Warrick Dent: Sky Stadium CEO ahead of the A-League match between the Wellington Phoenix and Auckland FC

Up to 20 thousand football fans are expected to turn out at Wellington's Sky Stadium tomorrow for the country's first ever professional football derby. 

The A-League match will see Wellington Phoenix play Auckland FC. 

Sky Stadium Chief Executive Warrick Dent told Mike Hosking with fine weather forecast, it's shaping up to be a good time. 

He says there's hype building both in the capital and amongst fans in Auckland. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Early season treat for the football fans. The new Auckland
AFC or the Auckland FC get to go head to
head with the A leagues establish New Zealand branch, which
of course comes in the form of the Phoenix country's
first ever a professional football derby. Sky Stadium Chief Executive
Warwick Dent is in charge of hosting his with us
Warwick Morning. I like Auckland. I'm not a football fan,

(00:20):
but I like what they're about. They attract a good crowd.
The Phoenix attract a good crowd. I mean that's recipe
for a good weekend for you, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh. I think it's going to be a great weekend.
I think there's a real excitement both here and Wellington,
but in Auckland amongst football fans but general sports fans
and as you said, New Zealand's first professional football derby,
and we're just really pleased to be hosting that here
at the home of the Wellington Phoenix sky Stadium.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Fis wise, where does it sit between I don't know,
Super Rugby, NPC rugby, another sort of event you would hold.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh, we think it's right up there with a big
Super rugby clash in terms of a traditional rivalry between
the Super Rugby New Zealand Super Rugby franchises. We're expecting
a crowd of an excess of twenty thousand, so we
think it's going to be a great occasion.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Is that good? I mean, I don't want to burst
your bubble, but you hold thirty something. If the two
top football sides in this country can't sell out a stadium,
is there something wrong or not?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I think, Mike, if you look at crowd sizes for
the A League, a crowd in excess of twenty thousand
for regular season, that's really good. No, we've got stadiums
that are built to larger, larger capacities. But if we
can get crowds of twenty up to twenty five thousand
for a regular season football match, and as we saw
with the Phoenix last season when they'd made that run
into the semifinals, we'll we did fill it out for

(01:34):
the semi final. There's an audience there.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
You got the weather because I watched the MPC finally
last week it was miserable.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It was a little bit all last weekend. I please
to say that this weekend is looking a lot better.
I think tomorrow looking at sort of almost twenty degrees sun,
not much wind, to be a great evening for football.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Good stuff, Go well, mate, appreciate it very much. My
wife said to me on our walker is the day.
All you do on the weekend is watch sport. That's
what she said to me. We were holding hands at
the time, but she turned to me and I said
all the things we were going to do this weekend.
She goes, why are you doing this? All we do?
All you do is watch sport. For more from the
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