Docklands Stadium

Construction Plans for the stadium were announced in October 1996 as a more centrally located replacement for the much larger but ageing Waverley Park as a headquarters for the Australian Football League. It was built in the Melbourne Docklands to the immediate west of the CBD, a central but largely deserted industrial area which had just begun its own urban renewal project. Construction of the stadium by Baulderstone began in October 1997 under the working name "Victoria Stadium", and was completed ahead of the 2000 AFL season. The stadium was originally developed by the Docklands Stadium Consortium and thereafter controlled by the Seven Network. The remaining leasehold interest in the stadium was sold to James Fielding Funds Management in June 2006 for A$330 million. The stadium, like Waverley Park, was built primarily for Australian rules football, unlike most grounds of a similar size in Australia which were originally designed for cricket then later developed for football. It was the first Australian rules football stadium built with a retractable roof, which throughout its history has usually been closed for night matches and for wet weather day matches; the roof closure policy for dry weather day matches has varied. It was the first stadium in Australia to have movable seating. All four level-one tiers of the stadium can be moved up to 18 metres forward into a rectangular configuration. Despite this being a key feature of the stadium design, it has rarely been used, due to damage to turf, time to deploy the seats, and a reduced capacity, since the corner bays of the stadium become unavailable in rectangular configuration. Development Construction was finished only weeks before the first match, and some scheduled pre-season matches were relocated as a result. The stadium's third football game, between Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions on 19 March, was the first to be played under the roof. On 16 August 2000, the world's first indoor One Day International was held at the venue between Australia and South Africa. The first game played in the rectangular configuration was a Melbourne Storm game in July 2001. The first soccer match played was in round 5 2001 of the National Soccer League between South Melbourne FC and Melbourne Knights FC. From the beginning, the stadium's playing surface was criticized for its slipperiness, hardness and lack of grass coverage, and the increased risk of injury that this causes to players. Maintaining surface quality remains one of the stadium's biggest challenges. The stadium's orientation and highly built-up grandstands mean that the Northern end of the stadium in particular receives only 6 weeks of sunlight a year. Concerts held at the stadium are also usually placed at the Southern end due to the ability for grass to recover more quickly. The entire surface undergoes regular, expensive replacement during the season with turf grown externally, under contract by HG Turf, whereas the responsibility of laying and managing the turf lies with Docklands Stadium management. Since 2007, elaborate heating and lighting to better allow grass to be grown and managed within the stadium have been in use. In 2015, LED electronic advertising was added around the perimeter of the ground on level 1 and 2, as well as a strip synthetic turf around the edge of the fence, outside the boundary line. The synthetic strip was narrowed after Brisbane Lions player Michael Close suffered a season ending ACL injury on the uneven surface during a game in 2015. The stadium became unpopular with many of its tenant clubs, especially , and , as high operating costs and the high proportion of gate revenues which were paid back to the stadium meant that clubs earned much lower returns for a game at Docklands than they would have earned from the same attendance at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. At least 20,000 spectators were usually required to break even on a game. Those three clubs all received compensation payments from the AFL to balance the weak deals, and sold occasional home matches to small interstate or international venues for greater financial returns than they could earn at Docklands. The stadium and broader precinct underwent a $225 million redevelopment, funded by the AFL and Victorian Government, between 2021 and 2024. This included two new video screens, which hang underneath the stadium's roof and were installed behind the goal at each end of the stadium ahead of the 2022 AFL season. The rest of the redevelopment upgraded stadium infrastructure, connected the precinct to the Melbourne CBD and opened up access to the Docklands waterfront. In May 2023, Docklands Stadium opened The Runner, becoming the first venue in the Southern Hemisphere to utilize Amazon's Just Walk Out technology for checkout-free purchases. The Runner outlets, consisting of one bar and one food kiosk, work by having attendees scanning their credit or debit card, or mobile wallet payment option at the entry, entering to collect their items, and then leaving the outlet without having to wait in line to checkout. The outlets utilize cameras, sensors, machine learning algorithms, motion tracking and artificial intelligence like computer vision and deep learning techniques, including generative AI, to accurately determine who took what in any retail environment. Ownership Under the terms of the agreement governing construction and operation of the venue, in 2025 the AFL was to win ownership of the stadium for a nominal $30 fee; but the AFL Commission opted to purchase exclusive ownership of the stadium earlier than this, in October 2016, for approximately $200 million. The stadium was eventually integrated into the AFL structure several years later, ending the independent management of the venue by Melbourne Stadiums Limited. The purchase also soon proved critically important to the AFL's finances during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was able to leverage its ownership of the stadium in obtaining a $500–600 million line of credit to cover cash flow shortages when the 2020 AFL season was suspended. ==Naming rights history==