Netball Australia confirms new eight-team division and bumper broadcasting deal

Australia's five existing netball franchises will be joined by three new teams in an all-Aussie league.
Collingwood, the Melbourne Storm and Greater Western Sydney have been confirmed as the new preferred bidders for brand new franchises in Australia's revamped netball competition.

Key points:
•Australia and New Zealand to part ways from trans-Tasman competition
•Three new teams backed by Storm, Collingwood and GWS
•Five-year TV deal will see two games a week broadcast live

Netball Australia has announced a "breakthrough broadcasting deal" and three new teams to enter the new national netball league, as Australia's five current trans-Tasman franchises team up with three new teams to create a new eight-team all-Australian division.

The Melbourne Storm's licensed team will be based at their Sunshine Coast facilities in south-east Queensland, while the GWS Giants have allied with Netball NSW in their bid for a Sydney team. Collingwood's licensed team will be based in Melbourne.

The three new teams will be joined by the NSW Swifts, Melbourne Vixens, Queensland Firebirds, Adelaide Thunderbirds and the West Coast Fever.

It confirms the breakaway from New Zealand and the existing trans-Tasman arrangement, with both Australia and New Zealand's organisations agreeing to go their separate ways.

The five-year broadcasting deal with the Nine Network and Telstra will ensure live free-to-air TV coverage of two games a week for the 2017 season.

"It's time for our sport to take another leap forward, to challenge the norm, to be innovative and to take more risks," Netball Australia's chief executive Kate Palmer said at a media gathering.


"This allows more girls to be out on court ... as a result, we'll see a stronger Australian Diamonds side," Queensland Firebirds star Laura Geitz said.

"[We can now see] these wonderful women playing, this wonderful game, and know that they too can grow up and head down the path of being a professional athlete.

"I hope that we continue to encourage that message across to all of our participants coming through grass roots."

In a statement, Palmer said the broadcasting deal would provide improved pay for players, and better sponsorship and cash distribution for clubs.

"It is truly transformative. It lays the foundation for the full professionalisation of elite netball and the cementing of Australia's reputation as having the prime netball competition in the world," she said.

"At the grass roots, it will encourage participation and allow girls and young women to realise their dream of a career in netball."

Collingwood and Carlton were involved with NSL clubs- didn't really work out.

I've wondered this a few times in the past.

On one hand, it might feel a bit traiterous if the AFL owned an A-League franchise. But if they ultimately had the best interests in our sport, and did everything by the book without sabotage, I'd probably be okay with it.

I reckon it could work in Geelong tbh - Geelong FC in the blue and white hoops playing out of Simonds Stadium, shared membership facilities and sponsorship opportunities.

I reckon it could work in Geelong tbh - Geelong FC in the blue and white hoops playing out of Simonds Stadium, shared membership facilities and sponsorship opportunities.

Two of the most irrelevant competitions in world sport uniting as one...seems like a perfect fit.

A-league clubs do have franchise partnerships...it's called the W-league.

Agree, and NPL clubs, and youth teams

Did have some decent players come through, especially Carlton SC. But agreed, as a general rule it was a colossal failure.

Isn't this thread about multi-sport partnerships?

Regarding Geelong. Didn't the cats indicate some form of interest in regards to a Geelong A-League franchise?

Edited by sydneyfc1987: 19/5/2016 12:20:10 PM

The thread is, I was just talking in regards to his comment and I'm really trying to impress him so I wanted to strike up a convo.

If we have multi-sports they should be good ones. I'd pick Boxing, Skateboarding, Handball, Calcio Storico, that snow game with the cross country shooting for starters


Edited by tsf: 19/5/2016 12:27:10 PM

Would be people here be opposed to cross-ownership from clubs of the same code? Eg, Man City + Melb. City?

Would people be frustrated if they had a Liverpool side in Sydney? Or a Chelsea side in Melbourne? Is it a great and reliable investment, or just marketing fluff?

If it didn't work in Newcastle with the long history in both sports, parochial fanbase and the amount crossover then I can't see it ever working.

Don't forget Jai alai!

Two of the most irrelevant competitions in world sport uniting as one...seems like a perfect fit.

A-league clubs do have franchise partnerships...it's called the W-league.

