WESTERN Bulldogs president Peter Gordon believes the AFL needs a ‘bespoke’ stadium to cater for smaller-drawing games in Melbourne.
Gordon - who also revealed his club made more money out of its round 15 clash against Gold Coast in Cairns than all of its home games combined this year - said a smaller stadium was needed to maximise profits from games that drew between 25,000-30,000 fans.
"I think Melbourne needs a new bespoke stadium which maxes out at 25-30,000 (fans),” he told SEN on Wednesday afternoon.
"The … crowd that you normally get when you (have) the Demons playing the Giants or the Bulldogs playing Freo or whatever, is 25-30,000.
"You can make really good money with a crowd of 25-30,000 people - you just need the right infrastructure."
Gordon was adamant the club’s deal with Etihad Stadium was holding the club back financially. It was a reason why the Dogs chose to play a ‘home’ game against Gold Coast two weeks ago in Cairns, which attracted 9,449 fans.
"We just know it’s a bad deal (at Etihad)," Gordon said.
"We made more money out of playing one game in front of less than 10,000 people in Cairns a couple of weeks ago than all our other home games (this year) put together."
Gordon suggested the construction of a ‘clean’ stadium could boost the Bulldogs’ revenue by "$2-4m a year."