The hideous cost of staging the WC

[Dasher39]

Do we know the full details?

Melbourne is one of four grand slams that occur on an annual basis.

So it'll really only get used for two weeks a year and yet they're spending $360m on it...yet you're not as outraged as you are with the rectangular stadium that will be used year round.

Why is that I wonder?

I'm not anti-Tennis Centre, I think it's fantastic and will only improve the tournament and complex, just more interested in the reactions of those who were outraged that the Govt were spending $300m on "Soccer".

 

[Barkly St End]

So it'll really only get used for two weeks a year and yet they're spending $360m on it...yet you're not as outraged as you are with the rectangular stadium that will be used year round.

Why is that I wonder?

I'm not anti-Tennis Centre, I think it's fantastic and will only improve the tournament and complex, just more interested in the reactions of those who were outraged that the Govt were spending $300m on "Soccer".

As I said - I don't know the full details - I don't what other contributions there are - I don't know about the revenue projections for those two weeks per annum - but I do know this - it's an Australian event, and Australian entities get to keep much of the revenue that is generated.

Plus it happens every year, hopefully in perpetuity.

So, at this point, I can't pass judgement.

As far as I am aware, the Tennis Open hasn't made a claim on any assets controlled by any other sport during the period in question.

 

[telsor]

The FFA had zero input into the design of the stadium. Melbourne Storm wanted a 20,000 capacity venue and Melbourne Victory wanted a 40,000 capacity venue - 31,500 ended up being the compromise. Melbourne Victory were certainly never going to sign a lease for a 20,000 seat stadium, and rightly so. FYI venues may be added to list of stadiums for a host country up until 5 years prior to the World Cup being held.

Even from your own description of it, I'd say they had imput.

Yes, they didn't get the result they wanted, but that's what compromise involves.

 

[telsor]

Tennis.

I don't think it's comperable to the bubble dome, because as the WC believers say, the 'world event' status does change a few things, and you get some return from tourists and exposure. If they're 'worth it' is debatable, but they do provide a comparison point for the WC.

$360million for (effectively) a 25 year extention on the event, so 50 weeks of tennis and global exposure. ( it does get used at other times, but less stick just to the event at hand ).

Compared that to the WC, which would (probably) cost over 10 times that money and run for less than a tenth as long.

Yes, WC is higher profile, but I doubt very much it's over 100 times higher.

 

[Barkly St End]

Probably costs 20 times more (all indications are that $6 billion is your starting point).

And then it would be interesting to see who gets to keep what revenue - I suspect a fair bit of the tennis revenue ends up in Australia, which is the reverse situation to the WC, where FIFA takes it all.

 

[cos789]

Compared that to the WC, which would (probably) cost over 10 times that money and run for less than a tenth as long.
.

From a marketing point of view you want a promotion that's there
frequently not like a one-off OLympics or wc.

.

 

[telsor]

From a marketing point of view you want a promotion that's there
frequently not like a one-off OLympics or wc.

.

There are pros and cons of each. I'm not qualified to say which is 'better', but I'd imagine it'd be fairly close.

Regular gets better reinforcement.

One off gets a bigger lead up.

 

[cos789]

There are pros and cons of each. I'm not qualified to say which is 'better', but I'd imagine it'd be fairly close.

No .Big one-offs tend to attract push forward tourism which can actually produce post promotion holes .
Regular advertising keeps the product up there
and promotes regularity .


.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

My thoughts are, although the Olympics were similar in some ways, they apealled to a much broader audience, in fact in many ways the Olympics are sports for the non sports enthusiast. Mum's and dad's and Granny's get roped into the spectacle of the opening ceremony, and watch sports that they haven't paid attention to for the last four years.

This is as it should be because the tax that paid for it comes from that same broad cross section of the public.

If the goverment announced that they were spending billions on a huge lawn bowls tornament, we would all think it was ridiculous, but to many members of the population a huge soccer tornament is no less ridiculous.

 

[mustapha]

My thoughts are, although the Olympics were similar in some ways, they apealled to a much broader audience, in fact in many ways the Olympics are sports for the non sports enthusiast. Mum's and dad's and Granny's get roped into the spectacle of the opening ceremony, and watch sports that they haven't paid attention to for the last four years.

