A new purpose-built stadium at Beaton Park could give the Illawarra Hawks a proper home court and boost participation rates for junior basketball, the team’s general manager Mat Campbell says.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A $23 million stadium, which could have up to 3000 retractable seats and six multi-purpose courts, is proposed for the third stage of works in Wollongong council’s draft Beaton Park master plan.
It would be located next to the existing (to be upgraded) leisure centre, in place of some of the tennis courts, which would be relocated.
Eventually, the ageing Snakepit – the Hawks current home court – would be “repurposed”, according to the plan.
Mr Campbell said the Hawks had expressed interest in being involved with the development of the council stadium as it would benefit basketballers at all levels.
“We’re interested in basketball doing the best it can within our region and having a state-of-the-art facility obviously helps the junior levels of the game in terms of participation,” Mr Campbell said.
“It would also allow the elite level kids to play their games at the Hawks home court – because at the moment we only have one full sized court there.
“And then for the Hawks, there would be the opportunity to have a place we could call home.”
He said the Snakepit was in a “very original” state which made it impossible to hold games there; a new stadium would allow the Hawks to play more home games.
“We might keep some of our biggest games at the entertainment centre, but we could have a good sized, sell-out crowd at our home court,” he said.
“This would give us more of an identity and would increase our visibility in the area.”
The stadium is scheduled to be built as part of the third stage of upgrades for Beaton Park, which are to be rolled out over the next 20 years according to the plan.
However, Mr Campbell said he hoped it would not take too long to become a reality.
“We hope this happens sooner rather than later,” Mr Campbell said.
He said the team had so far held talks with the council about its requirements but had not formalised any specific agreements while the master plan was in draft format.
He said the Hawks would be looking to control the commercial aspects of the stadium: owning the changerooms, running food and beverage offerings at games and having the Hawks organisational hub based there.
“Also having the facilities, the gym, the track and all that ability to have our high performance training at the one venue would be phenomenal,” he said.
“We want to be able to give back to the community, and a central venue close to a train station and lots of homes so people can easily get there – and on the same grounds as our traditional home the Snakepit.”