An upgraded Eden Park is endorsed to be Auckland's main stadium and Auckland Hospital disestablishes hospital supporter roles. Video / NZ Herald, Getty
Auckland Council voted to redevelop Eden Park but won’t fund the $546 million upgrade.
New Zealand Rugby supports a new stadium at Quay Park, aligning with their brand and commercial goals.
The decision leaves Eden Park in limbo, potentially sending All Blacks tests offshore for revenue.
Let’s get this straight: on Thursday Auckland Council voted in favour of redeveloping a stadium it doesn’t own or manage on the basis the city needs a state-of-the-art facility, and the country a national venue to attract the best sport and entertainment.
But thecouncil doesn’t want to pay money towards redeveloping it and says it doesn’t have any. The Government is also suggesting it too doesn’t want to contribute the $100 million Eden Park needs to begin its upgrade that it says will cost $546m in total, but others say will be closer to $1 billion.
On top of that, you have a national sports body in New Zealand Rugby, which has openly declared – through its support for the Quay Park bid – that it does not want Eden Park to be the national stadium, and had ambition and desire to see the All Blacks play in a contemporary, larger venue that aligns more with their brand values and commercial aspirations.
Frankly, it’s hard to tell how this situation could be any less inspiring or underwhelming, as what Auckland Council voted for was precisely nothing – a prolonged stalemate over stadium development that will last until bits of Eden Park are literally falling off, which will force one body – probably the government – to reluctantly provide the cash for the urgent maintenance work.
An aerial image of the proposed new precinct at Auckland's Quay Park, featuring the Downtown stadium, hotels, commercial, retail and residential space.
This is Auckland, though, a city forever held hostage by small-minded procrastinators who say they don’t have the money to commit to aspirational and non-essential projects like a new stadium, because, with limited funds, they have to prioritise essential city infrastructure projects and services.
And yet they can’t build light railways, agree on cycle lanes or mow grass berms. Aucklanders, who pay exorbitant rates, can only wonder with some dismay as to where all the money goes.
In the past decade, both Dunedin and Christchurch have managed to fund and build brilliant new stadiums, while Auckland has paid to be locked out of its own CBD to build a tiny additional inner-city rail link that doesn’t solve the pressing problem of how to move commuters from suburbia to their workplaces.
It is a city without aspiration, and what yesterday’s non-decision may also have done is intensify NZR’s desire to play home tests away from home, as they did last year when the match against Fiji was played in San Diego rather than Hamilton.
There are several reasons why NZR will have been hugely disappointed by the decision to supposedly upgrade Eden Park.
Firstly, it threw its lot in with the rival Quay Park bid – and chief executive Mark Robinson was even part of the presentation team on the day the initial presentations were made to the council.
It was a move that caused a significant element of ruction, as the Herald has previously reported that it was made without the full knowledge or support of the NZR board, and it led to Robinson having to write to various Eden Park trust luminaries such as Rob Fisher and Graham Henry to apologise.
But in Robinson’s defence, while the mechanics were clumsy and the politics of aligning with any bid ill-advised, the broader intent to give New Zealand’s rugby teams a more inspiring home in Auckland was quite right.
NZR has global aspirations for the All Blacks, and Quay Park – and indeed Wynyard Point which was another strangely overlooked competing stadium bid – are significantly more on brand than the ageing Eden Park.
These bigger stadiums would likely have come with bigger match-day yields, and so too would they have changed – for the better – the fan experience of watching the All Blacks in Auckland.
Had Quay Park been given the go-ahead, Auckland would have become a bigger factor in NZR’s commercial planning, and it most likely would have secured at least two All Blacks tests a year – if not three given the possibility that its equity partner, Silver Lake, may have invested in the wider precinct that was to include hotels and shopping malls.
But now, Auckland likely holds limited appeal, as NZR has strongly hinted in the past that it feels it pays too much to host tests at Eden Park.
And then there are the optics, the marketing narrative that the home of the world-renowned All Blacks is an ageing, multi-purpose stadium that no agency has any desire or will to fund.
The Black Ferns talk tactics during the Women's Rugby World Cup final against England in 2022. Photo / Andrew Cornaga, Photosport
That doesn’t feel like it’s the right visual fit. Without the prospect of a new stadium arising in Auckland, it’s easy to imagine that as of next year NZR will allocate home tests to Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Eden Park – with one of those four being assigned a second fixture, and the sixth game taken offshore.
That was the plan this year as NZR wanted to play one of the three tests against France in the USA – but the idea was booted to touch by the French who didn’t want the travel hassle.
NZR is desperate to boost its revenue and grow the global presence of the All Blacks, and so the total income it can generate from playing five tests at home and one offshore, is likely to be greater than the total income it can generate from playing six tests at home.
That equation would likely change if a new stadium in Auckland had been approved and playing six home tests in New Zealand would have driven higher total income than playing five in New Zealand and one offshore.
And so the upshot of yesterday’s decision was to leave the city’s major stadium in limbo, and likely send the All Blacks to the US in search of new fans and more money.
