Craig Tiley’s radical blueprint for Melbourne’s sporting precinct

Victoria should lean into bold new funding streams such as building apartments and hotels in the heart of Melbourne’s iconic sporting precinct, outgoing Australian Open boss Craig Tiley has declared.

The man responsible for transforming the AO into the nation’s biggest sporting event has outlined a radical blueprint for the future of Australia’s greatest cluster of sports and event stadiums.

It includes the prospect of building on land near the MCG, Melbourne Park and AAMI Park.

In an exclusive interview before leaving Australia to run US tennis, Mr Tiley told the Herald Sun more needed to be done to ensure Melbourne’s famed sporting hub remained globally relevant and retained major events.

“You can’t stand still,” Mr Tiley said.

“You’ve got to keep evolving, you’ve got to keep creating, and everything moves so quickly now.”

But Victoria could no longer rely on broke governments to fund the infrastructure needed to attract world-class events and different funding sources were needed to bankroll the next stage of infrastructure.

“We’ve got to open our eyes to knowing that this needs to be an option on the table and others need to lean in and fund it,” he said.

He urged Victoria “to look again at this intersect between private and public funding”.

He said apartments, including build-to-rent homes, could be constructed in the Melbourne and Olympic Parks precinct as a new way to attract private investment and bring more people to the area regularly.

“It could be a property developer who says ‘by connecting to the precinct I’m going to build one or two hotels’,” Mr Tiley said.

“’I’m gonna build an apartment complex and that investment’s gonna give me that return because of the location of it’.

“Build to rent is very common, it’s proven.

“It’s a very similar model in Brooklyn, for example, in New York.”

While Victoria could no longer rely solely on the public purse, Mr Tiley said Melbourne did need to update its sports and event infrastructure.

“You know, someone can just pop up this precinct like that (overseas or interstate), right next to the city,” he said.

“And then all of a sudden you aren’t the crown jewel like we are and so we can never take anything for granted.”

He said a new hotel was needed in Melbourne’s famous sporting precinct to cater to tens of thousands of fans who flock to major events such as the AO and Grand Prix but also weekly to AFL, NRL, A-League and NBL.

Even if a hotel was built as part of an MCG redevelopment expected to take place from 2030, Mr Tiley said another should be constructed in Melbourne Park, such is demand from fans.

And more permanent infrastructure such as restaurants, grandstands and shops should be built – to save costs to taxpayers setting up the AO each year but also draw more fans to the precinct year-round.

It comes after the Herald Sun on Monday revealed calls from Mr Tiley and Live Nation to build a new, 20,000-seat multipurpose indoor arena in Melbourne to meet rising demand.

Mr Tiley declared: “our aspiration for the precinct needs to be activity and the range of activity offered in it for anyone in Australia.

“This needs to be a destination, not just because there’s a footy game on or there’s a basketball game or there’s tennis.

“It needs to a destination 365 days of the year and the way you do that is you connect it more, you build, you make some investment in permanent infrastructure.”

If Victoria failed to keep pace with stadium technology, Mr Tiley warned: “Eventually you’ll lose.”

And that could mean the AO being lost to interstate raiders.

“Whether it goes would be somebody else’s call,” he said.

“But, where you lose first is in people’s experience … if it’s not an aspirational experience.”

He said the AO was set up for success but constant evolution was required.

“There’s just an incredible amount of people wanting to come, we’ve created aspirational value, it’s now a bucket-list event,” he said.

“You’ve always got to invest in that momentum and the big part of that investment needs to be permanent infrastructure, not just us building temporary stuff.

“But if and when you stop doing that, that’s why I say it cannot be funded from a government perspective, there needs to be other solutions.

“And that’s just not this precinct, but other ones across Australia.

“Because if you don’t, people are just going to go elsewhere.”