England can take the next step with move towards professional league
Star power
The top three nations in the world – Australia, New Zealand and England – are the only countries to boast a complete squad of professionals, many of whom ply their trade with franchises in Australia’s national Super Suncorp League and New Zealand’s ANZ Premiership.
Silver Ferns captain Laura Langman, Jamaica’s prolific shooter Jhaniele Fowler, Australian shooter Caitlin Bassett and South Africa’s Karla Pretorius, along with English stalwarts Serena Guthrie and Geva Mentor, are just some of the sport’s iconic poster women. Last month, Maria Folau – the long-range goal-shooting specialist who is married to sacked Australia rugby union player Israel Folau – was one of two high-profile internationals to announce her retirement since the World Cup, along with South Africa’s Erin Burger, winner of 120 caps.
Strength in depth
England’s domestic Superleague remains semi-professional and home to mainly British players, although the competition has attracted a litany of
African stars in recent years who have made a name for themselves playing in front of British crowds.
The launch of the ANZ Championship in 2008 – a transTasman league consisting of five teams each from Australia and New Zealand – meant netball reached semiprofessional status for the first time in both countries. The move was hailed as a game-changer and while the league has since split into the Suncorp Super Netball league and ANZ Premiership, the system has paid dividends on the international scale, with Australia and New Zealand contesting every World Cup final since 1999.
Jess Thirlby, the new head coach of England Netball, has already warned England’s domestic Superleague must start gravitating towards a fully professional set-up if the Roses are to reap future success at major tournaments and win an elusive World Cup. “Now is exactly the right time to try and make our Superleague more professional,” she told Telegraph Sport in July. “I think we’ve got some way to go. But, ultimately, we need funding that is going to be sustainable and that comes primarily through our fan base, translating that into tickets and having big venues where we can accumulate enough source of funding that we can start becoming more semi-professional, possibly professional.”
After their country’s heroics as World Cup minnows last year, administrators of Zimbabwe’s Rainbow Amateur Netball League have also outlined their intent to turn professional off the back of a staggering sponsorship deal from fuel distribution company Glow Petroleum
for the 2020 season.
Biggest headache
A 20-year period of intense lobbying by the world netball community led the International Olympic Committee to finally recognise the International Netball Federation in 1995, but the sport has since failed to gain Olympic status.
To get it over the line, the INF must convince the IOC’s executive committee that netball meets broad criteria, from potential ticket sales, costs, athletes’ health, popularity to global reach. Netball’s gender-exclusive nature remains a sticking point at a time when the IOC is striving to achieve gender parity at Games: female participation at next year’s Tokyo Olympics is set to reach 49 per cent – making single-sex sports such as netball problematic. Russia and China, two Olympic powerhouses which are yet to be even made associate INF members, does little to solve the conundrum.
On the court, netball is facing an anterior cruciate ligament injury epidemic. Research has pointed to changes during a woman’s menstrual cycle, which could increase the likelihood of injury. Before ending her tenure as England Netball CEO last year, Joanna Adams vowed to spearhead internal discussions on the issue.
Hottest ticket
England welcome the heavyweights for the most high-profile competition since the World Cup this month as part of a new international competition, the Netball Nations Cup, which replaces the Quad Series. In an interesting twist, world No1s Australia will not be taking part, instead being replaced by World Cup semi-finalists South Africa, with Jamaica also competing. Kicking off at Nottingham on Jan 19 before moving to
Birmingham and ending at London’s Copper Box Arena, the competition could throw up some surprises as each nation embarks on an important rebuilding process in the first year of a new World Cup cycle ahead of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
One prediction for 2020
England Netball’s new chief executive, Fran Connolly, has set her sights on becoming the world’s top-ranked nation, but it is unlikely Australia will loosen their grip on top spot. If England’s domestic Superleague is to deliver, it will hinge partly on what media rights the competition will secure in 2020. England Netball’s broadcast deal with Sky Sports has become the mainstay of netball coverage since 2016, but increased exposure on the BBC during the World Cup gave a glimpse of the mainstream exposure the sport could one day enjoy.
Is this the year the Superleague finds its professional wings? There have been no concrete signs it will as England Netball heads the charge on boosting grass-roots participation, the body’s top priority for now.