Sports Darwin, Northern Territory

the marrara sports complex near airport has stadiums aussie rules (tio stadium), cricket, rugby union, basketball (and indoor court sports), soccer, athletics , field hockey. every 2 years since 1991 (excluding 2003 due sars outbreak), darwin has played host arafura games, major regional sporting event. in july 2003, city hosted first international test cricket match between australia , bangladesh, followed australia , sri lanka in 2004.

australian-rules football played year round. melbourne s western bulldogs australian football league side plays 1 home game @ marrara oval each year. atsic aboriginal all-stars participate in afl pre-season competition. in 2003, record crowd of 17,500 attended pre-season game between all-stars , carlton football club @ marrara.

rugby league , rugby union club competitions played in darwin each year, organised ntrl , ntru respectively. heineken hottest 7s in world tournament hosted in darwin each january, rugby sevens club teams countries including australia, new zealand, papua new guinea, malaysia, , singapore competing. darwin s hottest 7s richest rugby 7s tournament in southern hemisphere.

darwin hosts round of supercars championship every year bringing thousands of motorsports fans hidden valley raceway. located hidden valley, adjacent road racing circuit, darwin s dirt track racing venue, northline speedway. speedway has hosted number of australian championships on years different categories including sprintcars, speedcars, , super sedans.

the darwin cup culminating on first monday of august popular horse race event darwin , draws large crowds every year fannie bay racecourse. while not popular melbourne cup, draw crowd and, in 2003, sky racing began televising of races. darwin cup day public holiday northern territory (picnic day public holiday).