Sports Hub ready to stage much larger events, but only if it makes economic sense: CEO

Singapore

WHEN Singapore and Indonesia met in the semi-final of football's Suzuki Cup on Christmas Day last December, 9,982 spectators were inside the National Stadium to witness what turned out to be one of the most memorable and action-packed matches in the history of the biennial regional tournament.

The venue can normally seat up to 55,000 people but the government had capped the maximum attendance per matchday at 10,000 as part of the country's safe management measures, which meant the stadium was less than 20 per cent full.

Even so, the attendance at that match makes it the largest single event - sports, business or leisure - held in Singapore since the start of the coronavirus pandemic 2 years ago.

Over 4 weeks, the National Stadium - the centrepiece of the S$1.33 billion Singapore Sports Hub complex in Kallang - hosted 16 Suzuki Cup games in 12 days, with some 85,000 fans passing through the turnstiles.

For Sports Hub chief executive officer Lionel Yeo, 49, being able to plan and execute such a major football competition "allowed us to take that step and gain some confidence with our stakeholders and the authorities" that such events could be held safely and responsibly amid the pandemic.

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"We also validated the point that there is very good demand for live sports, and people here are hungry for live action," he said in an interview with The Business Times this week.

"It lays a foundation for us to scale up even further. We obviously don't want to stop at 10,000. We want to get to 25,000, 35,000, 40,000 and higher."

While the priority is to make sure such events can be conducted safely, Yeo said it would only make sense to go ahead with these events if they are scalable and make economic sense for the consumers and businesses.

He noted how a recent concert by Singapore singer JJ Lin was allowed to go ahead with no safe-distancing measures in place, so long as every ticket-holder was fully vaccinated and produced a negative result from a supervised pre-event Covid-19 test.

"That concert (at Marina Bay Sands) had 2,000 people, but if we want to have up to 40,000 and all of them must also do a pre-event test on the same day - is that practical? Can it even be done?" he said.

"There is that added cost to consumers and businesses, and if you introduce too much friction, the demand for the event might fall off."

That said, Yeo, a former chief executive of the Singapore Tourism Board, maintains that he is hopeful of a better year ahead, as far as the Sports Hub's calendar of events is concerned.

Slowly but surely, the vibrancy is returning to the Sports Hub as Singapore continues to move towards treating the virus as endemic.

At the end of February, the National Stadium will stage its first Airbadminton marathon over 48 hours, with as many as 2,000 people getting the opportunity to play on 36 courts.

In March, the OCBC Arena - another facility at the Sports Hub - will host the US$2 million Grand Smash table tennis tournament.

The nearby Indoor Stadium, meanwhile, will be where mixed martial arts fans can catch One Championship's 10th anniversary show on Mar 26.

And as things stand, the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens - which was cancelled last year due to the pandemic - is on track to be held over the weekend of Apr 9-10 at the National Stadium.

Yeo also let on that "there is a possibility" of some top European football clubs coming to Singapore in July as part of their pre-season tour.

In July 2019, just months before the pandemic hit, a quartet of teams from Europe - Manchester United, Juventus, Inter-Milan and Tottenham Hotspur - brought their stars to play at the National Stadium in front of tens of thousands of fans.

"I can't say if (these matches) will happen or not this year, but there are conversations already," said Yeo. "Whether or not it comes to pass depends on a number of factors.

"Will we be allowed to have 30,000 in the stadium? It wouldn't make sense for the European clubs to come and we (can only) have 10,000.

"That's the fluidity we have to contend with during these times."

On the entertainment side, Yeo said the Sports Hub team is "fielding very healthy interest" from international promoters who are keen to bring global performers to Singapore.

"It's everything from Western acts to Korean acts and Mandarin acts. It's a wide range, and we are in discussions for quite a number of shows," he said, without naming any individual entertainer or band in particular.

"Some of them want to book dates and they have put placeholders in our calendar," he said.

"Then we begin that same process (of discussing with the authorities) if they will be allowed to have 30,000 people in the National Stadium, or 6,000 to 8,000 in the Indoor Stadium."

For now, there is "huge interest" from promoters and organisers to bring their world-class content to Singapore as soon as possible, as they see the country as an important market for both sports and entertainment events alike.

"In this part of the world, Singapore is seen as a great destination, and for some of the entertainment acts, we are a key destination on their Asia tour," said Yeo.

"That's a good thing but we should not take that for granted. Because if we are out of the scene for too long, alternatives will come up and other cities will take our place."