Posts by Paul Campbell
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of course "Credit Crunch" will probably see a new life in 2010 as a breakfast cereal ...
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I used to design Mac stuff and went to MacWorld SF for years - even for years after I moved on - but I never went to keynote, to my Mac geek friends it was always considered something for the marketting guys and the embarrassing fan-boi contingent (and journos too)
I bought a G1 (the first of the google phones) for a project I'm working on - I like it, probably the best phone I've owned - I'm not quite sure what "googlish" means - it's missing some of the whizbang impact of the iphone, that may just be because it's second (and that Apple's patented some of the UI stuff).
But I bought it to program - it's wonderfully easy, and more importantly no need to go through Apple to sell stuff (I need to give it away directly to my customers) - everything's open - source is available, linux under the hood, lots of geek goodness.
The main reason why I'm playing with this platform though is that I want cheap phones that I can program (for my current project), but I'm not in the phone biz, and don't want to be - instead I want dozens of cheap phones competing on price all using the same software platform - $100 gPhones - I don't see Apple reaching that price point, they're too much in love with their gross margin
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That would leave Dunedin, already dangerously over-dependent on its university
Wait are you saying that we should be making money on our rugby team? it's the economic engine that will save our economy? the ORFU doesn't even make ends meet with it.
Professional sports here is largely a 0-sum economic game - mostly it doesn't create new local wealth, mostly just shuffles existing wealth around the province a bit - sure it brings people in from outside Otago for games but the number are tiny - the stadium takes 30,000 people - that's ~200 737s worth - between AirNZ and it's competitors there are probabaly about 8-9 737 equivalents full of passengers flying into Dunedin a day (including the puddle jumpers to Chch as ~1/2) and all they're usually full already - there isn't the capacity to bring enough people in from outside to make any real economic difference - it's certainly not new economic growth that makes new wealth
If you want to use $188M (or $400 including interest) to boost the local economy building a stadium (and getting people in from ChCh to do it) is not the way - IMHO you're better to spend $20M a year VC funding local startup companies - make 10 new companies a year for 10 years - if you do it right and follow the usual VC rule of thumb 2 out of 10 will make it big (and you'll make your money back on them), 3 out of 10 will do OK and the rest will crash and burn - at the end of it you've made 50 new local companies, maybe 10,000 jobs and probably have made a profit on the deal
As far as "creating a Crusaders hegemony in the South island" you do know they're not fighting over actual turf right? they're fighting for fan's mind share and geography has little to do with it - as I mentioned above it used to be that we all supported our local teams - there'd be 1 or 2 from your high school's 1st 15 playing, someone's cousin, etc etc - nowdays they're hired mercenaries - it's not the same - the Otago team of my childhood would never be caught dead in a kilt, throwing some out of towners in them to try an make them locals is simply marketting.
For professional sport to be successfull though really the fix needs to be in - you can't have one team that always wins, everyone else loses interest and then you have no one to play against - instead you need mechanisms to balance out the teams so that they all have a winning streak every few years - US professional sports teams do it using the 'draft' where the weakest teams get to choose the cream of the new players every year ahead of the strong ones
BTW one of the great things about the Ranfurly Shield was/is that anyone, even the smallest team, can win it on a good day - because you can do it with one good match - points over a season means you don't get that sort of upset
Here's my list if you want to 'fix' professional rugby: make the teams as even as you can, black out home games on Sky unless they're sold out (so games in Dunedin can't be seen in Dunedin), play them when people can bring their kids otherwise you'll lose then next generation of fans not in the dark
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and that's exactly it - they (the ORFU) are not filling it and the powers that be blame the venue (the same one they've had since before they were little kids) when really the problem is more structural and has more to do with the deal they have with Sky, a changing society that doesn't treat rugby with the same awe (and have other things to do with their lives) , and, well, they keep losing, they need a better team no one wants to see them play if they lose
It's a business now, not even one that has to succeed. It may be that they're just going to have to accept that they've over reached and do what the rest if the economy has done and downsize a bit
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Oh - I forgot to add - as I said the ORFU is in the hole to the city for a couple of million - they've pointedly NOT committed to sign a contract, or to even play at the new stadium.
