Western Springs Now Vodafone Speedway

The stadium had previously been aligned for the past three years with WXC Communications, which was recently acquired by Vodafone.

The 87-year-old venue, best known for speedway events, will become known as Vodafone Speedway this southern summer.

“We’re very excited to have partnered with a globally recognised and successful brand like Vodafone and look forward to hosting speedway at Western Springs for the next three years at least,” said Springs promoter Greg Mosen. “We are extremely grateful for the work Paul Clarkin and his team at WXC have put in to making speedway so successful of late and were delighted to be working with Vodafone moving forward.”

Vodafone has a strong portfolio of existing sport and entertainment partnerships in New Zealand, including a number of rugby teams and the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.

It will use its Speedway tie-up to offer loyalty customers exclusive tickets and giveaways. Located 4 kilometers from Auckland, Western Springs has a crowd capacity of 30,000 for sports and upwards of 50,000 for concerts. Two of its biggest concerts were David Bowie’s Serious Moonlight Tour in 1983 which drew 83,000; and a ZZ Top show in 1987, which attracted 80,000.

More recently, 55,000 Eminem fans attended his debut performance in January 2014.