Melbourne Rectangular Stadium - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"AAMI Park" redirects here. For the stadium in Adelaide known as "AAMI Stadium," see Football Park.

The Melbourne Rectangular Stadium (commercially known as AAMI Park) is an outdoor sports stadium on the site of Edwin Flack Field on Olympic Boulevard

Swan Street, Melbourne

Swan Street is a major street running through the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond, Cremorne and Burnley. The section of the street between Punt Road and Alexandra Avenue is now known as Olympic Boulevard....

in the Sports and Entertainment Precinct, in inner

Melbourne city centre

Melbourne City Centre is an area of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne...

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

The stadium's major tenants are the Melbourne Storm

Melbourne Storm

The Melbourne Storm are an Australian professional rugby league club based in the city of Melbourne. They are the first fully professional rugby league team based in the Australian rules football-dominated state of Victoria....

(NRL

National Rugby League

The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...

), Melbourne Rebels

Melbourne Rebels

The Melbourne Rebels are a professional rugby union team based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They are the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia...

(Super Rugby) and A-League

A-League

The A-League is the top Australasian professional football league. Run by Australian governing body Football Federation Australia , it was founded in 2004 following the folding of the National Soccer League and staged its inaugural season in 2005–06. It is sponsored by Hyundai Motor Company...

teams Melbourne Victory and Melbourne Heart

Melbourne Heart FC

Melbourne Heart FC is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 2008, the club has competed in the A-League, the highest division of football in Australia, since its inaugural 2010–2011 season. It is the twelfth club to have played in the league...

.

AAMI Park became Melbourne's first large purpose built rectangular stadium. At the time of its conception the largest stadiums in use were the MCG

Melbourne Cricket Ground

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...

, Docklands Stadium and Princes Park. These were all of oval configuration and best suited to Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

or cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

. The largest rectangular stadium in the city, Olympic Park

Olympic Park Stadium

Olympic Park Stadium was a multi-purpose outdoor stadium located on Olympic Boulevard in inner Melbourne. The stadium was built as an athletics training venue for the 1956 Olympics, a short distance from the MCG, which served as the Olympic Stadium...

, was a repurposed track and field

Track and field

Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

venue.

After being referred to as Melbourne Rectangular Stadium during its construction, the ground was officially named AAMI Park on 16 March 2010, in an eight year sponsorship deal with an insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

firm.

History

Olympic Park Stadium

, Melbourne's main "rectangular" venue, could hold 18,500 people, but with only 11,000 of them seated. When Melbourne Storm

Melbourne Storm

entered the National Rugby League

National Rugby League

, they played their home games at Olympic Park. Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, that plays in the A-League....

moved a game to Docklands Stadium against rivals Sydney FC

Sydney FC

Sydney FC is a professional football club based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and competes in the country's premier football competition, the A-League...

in September 2006. They then moved all their games except one from Olympic Park to Docklands mid way through the season.

In 2004, as part of Melbourne's bid for a Super 14

Super 14

Super Rugby is the largest and pre-eminent professional Rugby union competition in the Southern Hemisphere...

team, the Victorian Government prepared an economic impact study into the development of a world class rectangular stadium in Melbourne. But in late 2004, the bid lost out to the Western Australian consortium, who later renamed themselves the Western Force

Western Force

Western Force is a rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia playing in the international Super Rugby competition. They first competed in the 2006 season and finished with the wooden spoon in that year, however their performances greatly improved in 2007. In 2008 they finished in 8th...

. But in November 2009, when the competition expanded to 15 teams, the Melbourne consortium won the 15th Super Rugby licence, and the Melbourne Rebels

Melbourne Rebels

will play their games at AAMI Park.

On 6 April 2006, the Victorian Government announced that a $190 million 20,000 seat rectangular stadium would be built on the site of Edwin Flack Field and would be home to Melbourne Storm and A-League

A-League

team Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, that plays in the A-League....

. The stadium's planned capacity was increased to 30,000, with foundations capable of expansion to a capacity of 50,000 if needed.
The stadium began construction in late 2007.

On 23 November 2009, it was announced that the stadium's first match would be the 2011 ANZAC Test

2011 ANZAC Test

The 2011 ANZAC Test was a rugby league test match played between Australia and New Zealand on 6 May 2011 at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast. Australia won their tenth straight Anzac test with a score of 20–10.-Pre-game:...

between the Australian and New Zealand rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

teams on 7 May 2010.

The stadium was referred to as Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, Swan Street Stadium or the Bubble Dome during its early construction. The stadium's commercial name was announced as AAMI Park on 16 March 2010 in an eight year deal.

The stadium held its first event, rugby league's 2010 ANZAC Test

2010 ANZAC Test

The 2010 ANZAC Test was a rugby league test match played between Australia and New Zealand on 7 May 2010. The match coincided with the official opening of AAMI Park in Melbourne. The match was won by Australia with a score of 12–8.-The teams:...

on 7 May 2010. The opening ceremony featured retired player and the NRL's all-time highest point-scorer, Hazem El Masri

Hazem El Masri

Hazem El Masri is a Lebanese-Australian retired professional rugby league footballer of the 1990s and 2000s. An Australia and Lebanon international, and New South Wales State of Origin representative winger, he played his entire club football career with the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs with...

