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Abstract
Australian sports stadia are returning to the core of cities and to sites supported by high-capacity public transport infrastructure, forming what is often termed ‘transit-oriented development’ (TOD). In addition, travel demand management (TDM) is being used to condition patrons into using public transport, redefining the patron transport experience. The scale of these shifts has significant implications for patrons, most of whom attend to watch the four respective football codes – Australian Rules (AFL), rugby league, rugby union and soccer – the dominant spectator sports in Australia. These shifts are exemplified in new stadiums such as Docklands in Melbourne and Lang Park in Brisbane. The rise of TDM and TOD also requires a new approach to determining stadium catchments, for which a method based on public transport accessibility is demonstrated. The research explores the prospects of possible AFL stadium locations on Queensland's Gold Coast and questions the decision to locate the future stadium at Carrara.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Translink and Queensland Transport for the provision of public transport data and for funding research on Transit-Oriented Development. The research on accessibility modelling has also has been generously supported by the Queensland Development Research Institute (QDRI) and the Australasian Centre for the Governance and Management of Urban Transport (GAMUT). The authors also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers whose input improved the final essay.
Notes
1 Post to Bigfooty.com, 10 September 2008 on the topic ‘It's The Football Stupid’ – Possible explanation for falling AFL attendances in Adelaide'. www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t = 492248.
2 See CitationBale and Moen, The Stadium and the City; Redhead, ‘Those Absent From the Stadium are Always Right’; and Fredline, ‘Host and Guest Relations’; Gibson, ‘Sport Tourism’.
3 Lipsitz, ‘Sports Stadiums and Urban Development’; CitationThornley, ‘Urban Regeneration and Sports Stadia’.
4 See CitationLertwachara and Cochran, ‘An Event Study’; CitationNelson, ‘Prosperity or Blight?’; CitationWassmer, ‘Metropolitan Prosperity from Major League Sports in the CBD’.
5 CitationBale, Sport, Space and the City.
6 CitationSiegfried and Zimbalist, ‘The Economics of Sports Facilities’, 100.
7 Macdonald, ‘Most Valuable Player’.
8 See CitationLeonard, A Sociological Perspective of Sport, 331–2.; CitationBuraimo, Forrest and Simmons, ‘Freedom of Entry’.
9 CitationHorak, ‘Moving to Suburbia’; CitationSpirou and Bennett, It's Hardly Sportin', 59–82.
10 CitationBerry, Carson and Smyth, A Multi-purpose Sports Stadium.
11 CitationBale, ‘In the Shadow of the Stadium’; CitationHumphreys, Mason and Pinch, ‘The Externality Fields of Football Grounds’.
12 CitationMott MacDonald, ‘Predicting People Movement’.
13 CitationBale, Sport, Space and the City, 40–2.
14 Eight AFL games are played each week (the majority of which are played at the MCG, Docklands, Subiaco, Westlakes, the ‘Gabba and SCG) over a 22-round home and away regular season contested by 16 AFL clubs and were attended by an average of 38,286 persons per game in 2008 (see www.footywire.com/afl/footy/); Eight NRL games are also played per week over a 25-round home and away regular season contested by 16 NRL clubs and were attended by an average of 15,917 persons per game in 2008.
15 CitationUrry, ‘The “System” of Automobility’, 27.
16 CitationBlainey, A Game of Our Own, 98.
17 CitationHuggins and Tolson, ‘The Railways and Sport in Victorian Britain’, 110.
18 CitationBlainey, A Game of Our Own, 157.
19 CitationFløysand and Jakobsen, ‘Commodification of Rural Places’, 208.
20 CitationHay, Haig-Muir and Mewett, ‘“A Stadium as Fine as any on Earth” or “Arctic Park”?’, 158.
21 CitationHay et al., ‘Waverley Park’, 10–11.
22 CitationDovey et al., Fluid City, 160–1.
23 See www.waverleypark.com.au/.
24 See R. Hodder, ‘Stadium Village’. Herald Sun, 2000.
25 CitationMoriarty, ‘Inequality in Australian cities’, 214.
26 CitationHensher and Brewer, ‘Going for Gold at the Sydney Olympics’, 383.
27 For more on these Planning Movements see CitationSmart Growth Network, About Smart Growth, 5–7; and CitationLeccese et al., Charter of the New Urbanism.
