*Extract from 2007/08 MCG Trust Annual Report :
National Sports Museum - A New Australian Museum
The National Sports Museum (NSM) opened on March 12, 2008 at the MCG, the home of Australian sport. The entrance to the NSM is primely located at the main entrance to the Olympic Stand.
The opening of the NSM was a gala event hosted by Mr Eddie McGuire AM and featured the Welsh Male Voice Choir, the Australian Girls Choir, Cathy Freeman and John Bertrand and many other sports’ stars.
The NSM is an important addition to Australia’s register of heritage assets and a fabulous addition to the MCG experience. The NSM will celebrate the achievements and values of Australian sport, inspire national sporting pride and encourage broader participation in sport.
With a floor area of around 3000 square metres and displays of some 2300 items, the NSM will be the third largest museum in Melbourne. If the first few months of operations can be taken as a guide, the NSM will be a popular attraction for sports and museum enthusiasts for many years.
The MCG has been displaying sporting memorabilia for almost 40 years. But never before has such a wide range of Australian sports been exhibited and made so accessible to visitors. The NSM houses the Australian Gallery of Sport and Olympic Museum, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame and Aussie Rules Exhibition.
There are separate exhibits on tennis, golf, netball, boxing, cycling, soccer, Rugby Union and Rugby League, basketball and the major Olympic sports including swimming and athletics. Paralympics are also represented.
There is an interactives area that will be particularly popular with our younger visitors. Next door, and accessible to visitors on most days, is the fabulous MCC Museum. Temporary exhibition space will be available to recognise important events.
The NSM will appeal to a wide range of age and interest groups. International and interstate tourists will have a visit to the NSM high-up on their itineraries. Event-day patrons will now have more reasons to spend extra time at the “G”.
School children will love the NSM especially the interactives. On-line and on-site education programs will be developed linked to school curricula. Tours of the NSM will also be attractive as part of corporate, social and business dining functions held at the MCG.
The recently created NSM website - www.nsm.org.au - provides customers with destination, service and pricing information and the capability of booking online.
Some of the Attractions
With some 100,000 memorabilia items to choose from, regular major sporting events to celebrate and updates of displays, multi-media and interactives, the NSM will always have something to appeal to all sportslovers. On opening, and in the initial period after, some major attractions are:
- Displays of memorabilia from every Olympic Games of the modern era, especially the 1956 Games in Melbourne and 2000 Games in Sydney. Ian Thorpe’s fast skin and Cathy Freeman’s swift suit worn to victory at the Sydney Olympics.
- Green cricket pitch featuring a screen depicting bowlers approaching the wicket.
- A tribute to Sir Donald Bradman
- A Spirit of Sport exhibition honours the 27 sportsmen and women inducted as Legends in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
- A large range of graphics and touch screens enabling experience of real-life sporting situations. Test your cricket umpiring skills for actual past decisions, have a bike race, handball to a team-mate and test your strength in the boxing ring or rugby field.
- Sir Jack Brabham’s legendary world championship Repco Brabham racing car (1966) is a centrepiece display.
- The AFL story from beginnings in 1859-including handwritten notes on the original rules- to modern day; collections of Brownlow Medals (including the inaugural medal) and Premiership Cups. The Jezza mark from the 1970 Grand Final; media replays. All AFL clubs are represented.
- Australian Football Hall of Fame will open on August 4, 2008.
- Reproductions of major sporting moments featuring Shane Warne and James Hird.
- MCG display.
- The fabulous MCC Museum.
- And much more.
The NSM Team
The total cost of the NSM was $35 million. This excludes the cost of the building shell provided as part of the northern stand redevelopment. $25 million of the funding was provided by the Federal Government for which we are most appreciative.
The NSM was constructed on time and within budget.
The stakeholders in the NSM have been supportive from the start. The old Australian Gallery of Sport has had the strong support of Cricket and the Olympic movements for many years. This support has extended to the NSM.
We have long held the view that success of the new facility requires participation by the AFL and Sport Australia Hall of Fame and we are grateful for their full support and co-operation. For the first time, we also now have close stakeholder relationships with all the other participating sports.
The project team responsible for building the NSM has done an outstanding job. Thanks are due to the MCC Committee for their unwavering support for some nine years of the life of the NSM concept and especially Committeeman, Ted Yencken, who chaired the Project Advisory Committee for the project, and MCC CEO Stephen Gough and his management team.
Gill Brewster, now CEO of the Victorian Olympic Committee, but for the bulk of the life of the NSM was the General Manager in charge, was a highly effective leader during the concept and planning stages.
Julian Martyn of Cunningham Martyn Design was responsible for the first-class design. Gerry Kerlin, recently appointed General Manager, Museums, has done a great job in bedding down the management and operations side of the business; teething issues have been minimal.
The response from the sporting community has been fantastic. I particularly thank those athletes who have donated or loaned their valuable mementos for sharing with the community.
