Martin Snedden: Rugby World Cup 2011 CEO on the ongoing stadium debate in Auckland

There's a belief the bigger problem with Auckland's stadiums is not having the right sized venues.  

Councillors are set to vote tomorrow on whether to back Eden Park 2-point-1 or build a new Quay Park site. 

The latter project can be scaled down to 20-thousand for smaller events, from 50-thousand for big ones. 

But Rugby World Cup 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden told Mike Hosking they can't keep putting smaller events like test cricket into big stadiums. 

He says even if they build the new stadium and it gets five-thousand people to smaller games, they'll have the same problem. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we've got yet another debate over a so called
national stadium in Auckland, and like the other ones, this
one has now ground to a bit of a whole.
There's a report tells us that Eden Park's redevelopment and
the downtown Key Part project are both unfeasible without public money.
So counselors are going to meet tomorrowy yaxham Moore about it.
The chief executive of the two thousand and eleven Rugby
World Cup, Martin Snedden's with us Martin morning, Biddy, Michael,

(00:21):
good to talk to you. It's embarrassing because I was
talking to you in twenty eleven about this very thing
and we're still talking about it now. I mean, is
just tell you everything you need to know about what's
wrong with this country?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah? Yeah, We're not good on this one at all.
And it's it's really frustrating because the longer it goes on,
the more it just gets bogged down and positions that
just don't come together.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Do you have a plan? I mean, first of all,
two part question, do we need a national stadium? And two?
If we do, who should run it and own it
and sort it and make a decision Once and for all.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
So I'll just declare I'm hopelessly conflicted here. My great
grandfather was one of five bloats that mortgage their houses
and purchase the land and sandring and turned it into
a cricket ground, put it into a trust, invited rugby
in and you know, so my family, me, we've had
such a huge involvement with the ground. So I love it.
I love Eden Park. I love the big events there.

(01:13):
I think they do the big events really well. I mean,
people in this whole debate seem to forget that the
Rugby World Cup, you know, eleven games, basically sixty thousand
people again, cricket will Cup two fifteen, the fief of
Women's World Cup you know last year could play playing
there fifty thousand people three nights in a row. It
can handle the really big events, the national stadium events.

(01:38):
I'm a resident around Eden Park that's sorted all the
rubbish out around there. They do a great job with
the residence. So the problem, Mike, is not the big stuff.
The problem is the small stuff and playing you know,
a whole bunch of small stuff in a stadium that's
just not built. The small stuff. Credit made a big

(01:59):
decision in a number of years ago to shift test
cricket out of the big stadium, put it in the
boutique grounds like Hagley and Bay Oval, and it's worked brilliantly.
But if we continue to put small events into big
stadium and this will be the same. Even if they
build a brand new stadium down in the waterfront area,
if they're getting five thousand people to those games that

(02:22):
are played there, they're going to have the same problem.
So we've needed for a long time right size stadia
to fit right size events. And we missed an enormous
opportunity with Western Springs about seven or eight years ago,
where cricket could have really easily transferred there got out

(02:44):
of the way of everything at Rugby.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Look following the rest of the country. Though, by the
time you've got Eden Park and you've got Mount Smart Stadium,
you've got Albany Stadium, don't we have enough stuff? I mean,
we're all right, aren't we.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
We shouldn't even have that amount. I mean it's time
people really got collaborative. And I know, you know, you
may not agree with me here, but the Warriors Auckland FC,
they should be incorporated into the program and even part
so that you know that venue is this is what's
happened places around the world, is the multi use of

(03:19):
one venue. Look at what happened at Eden Park over
the weekend. We're on Friday they had white fans and
black Caps Internationals played their Saturday it was a Crusaders
and the Blues, and Monday it was the All Whites
qualifying for the World Cup. That's the right use of
the stadia and that's what we need to move towards.
We don't need to keep propping up other stadia that

(03:42):
are just not for purpose. Let's just concentrate it all
into what we've got now. The real problem here of
courses now is quite obviously public moneys needed all right, Well,
Auckham's house has got no money and it's not putting
anything into this, and therefore the whole process that we're
going through it at the moment was probably doomed right
from the start. The government's in such a difficult situation

(04:06):
with a whole raft of things. Since you know, people
in Dunedin are being on quite rightly about a hospital,
so you've got to prioritize a hospital ahead of the stadium.
So they haven't got any money, so where are we
going to go?

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Very good question, Martin, These are all good questions. You
sound like a sensible, intelligent man who should be running
more things than you currently are. Martin Snedden, who is
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