WESTERN Bulldogs are set to unleash details for public ticket sales to their historic first AFL premiership season match at Eureka Stadium.
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The Bulldogs have sold about 600 Ballarat membership to people across the region, guaranteeing a seat to the August 19 clash. Details for public ticketing will be blasted to the wider Bulldogs supporter community on Friday.
Bulldogs head of memberships and ticketing Fiona Baker, who hails from Ballarat, said the response from her hometown and surrounding regions in western Victoria had been fantastic.
Ms Baker said the club had made strong community ties, but the almost complete Eureka Stadium took this to a whole new level. The community was excited and AFL game day suddenly felt a lot more real.
“(Ballarat memberships) have been going great actually. We’ve obviously been embraced by the region, which is fantastic,” Ms Baker said.
“...It’s great and every time we come down here. We’re just embraced by the community and that’s what we really want. We want the Bulldogs to have an extension through that western corridor of Victoria.
“We want Ballarat to become as much Bulldogs as the western suburbs in Melbourne.”
The Bulldogs hosted a Ballarat membership drive at their Mair Street headquarters on Thursday, filled with prizes, merchandise and a chance to rub shoulders with headline mascot Woofer.
A Ballarat three-game membership (which includes two Etihad Stadium passes) or Ballarat add-on – both only available to people from Ballarat to the Southern Grampians – is the only way people can be assured a seat at Eureka Stadium.
Ms Baker said the Bulldogs hoped to fill Eureka Stadium with as many Ballarat supporters as possible, topped up with other Bulldogs fans, to make the club’s new kennel a parochial home-ground force.
Eureka Stadium will seat about 5000 people and hold an expected capacity of 11,000 with standing room.