, kicking a goal. Australia then went on to defeat New Zealand 12-8 in front of a sell out crowd. Two days later the first National Rugby League

National Rugby League

match was played at the stadium when the Brisbane Broncos defeated the Melbourne Storm in front of a 20,042 crowd.

On 7 August 2010, the stadium played host to its first A-League match. It was also another first as Melbourne Heart FC

Melbourne Heart FC

played their first game in front of 11,050 fans against the Central Coast Mariners. The Heart lost 1-0, and Alex Wilkinson

Alex Wilkinson

Alexander Wilkinson is an Australian football player. He is currently plays for Central Coast Mariners in the A-League...

had the honour of scoring the first goal. The first Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, that plays in the A-League....

match was played at AAMI Park v Perth Glory infront of 21,193 fans.

On 2 December 2011, AAMI Park will host its first concert when the Foo Fighters perform at AAMI Park as part of their Wasting Light World Tour.

Stadium

The stadium features a "Bioframe" design, with a geodesic

Geodesic

In mathematics, a geodesic is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line" to "curved spaces". In the presence of a Riemannian metric, geodesics are defined to be the shortest path between points in the space...

dome roof covering much of the seating area, while still allowing light through to the pitch. The northern and southern sides of the stadiums are called the Olympic Side and Yarra Side respectively.

The exterior of the stadium is also covered in thousands of LED lights, which can be programmed to display a variety of patterns and images.

The stadium includes training facilities and office accommodation for Melbourne Storm

Melbourne Storm

, Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, that plays in the A-League....

, Melbourne Football Club

Melbourne Football Club

The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....

, the Victorian Rugby Union, the Victorian Olympic Council, Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre (OPSMC), Imaging@Olympic Park Radiology and Tennis Victoria. The stadium will be used by the Melbourne Demons

Melbourne Football Club

The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....

as their administration headquarters. The team had wanted the stadium completed by 2008 to coincide with its 150th anniversary. It will also house public bars and cafes, 24 corporate boxes, a dining room with a capacity of 1000 people, a gym and lap pool.

Capacity

The stadium was initially proposed to have a seating capacity

Seating capacity

Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...

of 20,000, upgradeable to 25,000. This was due to both expected demand, as well as a state government agreement with Docklands Stadium that no stadiums with a capacity greater than 30,000 would be constructed in Melbourne before 2010. These plans were revised after the Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, that plays in the A-League....

refused to commit to playing at a stadium of such small capacity, having achieved an average attendance of over 27,000 since their move to the Docklands Stadium in the 2006–07 A-League Season

A-League 2006-07

The 2006–07 A-League season was the second season of the Australian football competition, the A-League. Football Federation Australia hoped to build on the success of the first season and on the interest generated by the Socceroos competing in the 2006 FIFA World Cup...

. Under the new plans put forward by the Victorian Government, a capacity of 30,050 was proposed, on the condition that the Victory sign on as a tenant. An agreement has since been reached between the two parties for the stadium to have a capacity of 30,050. To assist with the extended capacity, temporary stands will be erected behind the goals during soccer matches and removed during rugby league

Rugby league

games so as to allow space for the in-goal area

Rugby league playing field

The rugby league playing field, also referred to as a pitch or paddock, is the playing surface for the sport of rugby league football and is surfaced exclusively with grass....

. Although the stadium will be built with foundations to allow for future expansion to 50,000, the roof was not designed with this in mind and so the stadium cannot be expanded without major construction work.

Crowds

The largest crowd at the stadium is also its first, the 2010 Rugby League ANZAC Test

2010 ANZAC Test

which drew 29,442 spectators. The next highest attendance was the 2011 NRL Preliminary Final

2011 NRL season results

The 2011 NRL season consists of 26 weekly regular season rounds, which began on 11 March and will end on 4 September, followed by four weeks of the finals series culminating in the grand final on 2 October.-Pre-season:Saturday 5 February...

loss by the Melbourne Storm

Melbourne Storm

to the New Zealand Warriors

New Zealand Warriors

The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand. They compete in the National Rugby League premiership and are the League's only team from outside Australia...

in front of a 28,580 crowd.

The largest Soccer crowd and third largest attendance at the venue was the inaugural Melbourne Derby in the 2010-11 A-League season between Melbourne Heart

Melbourne Heart FC

and Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, that plays in the A-League....

, which drew 25,897 spectators. The debut match of the Melbourne Rebels

Melbourne Rebels

holds fourth place, with their Round 1 2011 Super Rugby match against the NSW Waratahs drawing 25,524 fans. The fifth largest crowd saw Melbourne Storm

Melbourne Storm

defeat St. George Illawarra Dragons in front of 24,081.

Every team that uses the venue as a home ground (Storm, Heart, Victory and Rebels) has lost its debut match there.

External links

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