Recently however it turned out that they are counting on being able to to sell Carisbrook for a tidy sum (millions) - of course if we build a new stadium the old spot's not going to be a going concern, it's just a piece of industrial land covered in some expensive scrap metal (without the afternoon sun and sandwiched between the motorway and the Hillside Workshops it's not going to get housing)
There's a lot of people counting on feeding at this particular public trough
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As I've said, I stopped following the issue in detail when I moved up to ChCh about 11 months ago, but have they actually made any guaruntees as to how it will be funded, and how much the public is expected to stump up for it?
the City has committed to a big chunk, so has the regional council (yes we in Dunedin will be double taxed for it) - both are conditional on the other parties coming up with their part by Feb - the private committee coming up with a chunk of private cash from selling corporate boxes, naming rights etc and the regional trust - both have indicated that this may not happen - which would allow them to cancel the thing with appropriate poliitical face saving
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well they've been pushing it as a "multi-purpose" stadium - but apart from rugby haven't really found someone else who will use it (it wont work for cricket) - they've suggested papal visits, big concerts (but national promoters, when asked, pointed out they couldn't fill it and wouldn't even think of booking acts that size for Dunedin).
Let's fact it planning on 30,000 people attending anything in a city of ~100,000 is, well, a bit silly - sure you might fill it once every few years but, let's assume you can fill it 10 times a year - that's 300,000 bums on seats a year - assuming you get a 20 year mortgage (pushes the $188M cost to $400M at a good rate) - that's 20M/year or we're subsidising $66/bum/seat - you can see why it's not going to be economically viable if the people who attend are asked to pay for it
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I'm sure there's an angsty dark NZ film about the past scheduled for 2030 that uses that deeply symbolically ....
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The Dunedin stadium's been an interesting political issue - it's been pushed by the "tartan mafia" - the usual cartel of downtown good-old-boy business men - it was largely developed in secret and the detailed proposal presented to the city council and voted on in the space of 2 days - no time for research, no public hearings, just rammed through. The city council had done a public opinion survey (only sent to, largely male, heads of households, not at all good stats) - it came out slightly against or roughly even depending on the question.
The opponents didn't get their act together early enough - at the local body election they put up 2 competing slates of candidates (who split the anti vote) - it didn't help that the loudest anti-voices were far on the rightish side of the spectrum - most people who were against the stadium couldn't bring them selves to vote there
In that same election there was only 1 guy who actually came out in favour of it, the rest claimed to be on the fence or were against (at least according to their candidate statements and when interviewed in the paper) - in particular the incumbent good-old-boys got re-elected - and promptly claimed a mandate for a stadium.
It wasn't quite a while until after the election, when the whole stitch up seemed a done deal that the anti-stadium people got their act together - held a packed out public meeting and started providing some real opposition - recently they commissioned an independent survey (actually done scientifically so its demographics could be validated) which was 70% against (73% if you corrected for the demographics). Then they went after the stadium in the zoning hearings - which is where we are now.
(disclaimer: I'm a member of Stop the Stadium and made a submission to the recent hearings)
The real problem isn't IMHO that Dunedin needs a $2-400M stadium - we have a perfectly good ground in Carisbrook, we just spent a lot of money on it - the real problem is in the economics of rugby - no one wants to go now that they play the games at night rather than in the afternoon, especially when you can watch it on your big screen TV at home with the fire on. Besides the days of supporting the provincial team because it was full of people you went to school with are long gone - that personal connection is gone - now it's just a bunch of guys playing in your name
At the moment the local Rugby Union is in the hole to a couple of million to the city - they don't have the money and can't pay it - the solution to this shouldn't be to build them a big stadium - it doesn't really reward sensible fiscal behaviour.
I can think of a simple solution to this - what they do in the US - black out local games unless they sell out (Sky could easily do it if they wanted). Even better, play local games in the afternoons like they used to - time shift them for the Aussies.
As others have pointed out if you want to spend $400M ($188M+financing/opportunity cost over 20 years) to fix local rugby - then you'd actually be better off just giving $50 to everyone who goes to a Carisbrook game - it would actually be cheaper
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You know the best thing any teacher taught me was one day in 3rd form when our english teacher sat down, pulled out his check book and explained how it worked, how to balance it and why that was important