Meydan second best

Source:  www.khaleejtimes.com

Meydan announced its flagship Meydan Grandstand and Racecourse facility has been voted the second most important sports venue globally.

Meydan City

The World Games Stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, was voted as the most important venue by internationally recognised sports title; SportsPro magazine. Third was Cowboys Stadium, Dallas, fourth was Wembley in London, fifth was Soccer City in Johannesburg.

Almost unanimously seen as a ‘game-changing’ venue not only for the Middle East but for the sport of horse racing across the world, Meydan also rated highly in terms of innovation, originality, infrastructure, potential commercial prowess and the sheer magnitude of the integrated facility.

Published in the June edition of SportsPro magazine, the list is the first global ranking of its kind and includes venues from 13 different countries including North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The venues were compiled by the SportsPro editorial team, before the rankings were determined through consultation with a number of sports industry experts which included designers, architects, stadium managers and sponsorship experts.

Around 100 global sporting venues were analysed and pared down to the final top 30. A broad spectrum across various sports and geographical locations were considered with UAE’s Yas Marina Circuit and Dubai Sports City also being nominated and placed at 8^th and 11^th positions in the poll respectively. The list ranked venues in order of importance, be it architectural, political, sporting, social, historical, or environmental.

SportsPro is an international monthly magazine for the business of sport, focusing on sponsorship and financing as well as marketing and management across the world’s top sports. With a monthly readership of over 65,000 across 35 countries, it features the sports industry’s top executives, events, deals and venues as well as reports, sponsorship reviews and industry insights.

David Cushnan, Editor of SportsPro, said: “Meydan has set new standards and its placing properly reflects that. It is not only a monument to Shaikh Mohammed’s vision for Dubai, but a new benchmark for the entire international racing industry. Every other future racing venue will be judged against features like Meydan’s Grandstand, the hotel and the new training facilities. It is also a perfect marriage of tradition and technology and the centrepiece of a city built from scratch, completely unique in that it could only happen in Dubai. There should be absolutely no surprise that it ranked so highly in our list.”

Mohammad A. Nasser Al Khayat, Commercial Director of Meydan, said, “‘It is indeed an honour for us to be recognised globally by the recent SportsPro poll. Seeing that we have only just launched the Meydan Grandstand and Racecourse as part of our first phase of the Racecourse District in Meydan City, and more so when one realises that this is only a glimpse of the full scope of what it will eventually encompass.”