Is Te Kaha really going be to New Zealand's 'national stadium' or is Eden Park already?

Sunday, 17 August 2025

ANALYSIS: A playful quip from the Crusaders chief executive has got us thinking: does New Zealand have a national stadium? Do we even need one?

Clearly elated at Christchurch’s new One New Zealand Te Kaha Stadium securing an Anzac Day Super Round, Colin Mansbridge welcomed rugby fans to “the national stadium’’.

He even had a gentle dig at Eden Park, in everything but name, saying: “Obviously, if you come from Auckland, and have had to put up with a stadium up there for a while, you’d be pretty keen to come down here to a decent national stadium.

Mansbridge actually started to say “if you’re from Dunedin’’, before remembering his own Otago origins and sensibly changing tack.

Bluster aside, can Te Kaha - a roofed arena with 30,000 seats - realistically be the national stadium?

Or does Eden Park already fit the bill? After all, it has hosted some of the biggest sporting events in New Zealand sporting history - the 1950 Empire Games, the 1987 and 2011 men’s Rugby World Cup finals, the Women’s Rugby World Cup final in 2022 and the biggest of all - the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup football tournament.

Auckland will, one day, surely get a downtown waterfront stadium close to the Britomart transport hub which could host Blues, Warriors and Auckland FC games and All Blacks and Kiwis tests.

But could it lay claim to being a “national stadium” when more people live south of the Bombay Hills than north?

If scheduling sports events was all about the bottom line, Eden Park - with up to 60,000 seats - would get all the big games.

It makes sense for England’s Rugby Union to stage almost every test at Twickers as it owns the ground.

Wembley is owned by the Football Association and most of England’s home games are played there. Even so, England have played in nine provincial cities since Wembley re-opened in 2007, including Southampton, Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton.

But New Zealand Rugby (NZR) hasn’t totally given in to greed and tried to turn Eden Park into New Zealand’s Twickenham. So far. The litmus test will be the next British and Irish Lions tour in 2029.

For the All Blacks’ “brand’’ to survive and thrive, the team needs to remain connected to the entire country. NZR recognises the importance of the All Blacks playing in Wellington, Dunedin, Hamilton and Christchurch (once Te Kaha comes on stream). Otherwise the All Blacks could eventually be seen as “an Auckland team’’.

A national stadium base would not work as well in New Zealand as it does in England.

London is 455km from Newcastle, England’s northernmost “big” city. Plymouth is 350km south-west.

English punters can more easily access Wembley or Twickenham by train.

New Zealand has a much larger landmass with Te Moana-o-Raukawa - Cook Strait to Winston Peters - smack in the middle. Invercargill is 1600km from Auckland. It’s cheaper to fly to Australia than to Auckland from some provincial centres.

Any “national stadium’’ here would have to be in a central spot and it has to have an aura.

Wellington blew an opportunity when planning its waterfront stadium in the 1990s.

The location is perfect, by the central station and near the capital’s bar and restaurant hubs.

But the planners dropped the ball in other respects.

No city needs a roofed stadium more than Wellington, the windiest big city where the annual rainfall is twice that of Christchurch and Dunedin. Yet the Wellington regional councils clearly balked at the cost - understandable when all those water pipes need replacing. But the $130 million construction cost in 2000 looks a real snip compared with Te Kaha’s $683 million price tag.

The Cake Tin smacks now of a missed opportunity for local and central government to create a stadium for five million, spiritually if not literally.

Rectangular-based stadiums are best for rugby union, rugby league and football - the best-supported New Zealand sports.

But the Wellington designers opted for a more oval shape to accommodate white ball cricket.

Just 30 ODIs matches and 17 T20 hit-and-giggle games have been staged at the Cake Tin since 2000. Most Wellington crickets still regard the Basin Reserve as the sport’s true turangawaewae.

The allowance for cricket means the stands are too far from the action to generate a great atmosphere for footy of any code - the All Whites’ 2009 World Cup playoff win over Bahrain a memorable exception.

Distance from the pitch is also an issue at Eden Park, another multi-purpose ground equipped for cricket.

The vibe in Wellington and Auckland does not match the ambience at Mt Smart Stadium for Warriors and Auckland FC games or at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium when the Zoo inmates are in residence.

So New Zealand doesn’t have a national stadium. Few countries do.

Most of the top five men’s football nations - Argentina, Spain, France, England and Brazil farm home games out to various venues, mostly club-owned.

Over the ditch, Sydney’s Accor Stadium was billed as “Stadium Australia’’ when built for the 2000 Olympic Games, due as much to the International Olympic Committee’s strict rules around sponsorship nation rights as Aussie jingoism.

But try telling someone from Victoria who worships the Melbourne Cricket Ground that the “national’’ stadium is in Sydney.

So New Zealand doesn’t need a “national” stadium. Each city should be proud of what they have got.

Dunedin, with its roof, Hamilton with its chainsaws and cowbells, Wellington with its party precinct, Yarrow Stadium in Taranaki with its maunga backdrop are great places to visit. Eden Park is also a lure because of its tradition.

But Te Kaha could trump them all.

Sir Graham Lowe, who is pushing the Australian Rugby League to bring a State of Origin game to Christchurch in 2027, reckons Te Kaha will rival, if not better, Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium for sporting atmosphere.

That would make it an absolute cracker.