If it didn't work in Newcastle with the long history in both sports, parochial fanbase and the amount crossover then I can't see it ever working.

This Netball announcement will help to get the new teams off the ground but I can't see the football clubs still running these teams in 5-10 years time.

Wonder if this is Collingwood, GWS and Melbourne's thinking that the AFL womens league isn't going to get off the ground?

The thread is, I was just talking in regards to his comment and I'm really trying to impress him so I wanted to strike up a convo.

If we have multi-sports they should be good ones. I'd pick Boxing, Skateboarding, Handball, Calcio Storico, that snow game with the cross country shooting for starters


Edited by tsf: 19/5/2016 12:27:10 PM

   Member clubs   Edit

Sport   Club name   Founded   Joined HIF   Home venue
Athletics   Hammarby IF Friidrottsförening         
Bandy   Hammarby IF Bandy   1905   1905   Zinkensdamms IP
Basketball   Hammarby IF Basket   1975   2015   Farstahallen
Boule   Hammarby IF Bouleförening         
Bowling   Hammarby IF Bowlingförening         Brännkyrka Bowlingcenter
Boxing   Hammarby IF Boxningsförening         
Floorball   Hammarby IF Innebandy   1993   1993   Sjöstadshallen
Football   Hammarby IF Fotbollförening (men) Hammarby IF Damfotbollförening (women)   1915
Goalball   Hammarby IF Goalbollförening         
Handball   Hammarby IF Handboll   1939   1939   Eriksdalshallen
Ice hockey   Hammarby IF Ishockeyförening Hammarby IF Damishockeyförening
Orienteering   Hammarby IF Orienteringsförening         
Rowing   Hammarby IF Roddförening   1889   1889   
Rugby union   Hammarby IF Rugby   2000   2000   
Speedway   Hammarby Speedway         
Skiing   Hammarby IF Skidförening         
Table tennis   Hammarby IF Bordtennisförening         

irrelevant in the world maybe, but arguably the most popular sport for each gender in Australia. Clearly the intention is to cross-market both games to each others fan base. That' smart, and could hurt other codes in participation and financial terms.

Netball Australia overlooks northern franchise in favour of east coast teams in new competition

Netball Australia (NA) has overlooked a possible northern Australia franchise in favour of more eastern state teams in its new-look domestic only competition.

Three more teams will be introduced to the Australian netball landscape in 2017 with Collingwood Football Club, Melbourne Storm and the GWS Giants all likely to have secured respective franchises in Melbourne, the Sunshine Coast and Sydney.

Earlier this week, Netball Queensland (NQ) announced they had placed a bid for a 'northern Australian' side that would hypothetically share home games between Townsville and Darwin.

Currently young talent from the far north is forced to move states if they wish to forge a netball career, something NQ chief executive Catherine Clark told News Limited it was hoping to counteract.

"The northern Australia option is about more access, opportunity, pathways for our athletes in the north of Australia and growing the profile to an audience that we haven't really engaged in this league," Clark said.

"It also taps into the natural parochialism of the north and that wonderful country-city rivalry."

However the bid was overlooked by an independent panel, which surveyed all proposals based on personal objectives and cultural alignment.

NA chief executive Kate Palmer said the location for each bid was another major factor, considering the organisation is hoping to boost its television ratings.

"We had a number of entities express interest and what we were looking for was strength of brand, capability, the ability to deliver a high performance environment for our athletes and to be sustainable financially," Palmer said.

"They're certainly highly capable organisations, but also on the eastern seaboard for our broadcasters. We need more eyeballs and more people sitting in the stands."

Some are worried about the prospect of dual teams in Melbourne, Sydney and the Queensland coast area competing for fan bases.

But Palmer says current state-bodied clubs will simply have to lift their game, and the result will only lift the bar across the sport and professional league.

"They know they're going to be challenged and that they're going to have to work on their positioning about how they run their game day so they can increase their fans," she said.

"They want more fans, they want more members, they want more profile. Certainly they're well positioned and of course we will work in partnership with them to do that."

The five-year broadcast deal is the first revenue-generating agreement NA has been able to secure in its history, meaning additional resources and funds will be pumped into the game.

That capital will benefit the league but more importantly filter down to its players, leading a charge towards professional pay packets for sportswomen in Australia.

