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- Dec 7, 2016
- 2,170
- 4,802
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
- Other Teams
- North Ballarat Roosters
In fairness, it's hardly a "JLT facility at best". The facilities at Mars Stadium for players and media broadcasting are as good as any AFL venue in the country. The ground had all of its critical faciltites upgraded in 2017 to meet AFL requirements. It is the best AFL facility in Victoria outside Melbourne and Geelong and is considered to have the best playing surface in the AFL. It is used weekly by the AFL for its TAC Cup competition and is also used by two local leagues. The ground has a brilliant Social Club facility and the 5000 covered seats built so far offer fantastic views and are modern and comfortable. The ground has a new video scoreboard and the Council do a bang up job getting spectators to and from the ground from the railway station and parking faciltities on the day.We still shouldn't have been sent to a JLT venue at best for an actual AFL game where only a few get a seat. You'd rarely see, if at all, a major sporting league allowing clubs to move games from world club stadiums to some backwater that fans can't be adequately catered for, except in the AFL.
The ground is only in its first stage of development and will get $6 million later this year to address some minor fixes with the first stage that includes new permanent toilets for the standing areas, a new covered entrance at the southern end of the ground, and some improvement to the lighting.
The ground still has a further two stages of development planned over longer term with the proposed second stage likley to boost covered seating to at least 10,000 and a full upgrade of lighting is being considered as well. Funding for the second stage has not yet been committed although the Government did provide the Council with $500,000 last year to complete a full feasibility study for the ground's future development. That study provided a number of recommendations which have been provided back to the State Government.