Facilities stadia and the environment 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Facilities stadia and the environment 2 - Essay Example In Asia, games tend to be less physical than in the Western world, though Soccer and Field Hockey are hugely popular. One game that does draw crowds in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and England is Cricket. The traditional form of this game, viz, the five-day Test Match has been overtaken in popularity by the one-day format. The latter, where each team gets fifty overs to bat in, is now under serious threat by the latest version, the 20-20 or twenty-overs per side matches, which last exactly three hours. These short but intense matches are generally played at night, under lights, so that people returning from office and school-going teens can drop by for a fun-filled and exciting outing, with a casual dinner thrown in. The economic aspects of popular sporting events are a challenge in themselves. If players are to be paid huge sums of money, the organisers have to be able to attract even more money. Media rights are sold by the Sports Boards of hosting nations for astronomical sums and this money is recovered through expensive prime-time audio-visual advertisements. The arena hosting the match also has to make enough money to pay the players while making a profit for itself, if it is to remain solvent. The obvious requirement is for a large audience, leading, in turn, to a large yet manageable stadium, with tickets to suit every pocket. At the highest levels of the game, the average Soccer stadium must be able to accommodate at least fifty thousand paying spectators, if not more. The crux of the matter is that the paying spectator would like a certain minimum level of comfort, so that he (or she) actually enjoys the game and would not mind coming back for other matches in the future. In this short case study, I will look at a very popular stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne, Australia; its history and how it reached its position of eminence; pitch and ground management; sport and crowd control techniques employed;