Netball escapes doomsday scenario
Netball NZ dodges doomsday scenario
Netball New Zealand need only glance at the Silver Ferns’ major international rivals to realise how fortunate they’ve been in the chaotic Covid-19 landscape.
With New Zealand in level 4 lockdown in early April, NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie painted a dark picture to the Sunday Star-Times about netball’s outlook for 2020.
Under a worst-case scenario of no community netball, ANZ Premiership, or Silver Ferns’ home tests in 2020, NNZ’s finances faced being rocked by $12 million in lost income – a 63 per cent decline in revenue.
Six months on, Wyllie is grateful NNZ has been able to avoid the worst of the damage.
After getting Government approval, the world champion Silver Ferns will play a three-test series against England in Hamilton, starting this week. Crowds will be permitted under level 1, which will provide a welcome boost for NNZ’s finances.
The Ferns warmed up for the England matches over the past week with a Cadbury Series against the New Zealand men, New Zealand A, and New Zealand under-21s in Palmerston North.
New Zealand’s domestic ANZ Premiership, paused after round one due to the outbreak of Covid19, eventually restarted on June 19. The season was completed, but the grand final in Invercargill was played in front of a reduced 300-capacity crowd, after fresh Covid cases in the country.
Club netball was able to get much of its season through, though Auckland was impacted while the city was in level 2 and no games possible. Many centres only delivered 30–50 per cent of a winter netball season this year in the Auckland region.
Wyllie knows the situation could have been far bleaker. Australia – who have been in camp over the past few days – won’t play any tests in 2020, for the first time in a calendar year since 1984.
England’s flagship domestic netball competition, Super Netball, was canned for 2020 and the prospect of the Roses hosting any home internationals anytime soon is grim.
‘‘It’s quite a programme we’ve been able to roll out in a year that has been really disruptive,’’ Wyllie said.
‘‘We were sitting there at a time [in April] where we were all like, ‘There will be no ANZ Premiership, there will be no community netball, what are we going to do? How are we still going to be able to come through this on the other side?’.’’
NNZ won’t know the full impact of Covid-19 on its finances until the end of the financial year in November. Wyllie is predicting a healthier situation than first envisaged, but acknowledged NNZ will need to be cautious in 2021.
Financial forward-thinking from NNZ had been crucial in the Silver Ferns being able to host the first internationals in world netball since Covid-19’s onset.
NNZ made some tough calls, pausing several programmes and tournaments in 2020 to keep costs down in a highly challenging year, where changes in the alert levels threw up constant dilemmas.
As with other Kiwi sports codes hosting international sides, the cost to each code is $7000 per player for the special quarantine facilities. NNZ will also pick up the landed cost for the England team during their stay in New Zealand.
The New Zealand under-21s and New Zealand A programmes, secondary school nationals, agegroup nationals, and second-tier Beko League competition were all put on hold for 2020. Part of the reason for postponing these events was safety around Covid travel and the cost to teams and players, which was a burden this year.
‘‘We have made big
decisions internally around what programmes needed to pause and where we needed to make some savings in order for us to be viable, irrespective of whether we would have international netball play. That’s what we’ve done.
‘‘We’ve got to own some of this ourselves, and we needed to change our business model to ensure we could still be viable at the end of this year. At the end of the day, we’re a members’ organisation.’’
NNZ remains thankful its loyal sponsors have stuck with it through an unprecedented year. NNZ has enjoyed long commercial relationships with key partners, ANZ, Sky, MYOB, Puma, and Suzuki.
Wyllie revealed several new sponsors are set to be confirmed, something it wasn’t counting on with Covid.
The Government’s sport relief package, which provided NNZ with $2.2 million to support the running of the ANZ Premiership and its teams was a saviour, Wyllie said.
‘‘It was an absolute lifesaver. It allowed us to put the ANZ Premiership on this year. It would have been incredibly challenging to deliver the standard of the product [without it]. We would have needed to make some really tough decisions.’’
Covid proved the final knockout blow for cash-strapped Netball Mainland, which was placed in voluntary liquidation in April. NNZ took over the running of the region’s flagship team, the Mainland Tactix, who enjoyed their finest season, making the Premiership final for the first time.
The Tactix will remain under the governance structure of NNZ for 2021 with a relationship manager working with netball centres in the Mainland zone.
Like most businesses, NNZ
utilised the first round of the government wage subsidy scheme, being paid $ 273,888 for 46 employees. It has largely kept its staff intact, not replacing one person who had left. NNZ has not used a lot of its contractors this year with many tournaments and events not going ahead.
Heading into 2021, NNZ is well aware the Covid situation could rip apart any plans in an instant.
‘‘As we go into 2021, what would be playing on my mind is the alert levels and particularly our changes up and down – which is our risk and the impact on the community,’’ Wyllie said.
‘‘What we’ve seen even in this sub-section, which is Auckland, is it’s had a material impact [going back into lockdown in August].
‘‘My view is we can’t think we return to what we knew preCovid. There’s going to be a reset of all our behaviours required.’’
The impact of Covid on community netball participation numbers for next year will be intriguing. Naturally, some players may be lost to the sport due to their own or family’s financial situation. She is optimistic those instances will be minimal.
Wyllie said affordability and equality for everyone was paramount.
‘‘We are laser-focused on making sure our sport remains accessible for as many people as possible.’’
Government support had been pivotal for NNZ this year, both in terms of England being granted permission to enter the country, and financial relief packages.
‘‘ There’s not going to be an endless supply of government money. We’ve had some grace this year and some amazing support ... if we expect to revert to what we were previously doing, it will not be a good outcome.’’
New Zealand professional sport is on the knife edge, as coronavirus meddles with tournaments, sapping revenue, crowds and broadcasting rights so crucial for paying the bills. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ‘‘paused’’ plans for a partial return of fans to stadiums. UK sports say that will cause ‘‘irreparable damage’’ to them and the community. Might that happen here? Over the next two weeks, Sunday Star-Times’ Knife Edge series will investigate the future of professional sport in New Zealand. This week we look at netball and basketball. How long can professional sport survive in current conditions; will it need lifebuoys thrown to keep afloat; just how important is a trans-Tasman match bubble?