- Dec 7, 2016
- 2,128
- 4,693
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
- Other Teams
- North Ballarat Roosters
The issue with the poor crowd at the last game really comes down to the ground's present limited capacity and how the Western Bulldogs are managing that. They are trying to prevent a situation where the ground is locking out and turning away spectators who may have travelled from afar. They are trying to prevent this by managing access to games at Mars Stadium by "booking only", there's no general admission. Further to this they charge their Club Members a $49 premium for admission to the Ballarat games. The only real solution to this is to 'up' the ground's capacity to at least 15,000 seats and have space for at least 5000 to stand. This would at least allow for the club to lift the artificial barriers that they are imposing to contain the numbers. Another issue for Mars Stadium is the lack of public transport access. There is a perfectly good railway line right next to the ground but no station or platform yet. The Ballarat Council have done a first class job coordinating transit busses that ferry people from and to designated parking areas and from the Ballarat Station, they are fast, clean and run every ten minutes; but the real solution is to construct more car parking near the ground and to build an events day train platform next to the ground.10k+ thru the gate 2017 - bit under 7k 2018, is it premature to up the capacity?
http://austadiums.com/stadiums/stadiums.php?id=348
Finally, consider that there were only 7,194 people at the North Melbourne vs GWS game yesterday at a ground where capacity isn't an issue. The GWS have only managed 10,222 people as an average attendance to their games so far for this year while GC Suns have managed 14,390. North Melbourne have averaged 24,597, while the Western Bulldogs numbers have dropped several thousand this year and are managing 25,506. Compare this with the bigger clubs Collingwood and Richmond who are averaging 59,000. Then you get a perspective of the drawing power of the Bulldogs and Gold Coast.
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