Only in Australia The History, Politics, and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism

The subsidy appeared to be around $10 million.
Some of the projects listed in Table 11.2 can be identified with individual
politicians who want to boast about the size of the funding but more often
prefer to hide the taxpayers’bill.
The issue is not the popularity of the new stadia, which are clearly seen as
vote-winners by politicians of all hues. The issue is how the stadia are paid
for.^13 Revenue from live and TV spectators and from sponsors and advertisers
should cover construction costs, as in the EU and increasingly in North

Table 11.2Selected Sports Stadium Projects in Australia, 2002– 14

Stadium Date Financing (million $A) Principal users

Suncorp, Brisbane 2002 – 3 280 + 12 state in 2006– 7 NRL, RU, A-League
Sydney Cricket Ground 2006– 7 25 federal Cricket, AFL
Sydney Cricket Ground 2012– 14 97.5 state, 50 federal,
50 SCG trust

Cricket, AFL

Melbourne Cricket
Ground

2006 – 7 77 state, 15 federal Cricket, AFL

Robina, Gold Coast 2006 – 8 130 state NRL
Adelaide Oval 2007 25 state, 25 federal Cricket
Penrith 2007 5 state NRL
Energy Australia,
Newcastle

2008 – 9 10 federal + state NRL and A-League

AAMI (Football Park),
Adelaide

2008 – 9 100 state AFL

Skilled (Kardinia Park),
Geelong

2008 – 9, 2012– 14 federal, 46 state,

1.5 city

AFL

Brookvale, Manly pledged 6 state, 4 local NRL
Rectangular Stadium 2010 267.5 state A-League, NRL
Sydney Showground
Stadium

2012 45 state, 12 AFL, 7

Royal Agricultural Society

of NSW

AFL

Adelaide Oval 2014 535 state, 30 federal Cricket, AFL, SANFL
Perth Rectangular
Stadium

2014 95 state (stage 1) A-League

Perth proposed 690 state and federal AFL, NRL, cricket and
A-League

Notes: Few of thesefigures are known with any degree of accuracy. Governments are inconsistent in reporting what is
included in the cost, and in some cases hiding the numbers. Press coverage varies, depending on whether the media is
emphasizing the quality of stadia built in rival states or minimizing the perceived impact on taxpayers in their own.
Source: Wilson and Pomfret (2014, p. 79).

(^13) State governments often defend sports spending on public health grounds, but that is more
applicable to participatory sports than spectator sport, and spending on stadia and elite athletes
dwarfs public spending on facilities for amateur sports. In the Queensland government’s 2003/04
budget, for example, the combined cost of all amateur sports projects was less than 1 million
dollars, while the state government was providing most of the funding for the $280 million
Suncorp Stadium and a new stadium on the Gold Coast costing $130 million, for which the
main tenants would be professional sporting teams (Wilson and Pomfret 2009; Pomfret and
Wilson 2011).
Richard Pomfret