadium

» Otago Daily Times backtracks on Trio’s swing

The Southland Times, 10 September 2008

By Nathan Burdon

Despite Carisbrook being confirmed on next year’s All Black test schedule yesterday the venue had reached its best-before date, Otago rugby boss Richard Reid said.

Dunedin will host the first of two tests between the All Blacks and France on June 13….

Carisbrook hosted the Springboks in July with a sold-out crowd of more than 29,000 in attendance, but Reid said the need for a new stadium remained….

NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said the allocation was reward for the city’s continued efforts to build a new stadium.

Reid believed the Springbok game was about more than rugby, with the region uniting to enjoy the occasion.

“It’s not about Otago rugby, it’s about the Highlanders region getting behind the Springbok game,” Reid said.

» Read more…

Otago Daily Times, 18 Aug 2008

An Otago Chamber of Commerce survey has revealed more than three-quarters of Dunedin businesses experienced no financial benefit from the All Black test match against South Africa last month.

Chief executive John Christie said the survey covered a cross-section of Dunedin businesses and 79% of those who responded said the test on July 12 had no effect on their business. The 17.4% which did register financial benefit from the event were mainly in retail, hospitality and accommodation.

Mr Christie said he was not surprised by the survey results.

“I think the survey results were a good reflection of what we were hearing anecdotally from businesses in Dunedin.”

When asked if it was worth building a new stadium in Awatea St if only 17.4% of the Dunedin business community would benefit, Mr Christie said the survey might not have encapsulated all the businesses which received financial gain.

“It’s a very good question. It’s a bit like when you throw a pebble into a pond - there are ripples near where it hits the water, but further out the benefits are less.

Read more…

Otago Daily Times, 12 Aug 2008

Carisbrook is set for one its biggest battles, after the New Zealand Historic Places Trust received five submissions on the subject of classifying the ground as a historic place of outstanding significance.

Three submissions opposed the proposal to categorise Carisbrook as a category 1 historic place, Trust Otago-Southland manager Owen Graham said.

After checks, submissions would go to the board in September or October, he said.

Submissions from the Otago Rugby Football Union, from the Carisbrook Stadium Trust, and one from the Dunedin City Council (which was received yesterday) opposed the category 1 classification proposal.

Two submissions supported it - one from a Dunedin resident, the other from former city councillor Lee Vandervis.

» Read article here