This is as it should be because the tax that paid for it comes from that same broad cross section of the public.

If the goverment announced that they were spending billions on a huge lawn bowls tornament, we would all think it was ridiculous, but to many members of the population a huge soccer tornament is no less ridiculous.

Would millions of Australians get up in the middle of the night to watch a huge lawn bowls tournament?

 

[Barkly St End]

Would millions of Australians get up in the middle of the night to watch a huge lawn bowls tournament?

They might get up to watch a pole vault final that features an Australian.

That's the point.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Would millions of Australians get up in the middle of the night to watch a huge lawn bowls tournament?

Yes there were two million Australians who were really really interested in the WC result against Italy. But that doesn't make the rest of the population any more interested, but if we were to host the WC their taxes would all be going towards it.

Around two Million watched the WC game against Italy. It was in fact one of the 2 or 3 WC games I watched that year.

a) In absolute ratings terms it had a smaller audience than Border security , Dancing with the stars Final, and the Biggest Loser Final.

b) It didn't cost the other 17 million Australians one brass razoo. Though it is feasible that some of them were a bit annoyed when their husband turned the TV on in the bedroom in the middle of the night ( I know for sure that this happened at least once ).

c). Can you garauntee Australia will have a chance of getting to the final's, because I know that I for one was watching that game because of that chance, and I suspect thats why many others were watching. In the end we are in fact a great nation of bandwagoners.

 

[mustapha]

Yes there were two million Australians who were really really interested in the WC result against Italy. But that doesn't make the rest of the population any more interested, but if we were to host the WC their taxes would all be going towards it.

Around two Million watched the WC game against Italy. It was in fact one of the 2 or 3 WC games I watched that year.

a) In absolute ratings terms it had a smaller audience than Border security , Dancing with the stars Final, and the Biggest Loser Final.

b) It didn't cost the other 17 million Australians one brass razoo. Though it is feasible that some of them were a bit annoyed when their husband turned the TV on in the bedroom in the middle of the night ( I know for sure that this happened at least once ).

c). Can you garauntee Australia will have a chance of getting to the final's, because I know that I for one was watching that game because of that chance, and I suspect thats why many others were watching. In the end we are in fact a great nation of bandwagoners.

There were three other Australian games that rated very well. The qualifier against Uruguay rated very well. Many other Socceroos games have rated well.

Do you believe that taxes paid by an individual should only be spent in areas that are approved by that individual?

 

[cos789]

Do you believe that taxes paid by an individual should only be spent in areas that are approved by that individual?

Firstly taxes should benefit people , secondly benefit as many people as possible and be cost effective as possible .

Nobody has demonstrated that it will be cost effective ,what infrastructure benefit there will be and who will benefit .

 

[mustapha]

Firstly taxes should benefit people , secondly benefit as many people as possible and be cost effective as possible .

Nobody has demonstrated that it will be cost effective ,what infrastructure benefit there will be and who will benefit .

Do you believe that we should have held the Olympics in 2000? Financially, it did not do as well as predicted. Is your opinion that using the knowledge gained from Sydney 2000, we should never spend any money on any event, unless there is conclusive evidence that we will make a profit?

Do you believe that taxpayer money should be spent on AFL stadiums in states where AFL is not popular (eg. Cararra)? The majority of people in Queensland follow rugby league but their hard earned tax dollars are being spent on a stadium for a sport that very few people care about.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

There were three other Australian games that rated very well. The qualifier against Uruguay rated very well. Many other Socceroos games have rated well.

Do you believe that taxes paid by an individual should only be spent in areas that are approved by that individual?

So there were three games that rated fairly high, but not as high as:

the cricket, The Australian Open, Commonwealth games opening or closing ceremonies , NRL Final, the AFL final "wrap up", or Carols by bloody candlelight.

No I don't believe that taxes paid by an individual should only be spent in areas that are approved by that individual, but at the same time I don't think it's appropriate for the goverment to build a freeway from my house to where I work just to benefit me. There should be a reasonable benefit to the general public appropriate to the amount spent.

While the Soccer World Cup would no doubt generate interest slightly above the Australian Open Tennis, but the cost of the two main tennis stadiums and all of the rest of the infrastructure probably cost less than one major football stadium, for an event that is locked in annually for many years. As such I dont believe that there will be a reasonable benefit to the general public appropriate to the amount spent.

