Ballarat Sports and Events Centre

The facility was established in 1986 as a two-court indoor community netball stadium known as the Wendouree Netball Centre. During the early 2000s the popularity of Basketball, Netball and Badminton in the Ballarat region had significantly outgrown the capacity of existing stadia built during the 1970s at the nearby Hollioake Park sports complex. Heavy pressure from local sports competition and community demand at the ageing but well maintained and modernised Hollioake Park venues including the Ballarat Minerdome Basketball Stadium and the 'Ken Kay' Badminton Stadium limited Ballarat's capacity to bid for and accommodate major indoor sports competitions. This prompted combined local councils and indoor sporting associations to collectively advocate for funding to re-develop and expand the Wendouree Netball Centre into a major regional indoor multi-use sporting complex.

After several years of lobbying for funding assistance, in 2015 the Victorian State government granted $9 million financial support in addition to the Ballarat Council's commitment of $5 million to ensure that some $14 million (AUD) would jointly fund the first stage of a new Ballarat Sports and Events Centre project as a strategic component of the Ballarat Major Events Precinct Master Plan (Released in June 2015). [2] The Master Plan being a formal document outlining a 10 year strategic plan for the development of the Eureka Sports Precinct including construction and development of the nearby Mars Stadium outdoor sports stadium as well as adjacent cricket ovals, pavilions and netball facilities.

Under the joint local council and State funding arrangement, a partial stadium complex would be designed and built connecting to the existing Wendouree Netball Centre that would add four new indoor courts and include a 1500-seat main arena. This design was to make provision for future expansion as an eight court facility expanding the main arena to 3000 capacity once additional funding could be secured. Several months later, before construction commenced, the Australian Commonwealth Government granted $10 million (AUD) under its 'Regional Development Fund' enabling full completion of the complex.

During the 2018 Victorian State election the Victorian State government committed a final grant of $5.2 million [3] to modernise and re-skin the adjoining older Wendouree Netball Centre to integrate its design to compliment the new facility. These monies also funding construction of outdoor three-on-three courts for community use, new sports clinic and strength and conditioning facilities.

More recently the complex has been proposed as the primary Netball venue as part of a campaign by Regional Victorian Councils to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games.[4]

Since officially opening in July 2019, the venue has hosted a number of premier games including National Basketball League (Australia) friendly games as well as NBL1 competition games. The venue had secured significant other national competitions to be hosted throughout 2020, however due to the suspension of many major sports competitions in Australia resultant from the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak these were postponed but not cancelled.

• Ballarat Sports and Events Centre at Austadiums
• Ballarat Council's webpage
• Ballarat Basketball
• Commonwealth Games - Greater Victoria