KEY POINTS:
Auckland's civic leaders plan to stick with homegrown stars in future after David Beckham's LA Galaxy failed to draw in soccer fans at the weekend.
The Auckland Regional Council's ambitious plan was criticised yesterday by Local Government minister Rodney Hide, who said the project was an own goal
from the beginning.
Mt Smart Stadium, which is owned by the ARC, will now have to trade its way out of a loss after only 16,600 watched LA Galaxy beat the Oceania All Stars 3-0.
Wellington's Westpac Stadium sold 32,000 tickets last year when Beckham visited the capital.
But the difference between the two cities was probably that Aucklanders didn't really care much about Beckham, ARC chairman Mike Lee said.
"When it comes to sports superstars I think we need to stick with Stacey Jones," Mr Lee said.
The council needed to sell 19,000 seats to break even and during the week tried to tempt Aucklanders with a two-for-one ticket deal.
In August, the Herald reported the Galaxy's match fee was US$1.2 million ($1.71 million). Yesterday, Mr Lee said he did not know what the loss would be but as the stadium was a standalone entity it would have to look after itself.
He said the upcoming Big Day Out, heavy metal band Iron Maiden and Stacey Jones' return for the New Zealand Warriors would all help.
"This will be ring-fenced off from rates. We're confident that we're getting a steady stream of income and we'll work our way out of this - but to be frank, we are disappointed. We don't anticipate a major loss, we don't like to put on events and lose money but almost certainly there will be a loss."
Mr Hide said he didn't accept that Auckland ratepayers wouldn't end up paying for the loss at some point.
It was always dodgy when councils started getting into business, he said.
"If it was to generate a return, other people would have done it ahead of them.
"They must have a lot of money left over given that they can afford to get into the business of bringing in soccer teams. I always find it hard when they plead poverty when they've got money for things like this."
Mr Lee said staging the event was part of the council's Bringing the World to Auckland strategy which aimed to see benefits ripple through the regional economy. The timing of this event being close to Christmas, and in the face of a recession probably didn't help matters.
"The world's changed in the last three months with the economic downturn. It's a 50:50 call but you think you've got a stadium sitting here, and certainly soccer's the most popular game in the world. We've done a lot of guessing and we've guessed wrong."
While punters didn't front, there were intangible benefits, such as thousands of children having the opportunity to watch the soccer superstar for free, extending links to Pacific nations and international television coverage.
