# Shrunk stadiums



## andretanure (Jun 20, 2012)

Hum that's true. Sorry haha Now i got the thread's purpose...


Arena Corinthians, in order to host the WC 2014 open game, will increase its capacity from about 48000 to over than 60000 using an extra structure. Unfortunately, there are no official detailed renders showing how it will be made. After the games, they'll take it away, because Corinthians has just said they are not interested on keeping the stadium's capacity of 60k.


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## Walbanger (Jan 10, 2006)

The WACA Ground in Perth used to hold over 30 000 but has been reduced to 19 000.


















to this









and soon to this (still around 20 000)









Reasons for shinkage:
After over 100 years, Aussie Rules Football was no longer played at the WACA since 1996. 
The during the 90's the *W*estern *A*ustralian *C*ricket *A*ssociation fell out of favour with the WA Government so public funds dried up.
The WACA was unable to satify other tenants and potential tenants in Soccer, Rugby league, Rugby Union and Baseball. 
Besides the Ashes, Cricket doesn't really pull that much of a crowd, especially domestic Cricket.
New business model with private partnerships and quality real estate to be new revenue stream.
Major ODI and Twenty20 matches to be played at new Perth Stadium.


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## Walbanger (Jan 10, 2006)

Anaheim Stadium was expanded in the late 70's to over 70 000 to host the LA Rams.
Those additions were demolished in the mid 90's when the Ram's left to St Louis and the Stadium was renovated to once again be a Baseball only ballpark.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

A stadium can shrink its capacity in several ways: A stadium's stand is built and then gets removed some time later; A large stadium originally built without seating becomes an all-seater. Are there any other ways of stadium shrinkage?


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## CharlieP (Sep 12, 2002)

Agreed - the natural shrinkage as terracing was replaced by seating is different to the physical downsizing that this thread is concerned with. In many cases, terraces were replaced by a physically larger structure which still resulted in a net loss of capacity.


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## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

An end rather than a whole ground, but until finances dictated a sale of land at Brentford, the Brook Road End used to look like this.










...but now looks like this...


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## invincibletiger (Oct 6, 2010)

Walbanger said:


> Besides the Ashes, Cricket doesn't really pull that much of a crowd, especially domestic Cricket.


I remember seeing good turnout always for India-Aus Tests in MCG and SCG. Why not in Perth?


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## Alemanniafan (Dec 15, 2008)

Jim856796 said:


> A stadium can shrink its capacity in several ways: A stadium's stand is built and then gets removed some time later; A large stadium originally built without seating becomes an all-seater. Are there any other ways of stadium shrinkage?


Of course there are. Many smaller old stadia officially "shrink" in terms of the maximum capacity due to modern safety regulations and requirements. 
The old Tivoli in Aachen for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tivoli), which has been in use over 80 years but is now demolished, once used to host up to 35000 in an absolute maximum it's even supposed to have hosted about 40.000 Spectators as the official record attendancy. 

With time the terracing needed to be fenced in. Spectators had to be placed at a minimum distance to the playingfield. Regulations for emergency evacuation routes had to be met. So some of the terracing was lost due to larger stairways, then later there had to be buffer zones established between home and away fans, crush barriers installed, as well as legal restrictions on the maximum number of people allowed onto a certain space. Wooden bleachers on the main stand where people used to sit on were required to be replaced by seats.
Also in addition to that modern leagues require a certain amount of seats for the press, which also reduced terracing capacities. A container for the supervision of police and firefighters also had to be placed inside the stadium onto previous terracing space. And a video scoreboard also had been mounted on the rear of a stand also leading to a certain loss of terracing.

So gradually over the years due to very minor modernisations and change of legal restrictions and requirements, the stadiums overall capacity has been lowered from about 35.000 step by step to about 21.300 in 2006 and in some games with higher safety requirements due to fan rivalries even less than 20.000. 

All that basically happened with hardly any major structural changes to the stadium since the expansions during 50ties or the added roof on the mainstand and opposite stand during the 80ties (which naturally didn't change the capacity much if at all). So basically only small and minor changes to barely meet the various modern minimum requirements of the first and second Bundeliga were made and just that alone allready led to a loss of maximum stadium capacity of a little more than 1/3rd of what it once used to be in the 60ties and 70ties.


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## Luigi742 (Apr 13, 2012)

invincibletiger said:


> I remember seeing good turnout always for India-Aus Tests in MCG and SCG. Why not in Perth?


because cricket is bat shit boring


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## invincibletiger (Oct 6, 2010)

Luigi742 said:


> because cricket is bat shit boring


People from Melbourne and Sydney seem to like it


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## invincibletiger (Oct 6, 2010)

*Some attendance figures from past Aus-Ind Test series*

MCG
2003-04: 62613, 39566, 33256, 14965, 29262
2007-08: 68465, 44691, 36265, 16738
2011-12: 70068, 52858, 40556, 25865

SCG
2003-04: 44901, 41367, 40501, 36164, 27056
2007-08: 29403, 29286, 29358, 20301, 10941
2011-12: 35510, 30077, 31644, 17881

Adelaide
2003-04: 20048, 20310, 17828, 9864
2011-12: 21480, 19671, 35081, 17408

Perth
2011-12: 17956, 17194, 14352


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## SJAnfield (Jun 18, 2009)

My neck of the woods had a significant reduction thanks to Stanford. They went from around 90,000 to 50,000. They essentially built a brand new stadium in the existing bowl of old Stanford Stadium. The impressive thing is they did it in a matter of months (thanks to their enormous coffers). It went from one of the absolute worst places to watch a game to honestly my favorite venue, and I hate Stanford with a passion.


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## KingmanIII (Aug 25, 2008)

^^ I intended to post precisely this example.

Before:










After:


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## Walbanger (Jan 10, 2006)

invincibletiger said:


> I remember seeing good turnout always for India-Aus Tests in MCG and SCG. Why not in Perth?


Cricket may be Australia's national past time but its general popularity has been in decline since the 80's when other sports got their act together and formed National leagues instead of state based ones. The Winter Football codes may divided the country between Rugby League and Australian Rules Football but both are far more popular than Cricket.

Cricket is seen as boring yet Twenty20 Cricket feel's too compromised and a desperate attempt at commercial relevence. Test Cricket will always be the pinnacle in the eyes of Australians and the Captain of the Australian Cricket Team is still the most illustious position in Australian Sports but this is more a factor of tradition, mystique and nostalgia.

Our Cricket Stadiums are the high quality and size they are because of Aussie Rules Football, not Cricket.

Specifically in regards to the original quote. The Ashes will always fill the grounds in Australia, other touring teams over the Aussie summer will only get good crowds if they are rivaling Australia at the top such as India and South Africa during the 2000's to now. The West Indies, Pakistan or New Zealand would get average support.


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