Bullet
Years ago
Honestly for a major city, the Brisbane bullets need a stadium to reflect the professionalism and growing status of the NBL, we can't have our teams playing in American high school gyms. With the new upgrades in cairns and the jackjumpers upgrading the stadium down there Brisbane has the worst court in the country.
The attendance average is only about 3900, when they pack out 5300 every game, then it's time to move.
Zodiac
Years ago
Their game last night only got 1,500 maybe worry about getting people to their games first before worrying about a new stadium.
Bullet
Years ago
Last nights game, lots of people are concerned about attending an indoors venue on the south side of Brisbane where the UK covid strain outbreak happened, might explain the small crowd.
Plus it's a painful venue to get too, it’s on the south side with limited public transport and no parking available.
Zodiac
Years ago
Yeah yeah we heard all the excuses when you played at the Brisbane Convention Centre to explain your poor crowds there too.
Brisbane/Gold Coast has always been a terrible market for the NBL and I would be counting yourselves fortunate that LK bothered to bring the Bullets back in the first place.
Bullet
Years ago
Genuine reasons why people don't show up, the market is here, it’s the 3rd largest city in the country. It’s a popular sport. If you continue to make the same mistakes over and over again it’s the definition of insanity.
A new stadium is coming in 1-2 years in the heart of Brisbane
Is Brisbane Live actually being built? That'd be a stupidly oversized arena for them but it would fit the bill for the NBL.
Bullet
Years ago
Brisbane live ? This mysterious 12,000 seat stadium? Any links to news articles? Any proof this is actually real lol.
Would be fantastic news if it's actually real, which I highly doubt.
Perthworld
Years ago
Every modern stadium which has hosted NBL in Brisbane has had the in-built excuse of bad location (Boondall, Convention, current place). Is that really it? I feel as if the city just doesn't care for the Bullets.
Bullet
Years ago
Perthworld, the market is here, boondall is rundown, a million miles away from the court, terrible viewing. current stadium is terribly located, south side no car parks, poor public transport, to be honest it's a hassle to attend games. Convention centre was just pathetic to be honest. We don’t have a modern purpose built stadium, if people are paying money, leaving home and making the effort, they expect state of the art venues. I’ve been to a few wildcat games, that stadium is awesome, it makes a difference trust me.
Looked it up, apparently Brisbane Live is waiting on Cross River Rail to get rid of the station. Although it seems the operator of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre is the only one talking.
Does sound like a similar story to the operator of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre pushing for the Riverbank Arena concept, and probably as far fetched as that one, which proposed a soccer pitch that magically became a roof. Even had news corp copy and pasting the same concept image on an aerial map.
Stadium was only limited to 50% capacity for first few games so give the fans a chance to turn up before you criticise. Ok they need a new venue... whats the solution, continue to play in the smaller convention centre a lose money on rent every game.
COVID free 19/20
The average turn up was 3900 per game. Lowest was 2000, highest 5300.
Not even close packing the Nissan arena every game, only 3 games it was considered full.
An 11,000, 13,500 or new 12,000 stadium is way too big.
Even in a perfect location I don't think the bullets woukd average 5500.
It would help Brisbane's cause if the dumbass NBL stopped scheduling their games to tip off at 6:30pm local. The traffic to get anywhere near the new stadium is the worst in the state and fighting through it is a huge turn off. No trains nearby. Buses are the go, eh.
Forget daylight savings in the southern states, just make tipoffs 730 local to incentivise helping the average joe get to a game for starters.
Are you a member Bullet?
I assume you aren't, because you would know the reason for them being at Nissan Arena at the moment - it is an extremely cheap stop-gap. Apparently they pay next to nothing in rent. BCEC is expensive, so they were flushing money down the toilet.
Brisbane Live is going to be built, but it will take a few years. If they started now, it will probably be around 2024 at the earliest.
As for Nissan Arena, yeah it is a bitch to get to (I live on the far north side, so I know this all too well). With the removal of the shuttle bus from Banoon station, the transport options are even more scarce.
The Bullets' CEO even stated that Brisbane Live is the next step. In fact, he insists upon it. However, we have to get people to games at Nissan Arena first. No point moving to a huge 17,000 capacity stadium if you only have 2000 members or less.
If the location of the stadium is your biggest problem, get over it and get your butt to the game! Follow a team, not a venue!
I'm happy following Brisbane on SBS. It’s free and I can watch them disappoint in the comfort of my own home rather than kill six hours of my day getting to a game and seeing them disappoint live. Unless they assemble a more exciting team and game day experience, I won’t be going to any games at Nissan.
"It would help Brisbane's cause if the dumbass NBL stopped scheduling their games to tip off at 6:30pm local. The traffic to get anywhere near the new stadium is the worst in the state and fighting through it is a huge turn off. No trains nearby. Buses are the go, eh.
Forget daylight savings in the southern states, just make tipoffs 730 local to incentivise helping the average joe get to a game for starters."
Totally agree with this.
It would certainly help the Cairns Taipans as well.
Wollongong entertainment centre is the same, old no parking or public transport. You get free public transport to go to a kings game with your ticket.
Apparently there is evidence that if you move to a better quality, better located stadium the fans will come.
Zodiac
Years ago
If you were already getting good crowds at your previous home yes.
Indoor stadiums in Aus and nz are so bad. A lot of them need upgrading.
To busy building tollways on the east coast, lot more money in tolls than stadiums.
I attended two games there last season - it's a great venue for the base that’s currently attached to the team. It has to be somewhere on the south side as that’s the 'heart’ of basketball in Brisbane. I can’t see them utilising a venue in the city full time for two reasons - they’ll be priced out of it and the reason above. The games at their current venue shit all over any experience at the convention centre.
Slopernator
Years ago
We've had a membership since the 'new' Bullets venture commenced in the league. All three venues had issues. The southside does have the largest associations in the city, but even these aren't generally that far from a centrally located venue, with perhaps Logan as the exception. Boondall is geographically isolated and a dinosaur of a venue for sports and concerts alike, though the rusted-on glory days fans often call for a return to it because of some 1980s championship wet dream they're intent on re-living.
Have been to member forums and can corroborate the above comment re: the CEO insisting a move is needed. Brisbane has shown in the past (albeit not the super recent past) that it can support a team in numbers in the right venue/situation. For all reasons mentioned above, none of the current infrastructure is that venue. Nissan is the best stop gap available but they aren't making it easy by running one shuttle bus from a station that is already some distance from the city and giving up on train connectivity altogether.
Brisbane isn't Perth but, with vision and investment, there are paralells in population and potential franchise tragectory. It wasn't so long ago that Challenge Stadium was the best that could be managed but, with a new centralised stadium and no other major tenant, look what happened. I'm not expecting that level of turnaround but if the infrastructure is followed through on in Brisbane Live (obviously a working title) and Cross River Rail, optimism isn't completely unwarranted.
So in a decade we could see old/new stadiums capacity resembling
Sydney 18,000
Brisbane 15,000
Perth 14,000
Adelaide 12,000
Melbourne 11,000
NZ 10,000
SEM 8000
Cairns 6000
Illawara 6000
Tasmania 6000
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An Australian basketball forum covering NBL, WNBL, ABL, Juniors plus NBA, WNBA, NZ, Europe, etc | Forum time is: 9:19 pm, Fri 22 Nov 2024 | Posts: 968,026 | Last 7 days: 754
