SANFL finals times

[scott]

But as ive stated before it is not the end of Football Park.
It is simply having the top story demolished and it will remain as a 35-40,000 seater stadium.
The SANFL GF and possibly other finals will remain there for many years.
I cant see the SANFL playing any games at Adelaide Oval

Top story ie. the member's stand or the 12-year-old Northern Stand?

[Jim05]

But as ive stated before it is not the end of Football Park.
It is simply having the top story demolished and it will remain as a 35-40,000 seater stadium.
The SANFL GF and possibly other finals will remain there for many years.
I cant see the SANFL playing any games at Adelaide Oval

Top story ie. the member's stand or the 12-year-old Northern Stand?

I think the Northern stand is being demolished

[Booney]

But as ive stated before it is not the end of Football Park.
It is simply having the top story demolished and it will remain as a 35-40,000 seater stadium.
The SANFL GF and possibly other finals will remain there for many years.
I cant see the SANFL playing any games at Adelaide Oval

Everything above concourse is set to be demolished, I believe...

[Jim05]

But as ive stated before it is not the end of Football Park.
It is simply having the top story demolished and it will remain as a 35-40,000 seater stadium.
The SANFL GF and possibly other finals will remain there for many years.
I cant see the SANFL playing any games at Adelaide Oval

Everything above concourse is set to be demolished, I believe...

What will that reduce capacity to approx?

[Booney]

I believe around 30,000.

[SimonH]

But as ive stated before it is not the end of Football Park.
It is simply having the top story demolished and it will remain as a 35-40,000 seater stadium.
The SANFL GF and possibly other finals will remain there for many years.
I cant see the SANFL playing any games at Adelaide Oval

Interesting. I'd just kind of assumed that it was a goner—it's amazing how little reliable, contemporary stuff there is on the SANFL's plans for Footy Park. One of the few detailed documents is the now-quite-aged May 2011 Masterplan for the precinct (warning: long PDF). See pages 16 & 17— the 'short term' (0–5 year) part of the plan can be safely ignored because it was drafted at a time when it was unknown whether Adelaide Oval would go ahead. The 'medium term' (6–10 year) plan is stated as being "a reduced capacity stadium incorporating the western stands and the remaining lower scale seating. It is envisaged that the crowd capacity would be in the order of 15 to 20,000 people". Then the 'long term' (11–25 year) plan is stated as being the demolition of all of the stands, and keeping the oval in place for Crows training only (and community use when not used for training).

I'd very much doubt whether the 'medium term' option is still on the table. I think it was just a 'hedging the bets' option in case AO started falling apart or was only proceeded with in a very minimal way. 15 to 20,000 is a 'tweener size not much use for anything in this market. It's too big for SANFL H&A games nowadays (and with a move to 2 matchups per side per year, one home one away, the need for a 'third match' neutral venue has dissipated anyway), but too small for AFL games (even when the Pahhhr are travelling badly, they'd still hope to pull more than 20k) and too small for the SANFL GF. And why would you keep a stadium up & going with all of its infrastructure requirements and maintenance costs, just for AFL practice matches and the minor SANFL finals?

What you've heard about 35 to 40,000 capacity makes more sense notionally (in terms of fitting the SANFL GF and fitting low-drawing AFL games), but where the Crows and Pahhhhhr are busy flogging packages for members to pay a premium to attend the bright shiny new AO, and the Pahhhhhr see the AO stadium deal as their financial saviour (rightly or wrongly), neither organisation is going to be interested in scheduling even its lower-pulling matches at Footy Park. And again, it would make no financial sense at all to keep a stadium maintained & operational, year after year, for basically one day's footy (the SANFL GF).

By the time of the March 2013 Ministerial DPA (another long PDF), there was still plenty of reference to a long-term 'community use when not used for footy training' vision for the Footy Park oval surface, but the reference to a medium-term 15 to 20,000 seat stadium (or any other ongoing commercial stadium) was notably absent.

Be interested to hear further info, whether just rumours or anything confirmed by the SANFL.

[Jim05]

I believe around 30,000.

With AO being out of action every year until the end of March perhaps trial games and any sort of NAB cup type comp will still be played there