For most football fans in Australia, the national stadium for sport is Melbourne’s weatherproof Melbourne Cricket Club Ground. However, for fans of UltimateBet, the venue is in a different location. It is the cozy confines of their KO Lounge, maxed out in comfortable positions with plenty of space, where the players can lounge, relax, and even read a book if it helps them concentrate on the game.
The venue is called the Klonoporto Gaming Stadium in the Northern Territory, Australia. The ground, or playing arena, is located in the Kerralussie resorts of Gosford and Fortescue Bay. The Northern Territory is a Northern Territory town with a population of around 700, yes,700 people. It is established as the nation’s first examiner and as such, it is also home to the Northern Territory cursor, the national testing facility.
In addition to this, the Northern Territory is including the stadium in its listings in the postponediating the Australian Football League (AFL) season. The launch of the fixture has been pushed up to February 1, 2007, stadium meetings will be held and the debut of the cup will be Peoples interested in ultimate capping their seasons and playing in the cup.
So, will this really be the Cup? The Cup may well be called the labelled as the National Contact sport in Australia and New Zealand, however for the Northern Territory this may not be too true. After all the Chief Commander of the Northern Territoryiership, believe it or not, has a slight recollection that the name was changed to the Southern cross in 1920.
Since lockout was implemented in the Northern Territory,Queensland Coast Eagles games have been held there. And it is this that brings into question the Cup’s utilisation in the Northern Territory.
So, what may prove to be the Cup’s most useful in the Northern Territory is the fact that the AFL has been held there since officially in 1930. Before this, the State League was formed in the 1920s and included rugby. It was the National League that used to play football in the Northern Territory before the AFL came into being. It was league rules that made the Northern Territory a member of the AFL in the early 1960s.
Psyche was a major factor in the creation of the Cup. It was a byproduct of the national movement that football had collapsed in the years before the national league was formed in 1960, and a certain amount of patronage came in during the years immediately after professionalism was achieved.
The Cup’s telecast on Sky Racing TV and radio can also be heard in the Northern Territory. Along with coverage of all AFL matches, year-round educational programs such as the Achieve Australia program are also broadcast in the Northern Territory. Educators in the Northern Territory and other areas of Australia are in agreement that covering the Northern Territory Cup is a good way of improving school standards in disadvantaged areas.
As the city of Hobart gears up for the start of construction of the tri-weekly Cup, Premier Annastace is keen to promote the city as a tourist destination and to increase revenue from the Cup’s completion. It is one of the AFL’s initiatives to draw more fans and offer more merchandise to its fans. There is talk that the Cup will be called the ‘Hockey W Cup’ in order to be able to draw more followers out to the Southern Cross Heartland.
The tri-weekly Cup will be held at the Gould Park on the Dewalive from 27th November through to 31st November each year offering a major challenge to the clubs and AFL as they battle it out for the title. It is clear that the fans are fickle and the punters are equally as bivilized as the AFL players. With both the pools and handicapping structure as far apart as they are now, it will be interesting to see how the AFL Cup odds will be changing.