NNZ hopeful of packed houses for later games
Netball New Zealand is switching to plan B for its flagship competition in the hope teams can play the second half of the season before packed home crowds.
Last month, NNZ announced a full rescheduled ANZ Premiership at a locked down Auckland Netball Centre, through to the final series on the weekend of August 22-23.
Now, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern flagging a likely move to Covid-19 alert level 1 next week with no public gathering restrictions, and Sport NZ allocating $2.2 million from Budget 2020 to help resume the premiership, a rethink is on the table.
NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie met with representatives of the six franchises yesterday and said the first four to six weeks of the six-team competition, which resumes on June 19, would be played as scheduled at the same Auckland venue with the Pulse, Tactix and Steel flying in each weekend.
Plans are being explored to fit as many as 500 fans into the Auckland
Netball Centre for the early rounds, Wyllie said, before considering a move to home and away matches. The Auckland venue is not designed for big crowds.
‘‘We’re looking at all opportunities. Even with that Sport NZ money, this competition and the extension of it, the financial viability of it has to come into play,’’ Wyllie said.
In recent weeks all teams have had to trim their budgets, with players taking pay cuts and some shedding their assistant coaches. RNZ reported Auckland-based
Stars assistant coach Temepara Bailey had volunteered to return.
Netball Central chief executive Fran Scholey, who oversees the defending champion Pulse, said players and staff had all shared the pain and taken pay cuts, which enabled them to retain head coach Yvette McCausland-Durie, her assistant Pelesa Semu, a manager and a physio.
Wyllie said NNZ was working with the Netball Players’ Association around remuneration and how an extended season might look.