Yes the world cup would be a bigger event for diehard Soccer fans, but not for diehard Tennis fans.

 

[telsor]

Got a compromise for the WC fans.

If we win,

Government pays the first Billion for the WC ( including the bid ).
Government and FFA split the next 2 billion 50/50.
After that, it's all FFA.

Ticket prices for all soccer games in Australia get a 10% surcharge, which goes to the WC fund.
10% of all TV rights deals involving soccer go to the WC fund.
Fans who want the wc can contribute extra amounts voluntarily.

Those extra charges continue until the FFA debt is paid, but considering the massive and overwhelming support claimed, that shouldn't take long.

All requirements to void existing contracts are to be negotiated with the contract holders.

 

[scotto_01]

a) In absolute ratings terms it had a smaller audience than Border security , Dancing with the stars Final, and the Biggest Loser Final.

time difference was the big issue here, the 3 shows you mentioned were all in primetime, best to compare with something thatt occured at the same time of the night.

b) It didn't cost the other 17 million Australians one brass razoo. Though it is feasible that some of them were a bit annoyed when their husband turned the TV on in the bedroom in the middle of the night ( I know for sure that this happened at least once ).

these things happend everywhere, it turns up parents dont like it when you throw the remote at the tv and call people cheating carnts

c). Can you garauntee Australia will have a chance of getting to the final's, because I know that I for one was watching that game because of that chance, and I suspect thats why many others were watching. In the end we are in fact a great nation of bandwagoners.

australia will be seeded A1 for the draw, which would mean they would avoid the other seeded nations within the group phase. From there its the luck of the draw im afraid, we could quite easily find ourselves in the position of brazil (having to play ivory coast, portugal), or a more favourable draw like england (usa, algeria,slovenia).

ffa, with their talent identification program and new youth development structere are aiming for the semi- finals of 2018. ok that seems unrealistic, but everyone needs a target to aim for.

also- frank lowy stated at the begining of the bid (2 years ago) that his dream was for australia to make the final, personally if we make the quarters of our home wc it would be a great achievement.

 

[colourpurple]

Got a compromise for the WC fans.

How about the govenment issue WC bonds.
The return depending on the success.

 

[colourpurple]

Do you believe that we should have held the Olympics in 2000? Financially, it did not do as well as predicted. Is your opinion that using the knowledge gained from Sydney 2000, we should never spend any money on any event, unless there is conclusive evidence that we will make a profit?.

IMO most people want a good cost/benefit ratio.
I believe NSW are still paying for it.
Once again a major event didn't live up to the hype.
There is a lesson there.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

IMO most people want a good cost/benefit ratio.
I believe NSW are still paying for it.
Once again a major event didn't live up to the hype.
There is a lesson there.

At least the Olympics had widespread appeal, so that the majority of Australians recognised it as a special occasion.
Peaple went to see all sorts of sports they had never been interested in before.
It was common for the TV to be left on the Olympics all day in many households.
The local TV ratings topped 6 million for the opening and closing , and the daily viewing started at 4 million and tapered down to 3 million towards the end. More than 2 million people watched the opening of the paralympics for christsakes!
Thats nearly as many as would have been watching the AFL grand final in those days.

I suspect that in the case of the WC many would be lamenting that " Days of our Lives isn't on because of the bloody soccer "
Some might watch the first couple of games that Australia plays in before getting sick of it. ( I'm not saying that AFL would fare any better for this sort of broad audience, but no-ones proposing to spend a fortune on a huge monthlong AFL tornament are they?)

 

[Barkly St End]

Doing the rounds in the various sporting forums, one notes a hint of pessimism creeping into the thought patterns of otherwise eager football fans in relation to Australia's bid to host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022.

There are good reasons for this pessimism. Assuming that our very best chance is 2022, I would summarise the reasons as follows:

1. Host Cities

Australia's eight largest cities include the five mainland capitals plus Gold Coast, Newcastle and Canberra, and these would be your starting position if you were to put forward a list of suggestions.

