The Oval has a capacity of 22,000 people, with grandstand seating for up to 3,900. The ground record crowd was set in 1971 when 20,280 turned up to watch an SANFL match between Norwood and their traditional SANFL rivals Port Adelaide. Norwood Oval's dimensions are 165m x 110m making it the narrowest ground in use in the SANFL. In the 1950s the Norwood Football Club received permission from the then City of Kensington & Norwood to install six light towers at the oval. This allowed Norwood to host not only night football matches but also night baseball.
Baseball
Norwood has also hosted Baseball since 1951 with the South Australian Baseball team being tenants until 1988. Between 1951 and 1988 Norwood Oval hosted the Claxton Shield competition on six occasions with the winners being NSW, Victoria and SA. The original Australian Baseball League started in 1989 with Adelaide represented by the Adelaide Giants. The ABL ran from 1989 until it folded in 1999 with the Giants playing all of their home games at Norwood Oval with most being under lights. During their time in the ABL the Giants were affiliated, as were every other team in the league, with a team from Major League Baseball. In a massive coup the Giants managed to get themselves affiliated with the 1988 World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers with the team receiving 3-4 'import players' a season from the Dodgers Minor League system to complement their array of 'local' talent. During the ABL the Giants never made the ABL's championship series. Following the collapse of the ABL after 1999 and the short lived International Baseball League of Australia which ran from 1999-2000 until the 2002 the Claxton Shield was revived in 2003 with South Australia playing their games at the Thebarton Oval before moving back to Norwood Oval in 2009. In August 2010 it was announced that there would be a new Australian Baseball League and that Norwood Oval would be the home ground of Adelaide Bite, the team representing Adelaide in the ABL. Prior to 2009, the baseball diamond at Norwood Oval was located closer to the Wood Street stand. The third base line ran almost parallel to the stand, with the first base line running east towards the outer side of the ground. The diamond was then moved to its present position in 2009. As of February 2012 Norwood Oval's field dimensions for baseball are: Left Field - Centre Field - Right Field -
