Port Adelaide fans fume at small capacity in Ballarat’s Mars Stadium for match against Western Bulldogs
Port Adelaide footy fans are fuming they are unable to buy tickets for their Round 8 clash against Western Bulldogs – and the same fate awaits Crows supporters later in the year.
Opinion
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Reduced capacity at an AFL venue in regional Victoria has left Port Adelaide fans fuming and unable to purchase tickets – and the same fate awaits Crows supporters later in the year.
Both South Australian clubs are scheduled to play the Western Bulldogs at Ballarat’s Mars Stadium, despite the venue having a capacity of just 5000 people while it undergoes a redevelopment.
Port fans who had booked accommodation to attend the club’s Round 8 match on election day say they have been “blindsided” and are angry tickets only went on sale less than three weeks before the game.
The Alberton Crowd Facebook group had organised a group of about 60 to travel to the game as its annual “Tour of Duty” road trip but has cancelled because of a lack of tickets. Many in the group have had to cancel accommodation they booked months ago.
Group co-founder Phil Rollas said scheduling games at such a small venue was “incompetent”.
The AFL Fans Association has told the AFL it had received “a significant number of concerns from members and supporters” about the lack of available tickets.
Western Bulldogs members were allocated about 4500 tickets for the game and the remaining 500 were allocated to Port members.
Port Adelaide general manager of consumer business and marketing Stephen Shirley said the club had offered its Victorian members first access to tickets and had generated a waitlist for SA-based members
“Any members who wish to join the waitlist are encouraged to contact the club,” Mr Shirley said. The Crows play Western Bulldogs in Ballarat in Round 18. Dates and times for that match are yet to be released.
The Western Bulldogs announced in February an extension of a deal that will see the club host two AFL games a year in Ballarat until at least the end of 2027. A spokesman said they expected Mars Stadium capacity to be affected until the redevelopment was complete before season 2027.
TINY BALLARAT STADIUM SOURS A ROAD TRIP TO THE FOOTY
Paul Ashenden
Originally, it was going to be a weekend away with my wife. When the AFL fixture came out before Christmas, we locked in the Port Adelaide vs. Western Bulldogs game at Ballarat as a chance to hit the road.
The game was scheduled for the first weekend in May and it would give us a chance to visit some mates in Horsham on the way.
A couple of months ago, though, something else came up in her schedule but I was still keen. So, I decided to turn it into a boys’ weekend away. A couple of us from Adelaide would drive over, pick up the blokes from Horsham and meet another mate from Geelong at the game in the Golden City. Sweet.
Excitement was building and it was up to me to purchase the tickets. It didn’t cross anyone’s mind that this might pose a problem – a clash between these two teams in regional Victoria was hardly a blockbuster.
But when I logged on to Ticketmaster one minute after tickets went on sale last week, everything turned sour. The game was sold out.
Turns out that redevelopment work at Ballarat’s Mars Stadium has reduced its capacity from about 11,000 to just over 5000. Soon, other Port Adelaide supporters started commenting on social media that they, too, had been unable to get tickets.
Many of them had to cancel accommodation they had booked months before. Fortunately, our group was less organised but we’re disappointed, nonetheless.
We’re disappointed that the AFL has scheduled a game at a stadium with such limited capacity, and we’re disappointed about the lack of warning about the reduced capacity.
We understand that the game is a Western Bulldogs home game, that Ballarat is their “home away from home” and the Dogs have a contract to play two AFL games there until at least 2027.
And in the wake of this month’s Gather Round, where Lyndoch’s Barossa Park had a capacity of just 10,000, we understand the importance of taking the AFL to the regions. But it seems verging on ridiculous that an AFL game in 2025 is scheduled for a venue that holds just 5000 people.
As a lifelong Port fan, it’s rare for me to have any sympathy for Adelaide Crows fans but I’ll be feeling their pain when they attempt to buy tickets to their round 18 game in Ballarat later in the year.
Here’s hoping those Crows fans are given more than three weeks between when tickets go on sale and game day, because that’s the time frame we were given for the Port-Bulldogs game.
Oh, and don’t even get me started about the AFL’s floating schedule after round 15 and how hard that makes it for footy fans to schedule their lives – there’s a whole separate column in that one.
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