Statement on Finals Location

North Ballarat Football Netball Club acknowledges the BFNL's recent decision to host the 2024 Junior and Senior football and netball Grand Finals and Eastern Oval and City Oval.

It goes without saying that our club would have loved to have seen the grand finals back at Mars Stadium this year. Mars is the premier football/netball venue in western Victoria and it makes sense that the grand finals for the region's premier football and netball competition would be played there. Thanks to the significant investment of the State Government and the support of the City of Ballarat, Mars Stadium offers AFL-standard playing facilities for football, as well as two brand new state-of-the-art netball courts and dedicated change rooms. We are well set up to accommodate people with accessibility requirements and have ample parking in and around the precinct which means local traffic snarls are avoided. No other venue in the league offers all of that.

Contrary to popular belief, the North Ballarat Sports Club takes a hit to its revenue on grand final days, however, we have always accepted this comes secondary to ensuring Grand Final day is in equal parts a community success, a league success as well as a success for all clubs.

Our club has always been willing - and remains so - to work with the clubs who have catering rights to help them maximise their profits on the day. This includes us not selling alcohol from our can bar. What we can't do is breach our operating licence, which does place some restrictions on where others can sell alcohol from, but we have viable workarounds for this.

Ballarat is fortunate that it has numerous football grounds that are able to host football grand finals. However, Mars Stadium is the only venue that can do justice to both football AND netball at the highest of standards. For junior footballers in particular, the excitement of running up the same race that their AFL heroes do is second to none. We are disappointed for all the junior boys and girls who won't get to do that this year.

We will continue to advocate for what we firmly believe is the best location for BFNL grand finals for both football AND netball and look forward to welcoming players, supporters and sponsors from all BFNL clubs back to Mars.