Miners Go Gold for New Away Strip

The Ballarat Miners NBL1 South and Big V Youth League teams will see a change in uniform, with the decision to move from a white alternate to a Gold/Yellow alternate set coming into effect for the 2024 NBL1 South and Big V Youth League seasons. 

The club’s decision is not only to align with club colours but also comes on the back of change from other NBL1 teams and leagues, including the WNBL who, for the past two seasons, has successfully launched and run the “Fighting Period Poverty” Round, which seeks to raise awareness around period poverty in Australia, along with the AFLW banning white shorts, aiming to eliminate performance anxiety faced by players during their menstrual cycles. 

This season will see both men’s and women’s teams in the NBL1 South and Big V Youth League programs wear Gold/Yellow uniforms as an alternative set, whilst Navy Blue remains the Miners primary colour. The Gold/Yellow alternate set will also come into effect for the Junior Representative Program teams in next years VJBL season, creating alignment across the program whole. 

Ballarat Basketball CEO, Nev Ivey said “In an effort to adapt to better suit female athletes, the Ballarat Miners have moved away from white shorts as a part of their uniforms. This change follows feedback from female athletes and recent research that identifies uniform design as a potential barrier to participation for female athletes”. 

“We’ve seen over a couple of years or so that athletes are voicing their anxieties around wearing white uniforms. Women menstruate and our bodies don’t care if we’re wearing a white uniform when that happens,” WNBL Bendigo Spirit and Ballarat Miners NBL1 reigning MVP player Abbey Wehrung said. “On the back of the WNBL & AFLW sparking the conversation and highlighting the importance of change, the decision by the club to move to a Gold alternate has been well received by the team. It’s not something to be embarrassed to talk about and I’m really excited we’ve had the conversation and made the decision to change”.