The ACT Government has already publicly distanced itself from the possibility of fronting up the $200 million price tag (plus other costs and indemnities), and the two cities with the least need for large rectangular stadiums, Adelaide and Perth, are also looking iffy.

While both Adelaide and Perth have ovals that need upgrading, and which might be used for a WC bid at a pinch, both have been big on talk of late, but lacking in political will and decisiveness.

Thus doubts remain on three of our eight largest cities.

2. Stadiums

Following on from the last point, if you're lacking in host cities, there's a real good chance you'll be lacking in stadiums. The accepted wisdom is that we have five stadiums that pass muster, but that would still need money spent on them, and that seven stadiums would virtually need to be built from scratch or at a minimum would require large scale and expensive upgrades.

The Australian Financial Review quoted one state government insider on 9 November 2009: "Australia's chance of actually making a serious bid is somewhere between zip and zero because they want us to spend billions of dollars on stadiums and there just isn't a market for it".

Only today I have discovered that The Asian Football Confederation has extended the deadline for Australia to submit its bid to host the 2015 Asian Cup by four months.

This is so the FFA can: "continue discussions with various levels of Australian government and other stakeholders to formalize the relevant guarantees and facility agreements, which are part of the bid submission. "
See USA Today article.

3. Finances

I was listening to the Prime Minister only this morning talking about the need to tighten our belts fiscally because the Commonwealth's budget deficit is already in the tens of billions of dollars, and most of the states are no better off (relatively speaking).

The Australian Financial Review quoted one state government insider on 9 November 2009: "The states are furious about the bidder requirements, they are very very unhappy. We would be hard-pressed to find that money and we have got so much else that we have to spend money on. There are not any promises from the commonwealth that they will shovel any money in to build all these stadiums."

Conclusion

Note that I have not even touched on the issue of the AFL withholding Etihad should it become apparent that the FFA needs it for the bid.

Nor have I touched on the US bid which features 18 potential host cities, and 21 magnificent rectangular stadiums, every one of them above 67,000 in capacity.

All in all, it's very difficult to see us putting up a competitive bid.

 

[colourpurple]

Obviously things have cooled from the initial hype as the realities of cost to benefit begin to sink in.
We are a small country with only 5 mainland capital cities of size.
Adelaide and Perth would require new stadiums.Those two alone have been costed at $1.6 billion.
Those potential host cities are far flung and you cannot farther away from the mainstream than Australia .
There are already very bids bids in place whilst Australia hasn't divulged a basic concept possibly due to a lack of planning and cohesion.
Other bids have spent manyfold the stadium cost on infrastructure especially fast trains snd airports as well as general transport and accomodation.

The newest update seems to be historical of note.
I was talking to a financial advisor today and when the subject of interest rates came up, the informed opinion is that they are in for a continued rise as we we have to repay the GFC costs.This has already been reflected in the stock market.It would be a brave government that committed us to a further huge expenditure amount for what is basically an indulgent month of soccer.

 

[colourpurple]

Some 2014 Brazil costs from Wikipedia .

In September 2008, Brazil's Transport Ministry announced a high-speed train (TAV RJ-SP) project for the World Cup connecting Campinas, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. This would cost US$11 billion.

On August 31, 2009 the state airport management agency Infraero unveiled a BRL5.3 billion (USD2.8 billion; EUR2.0 billion) investment plan [13] to upgrade airports of ten of the venue cities, increasing their capacity and comfort for the hundreds of thousands of tourists expected for the Cup.

 

[Barkly St End]

The more people drill down, the more we learn just how much out of reach all of this is.

The budget situation at each level of Government is quite poor, and the prospect isn't that much better for the next few years at least.

It's hard to see how anyone is going to pull all of this together in just five weeks.

The latest word from someone I know closely related to the taskforce in the Dept of Health is that they are nowhere near it.

The other thing is that they have discovered that it's not just the AFL is not getting any info out of the FFA, this taskforce is getting nothing as well.

It's hard to know how that can help matters, but the FFA thinking is that the harder they play, the more they are likely to get out of it (ultimately, that's the main thing that's driving them).

Also, it's all premised on getting a blank cheque. That's what FIFA wants, and that's what the FFA wants.

When government officials sit down and start talking about the details, no competent high ranking official is going to give a blank cheque - that's not the way it works in Australia.