Business Structure of the NSM
The NSM has been established as a not-for-profit corporation. Donations and loans to the NSM will be insured. The Trust’s collection of sporting memorabilia, valued in March 2008 at $10.9 million, will be managed and displayed by the NSM along with donations and loans from all the other NSM partner organisations.
The NSM will be managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club. An Advisory Board consisting of the major partners, including the Trust, will make recommendations to the Club in relation to strategy and content.
Continuing Improvements at the MCG
The MCG is, arguably, the world benchmark stadium of its type. The Club and the Trust recognise the importance of maintaining this status by continuing improvements in facilities, funding permitting, having particular regard to patrons’ comfort and safety and the requirements of the major sporting codes that use the stadium.
A significant project scheduled for commencement is the widening of the concourse on the Brunton Avenue side, outside Gate 7, to improve pedestrian flows particularly near ticket sales areas. The concourse will be widened by six metres for a distance of 140 metres (starting from the east) and then three metres for a further 40 metres.
The design includes a wall along the railway boundary and beams across Brunton Avenue. A small number of new columns and some strengthening work will be required on the MCG side of Brunton Avenue.
The widening of the concourse is scheduled to commence immediately after the 2008 Grand Final and will cost $12.4 million of which $9.5 million will be provided by the State Government. We are grateful for the Government’s support for this project, which, along with completion of the NSM, completes the package of world-class facilities forming the redevelopment of the northern side of the MCG that commenced in 2000.
The modern MCG has its origins with the completion of the light towers in 1985 and the Great Southern Stand in 1991. We face an on-going challenge to ensure all ground facilities continue to meet the requirements of the codes that use the ground and the comfort and safety standards expected by patrons. During 2008, the Melbourne Cricket Club will undertake a review of upgrade requirements for the Great Southern Stand.
The new northern stand has proved to be outstandingly successful. The Club has commissioned a 192-page photo book as an official record of the redevelopment. The Melbourne Cricket Ground: A Stadium Reborn is authored by Stuart Sykes with photographs by John Gollings and others.
The book tracks the redevelopment as seen by key figures involved and the interface of the redevelopment with major events staged at the ground over this period culminating in the Commonwealth Games in March 2006. The book is available for purchase from the Club.
Major Events
2007 was a highly successful year for AFL football at the MCG. Total attendance at AFL games Australia-wide (including finals) was a record 7.0 million.
More than 2.5 million of this number attended the MCG, assisted by an increase in home and away games, an additional two finals and a better performance by Victorian teams, including tenant teams, Collingwood and Hawthorn. Geelong performed magnificently to win the 2007 Grand Final by a stunning 119 points to become the first Victorian team to take the title in seven years.
The MCG’s share of the total AFL market was 36% in 2007, a substantial increase on the 30% of recent years.
Five AFL 2008 season matches were staged at the MCG in March, increasing the March 2008 year-end AFL attendance at the MCG to 2.8 million.
We are pleased that the MCG, the home of Australian Rules football, was the centrepiece for the AFL’s 150 years’ celebrations capped off with the Hall of Fame Tribute match on May 10 attended by 69,294 fans. The AFL is to be congratulated for reaching this milestone and for the way the football community at large was involved in the celebrations.
International Rules football will be resumed with a match at MCG on October 31, 2008.
The MCG has run up another milestone becoming just the second cricket ground (after Lords) to reach 100,000 Test match runs achieved during India’s second innings of the 2007 Boxing Day Test. The BDT was attended by 167,000. I congratulate the Australian cricket team for its outstanding run of Test victories.
I also congratulate Cricket Australia for the successful introduction of international Twenty/20 cricket to Australia capped by a massive crowd of 84,041 at the MCG game in February 2008. Some one-third of all Australian international cricket attendance is at the MCG-the most eminent cricket stadium in Australia by a fair margin.
The first Bledisloe Cup rugby union Test for nine years was held at the MCG in June 2007 with 79,322 witnessing an Australia upset win against the All Blacks 20-15. The Australia v Argentina soccer “friendly” in September was attended by 70,171. The MCG ground staff performed magnificently to stage this match in the middle of the AFL finals.
The January 2008 concert by world super-stars, The Police, was the MCG’s first for a decade, and was attended by more than 30,000 fans.
Trustees
The term of Mr Rod Fehring as Trustee expired on 14 December 2007. Mr Fehring was appointed a Trustee in June 2000. He was a member of the Joint Steering Committee for the redevelopment of the Northern Stand where his experience in the construction industry and business management was invaluable. He made a significant contribution to all Trust affairs, always in a very pleasant manner. His contribution will be missed.
We are very pleased to welcome The Honourable Pat McNamara, former Deputy Premier of Victoria and notable sportsman, as a new Trustee.
John M.R. Wylie
MCG Trust chairman
July 2008
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