Can Mars Stadium survive in Ballarat?
As the Western Bulldogs hosted Port Adelaide in Ballarat’s first ever home and away AFL game last weekend, it filled my mind with questions of doubt. Can Ballarat really sustain an AFL standard football stadium?

During the period of 2008–2010 a plan was devised that a state of the art stadium was to be developed around eureka stadium, situated in North Ballarat. The new developed stadium would provide upgraded facilities to Ballarat’s VFL side North Ballarat, Ballarat’s TAC Cup U/18 side, the North Ballarat rebels as well as a hopefully prospective AFL side, at this stage in time Ballarat were partnered with North Melbourne and were hopeful they would sign a contract stating that they would play a number of home games there.

However this plan lapsed after the 2010 Victorian government lost the election and funding was not allocated.
In 2014 an announcement was made that plans for Ballarat’s AFL standard oval was to go ahead of the Andrews government allocated them $22 million for the project.
In 2015 the Western Bulldogs signed a sponsorship deal with the Victorian government said to be worth $5 million over the next 5 years that states that the Western Bulldogs will play 2 home games in Ballarat over the next 5 years. As amazing as this deal sounds for Ballarat the question that plays in my mind is what happens next?
Although the opening match on (commercially now known as) Mars Stadium was a great success for the community of Ballarat with the 11,000 capacity stadium selling out the Western Bulldogs v Port Adelaide match and the town selling 97% of its accommodation for the night, what happens to the stadium for the rest of the year?
When the project was initially proposed back in 2008–2010 the North Ballarat VFL side, of whom the stadium plays home ground won 3 senior premierships in a row, making them one of the strongest football sides in Victoria. At this stage they were AFL club North Melbourne’s Reserve side and had a strong AFL based list. However the announcement of North Melbourne’s departure from the partnership has seen North Ballarat struggle to find success both on and off field for a couple years.
In 2016 is was questioned as to whether North Ballarat would even form a side in the 2017 VFL season after struggling to meet the financial costs of participating in the league.
In the 2017 season North Ballarat are sitting on the bottom of the VFL ladder having only had 1 win. The future of North Ballarat’s participation in the 2018 season is highly questionable.
So who will use the new state of the art technology that the oval had provided the city of Ballarat? Was the spending $22 Million of taxpayers money really worth building a stadium that will host 2 AFL games a year for 5 years and be a home ground for Ballarat’s (formally known as greaten western Victoria rebels) U/18 TAC cup team. I am certainly not convinced.

Inspiration for this story was taken from:
https://www.facebook.com/Western.Bulldogs
https://twitter.com/westernbulldogs