28 CitationCervero, Transit-Oriented Development in the United States, 5–7.
29 Citationvan Dam, ‘Refurbishment, Redevelopment or Relocation?’, 138.
30 CitationLeask and Digance, ‘Exploiting Unused Capacity’.
31 CitationDaisa, ‘Traffic, Parking, and Transit-Oriented Development’, 115–16.
32 CitationBerry, Carson and Smyth, A Multi-purpose Sports Stadium, 24.
33 CitationBale, Sport, Space and the City, 101–6.; CitationHumphreys, Mason and Pinch, ‘The Externality Fields of Football Grounds’, 403.
34 CitationMeyer, ‘Demand Management as an Element of Transportation Policy’, 576.
35 CitationChapman, ‘Transport and Climate Change’.
36 CitationMeyer, ‘Demand Management as an Element of Transportation Policy’, 583–4.
37 Stadiums Queensland (formerly the Major Sports Facilities Authority) is the State Government body charged with the management of major sports facilities that are declared under the Queensland Government's Major Sports Facilities Act 2001.
38 ABC News, ‘MP Wants Football Stadium Car Park’.
39 CitationBredhauer, ‘Ministerial Statement’, 2,453.
40 South Australian National Football League, ‘A New Era for Footy Express’.
41 Mees, O'Connell and Stone, ‘Travel to Work in Australian Capital Cities’.
42 CitationHumphreys, Mason and Pinch, ‘The Externality Fields of Football Grounds’, 408.
43 See Australian Bureau of Statistics, Citation Sports Attendance, Australia ; or CitationGuilianotti, Football, 79.
44 CitationManville and Shoup, ‘Parking, People, and Cities’.
45 CitationMarcus, ‘A Parking Home Run’, 19.
46 CitationDunning, Sport Matters, 119.
47 Ibid., 6–7.
48 CitationSteg, ‘Car Use’, 150.
49 CitationHinch and Higham, Sport Tourism Development.
50 For ‘hooning’ see CitationButler-Bowdon, ‘Roads Hogs to Road Rage’.
51 A concept provided by Featherstone, ‘Automobilities’, 9.
52 CitationButler-Bowdon, Roads Hogs to Road Rage, 82.
53 CitationAnable and Gatersleben, ‘All Work and No Play?’, 165.
54 CitationNahuis, ‘The Politics of Innovation’, 232.
55 CitationGetz, ‘Event Tourism’, 414.
56 CitationNicholson and Hoye, Sport and Social Capital.; CitationPerks, ‘Does Sport Foster Social Capital?’.
57 CitationFairley and Gammon, ‘Something Lived, Something Learned’.
58 CitationUrry, ‘Small Worlds’, 119.
59 CitationWittel, ‘Towards a Network Sociality’, 68.
60 CitationSennett, The Fall of Public Man, 39.
61 CitationUrry, ‘Small Worlds’, 120.
62 See CitationYago, ‘The Sociology of Transportation’. And for a non-public transport argument, CitationFishbein and Ajzen, Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior, 177.
63 CitationAnable, ‘“Complacent Car Addicts”’, 65.
64 CitationSeethaler and Rose, ‘Application of Psychological Principles’, 73.
65 CitationLynch, ‘Disorder on the Sidelines of Australian Sport’, 50.
66 CitationGuilianotti, Football, 82.
67 CitationBale, Sport, Space and the City, 30.
68 The AFL's marketing department cites figures from Morgan Research claiming that 50% of AFL supporters are female; this compares to 39% of the National Rugby League's supporters. Of the attendances at AFL games every weekend, about 45% are female.
69 CitationMetz, The Limits to Travel, 129.
70 CitationBaim, The Sports Stadium, 219.
71 For the main form of city-level transport models such as the Brisbane Strategic Transport Model, see CitationBureau of Transport Economics, Urban Transport Models; Pas, ‘The Urban Transportation Planning Process’.
72 CitationLitman, ‘Non-Motorized Transportation Demand Management’.
73 CitationHalden, ‘Using Accessibility Measures’, 214.
74 CitationBerry, Carson and Smyth, A Multi-purpose Sports Stadium, 52.
75 N. Smart, ‘GC17 Team Puts Coast Case Forward’. Gold Coast Bulletin, October 14, 2008.
76 ‘City Commits $20 m to AFL Stadium’. Gold Coast Bulletin, October 10, 2008.
77 CitationBurke, Evans and Hatfield, A Sporting Chance.
78 CitationWittel, ‘Towards a Network Sociality’.
79 CitationNahuis, ‘The Politics of Innovation’.
80 Featherstone, ‘Automobilities’; CitationSheller, ‘Bodies, Cybercars’; and CitationUrry, ‘The “System” of Automobility’.
81 CitationBadcock, ‘Recently Observed Polarising Tendencies’.