Behind the Numbers: Funding The Stadium

There’s no doubt that One NZ Stadium at Te Kaha is going to be a great place for events in Ōtautahi and that the concerts and sports hosted there will boost local hospitality and accommodation providers. I’ve always been supportive of rebuilding a stadium for the city, and am looking forward to seeing people flocking in to use it.

However, I’m really concerned at the current narrative about the stadium ‘operating at a surplus’ and with no funding from ratepayers, when in fact it will be heavily subsidised by residents. Additionally, we’ve missed opportunities to make the finances stack up better for the city.

Venues Ōtautahi (VŌ) have been awarded the operations of the facility and they do an amazing job of running our Council-owned facilities; they have really upped the game in recent years with service and local suppliers and I know that they will do the same for Te Kaha. 

But VŌ do not have all of the operating expenses for the stadium in their business plan. In recent years, Council has agreed to take on some of the costs that normal operators would have to pay. This includes paying rates, insurance, turf maintenance and there is also an operational subsidy budgeted for in most years. While there has been discussion about bid funding to attract events being fully covered by VŌ, my understanding is that this is not the case for at least the first couple of years and in the Long Term Plan we have $4.3m allocated for events at the stadium over the first three years at the request of VŌ. It may be that they no longer need this funding, but some has already been allocated for the bid to attract the recently announced Super Round. If it is not needed by Venues Ōtautahi a paper needs to come to Council so that it can be reallocated or used to offset rates.

A memo to councillors on 18 July, outlined the subsidies that Christchurch residents will be funding for the stadium operations over the next 9 years. They include:

• $14m from 2026-2034 for operating and cash flow support

• $9.4m over the same time for turf and landscaping maintenance

• $28m for insurance and $5.8m for rates

• A total of $57.5m for 9 years

This is on top of the capital loan repayments for the build, which in the 2026 financial year are around $30m including the principal and interest. In a regular arrangement with a commercial tenant, much of these costs would be covered by rent, but that’s not the case with VŌ being an operator on Council’s behalf.

From Council memo 18 July 2025

I understand why this makes sense for Venues Ōtautahi as a company, but it is less transparent about the costs for residents, who may incorrectly assume that when the operator breaks even, that the stadium itself does too. 

The public perception about the stadium ‘breaking even’ has led to a huge missed opportunity for contributions from our neighbouring councils, who have constantly said that they would be open to the conversation, but just haven’t been asked yet. These are conversations that should have been formalised several years ago with a request for Waimakariri and Selwyn to consult their communities on annual operational contributions, but as soon as there was an assertion that none was needed, we gave up that opportunity. 

Ticket levies are used across the world to help pay for the costs of building stadiums or other infrastructure and there’s a community expectation that it is used in this way here. There is a plan for a levy here, however, because it is to be collected by Venues Ōtautahi through the ticketing system, and they don’t own the stadium or its debt or pay rent to Council, it is currently proposed to pay for additional operations and not be given to Council to pay back the build cost for ratepayers. This needs to be transparent and to be considered by Council along with broader discussions about operational funding.

If we had been more transparent with the total funding required to run the stadium and kept all of the costs of operating the stadium with Venues Ōtautahi, it would have enabled us to make better financial decisions in the best interests of the city as a whole.

In the last term of Council the Te Kaha Ltd company was set up, with a board of directors to oversee the stadium build and a budget allocated. We’ve had regular high level updates from the team, which has been useful, but the current Council have had no input or decision making on the build project and no decision reports with choices to be made on the operations once opened. 

One NZ Stadium is going to host amazing concerts, sports and other events and will help bring vibrancy to the city, but as a Council, it’s also our role to be transparent about the costs and funding so that we can make well informed decisions about this new asset for the city.