"Those young athletes who are at our 17 and unders national camp in Canberra starting today, they're the future," she said.

"They're the full professional athletes and this is the next step in that journey to full professionalism for our sport."

Womens soccer is now more played than netball remember

Two of the most irrelevant competitions in world sport uniting as one...seems like a perfect fit.

A-league clubs do have franchise partnerships...it's called the W-league.

Barcelona run

FC Barcelona (Mens Football)
Futbol Club Barcelona Femení (Womens)

And just about to build a newe 12,000 seat stadium for their indoors teams
Regal FC Barcelona (Mens basketball)
UB-Barça (Women's basketball)
FC Barcelona (handball)
FC Barcelona-Institut Guttman (wheelchair basketball)
Futsal

It's not an easy path to go down though,because if it is perceived one sport is given favoured treatment over another,the fans won't put up with it .

As some have already said here Geelong would be a logical choice. Even the A-League club could be still know as the cats whether officially or not. Might one day if it works then see the return of the Geelong Supercats in the NBL.

Funny you mention the Supercats - they're currently lobbying local Federal and State MP's for about $25 million to build a brand new basketball stadium in the south of the city source

Whether this would include a bid for NBL status remains to be seen but it would be a logical next step should this stadium come to fruition.

GWS would be desperate to flog off any type of merchandise and try and tap into a female supporter base as they sure as hell dont have one now.

As for football, we should focus on building up the W-league first.

GWS CEO Dave Matthews was on SEN this morning. Reckons that 40% of their members are women. Find it hard to believe but that's what he said. My guess is that 39% of those members would have been handed a free membership.

If we want more franchise then we are looking at sport the wrong way.

We need mre CLUBS, not franchises

GWS CEO Dave Matthews was on SEN this morning. Reckons that 40% of their members are women. Find it hard to believe but that's what he said. My guess is that 39% of those members would have been handed a free membership.

Did have some decent players come through, especially Carlton SC. But agreed, as a general rule it was a colossal failure.

The same thing right across the AFL, at least 40% of all members are women. I'm not really sure why anyone would find that hard to believe. It's the biggest football league in the land because it attracts a large cross-section of society (both genders, multi-generational, ethnic diversity, etc).

lol

If you dont follow AFL and live in Melbourne arent you considered a social outcast?

This probably was the main reason post war immigrants chose to drop football.

Source ?

Birthplace   No. of arrivals
July 1949 - June 2000[20]   July 1949 - June 1959[21]   July 1959 - June 1970[22]   July 1970 - June 1980
1 United Kingdom & Ireland   1,787,449(31.6%)   419,946 (33.5%)   654,640 (45.3%)   342,373 (35.8%)
2 Italy   390,810 (6.9%)   201,428 (16.1%)   150,669 (10.4%)   28,800 (3.0%)
3 New Zealand   371,683 (6.6%)   29,649 (2.4%)   30,341 (2.1%)   58,163 (6.1%)
4 Germany   255,930 (4.5%)   162,756 (13.0%)   50,452 (3.5%)   not in top 10
5 Greece   220,603 (3.9%)   55,326 (4.4%)   124,324 (8.6%)   30,907 (3.2%)
6 Yugoslavia
(Yugoslavia recorded until 1994 –95 inclusive)   206,554 (3.7%)   not in top 10   94,555 (6.5%)   61,283 (6.4%)

[quote=scott21]If you dont follow AFL and live in Melbourne arent you considered a social outcast?

This probably was the main reason post war immigrants chose to drop football.

More like , you couldnt call yourself a real australian if you didnt follow an AFL team... Even in the 80's/90's this was being rammed down our throat ( and I was a kid )

i think kids, who play many different sport, end up being better football players

Depends - if they're playing them in the school yard then sure. However, if you've got a kid who has been in the AFL underage system his whole life, and then decides at 17 to play football, I doubt he'd be better than the kid who has been playing football since birth.

whats a AFL underage system? you mean just playing jr Aussie rules and being selected good enough for the state team?

Not quite - it's the TAC Cup. Basically a whole host of 'academy clubs' around Victoria where the best local talent is concentrated and then play against each other. It's a massive recruitment stage into the AFL, usually starts around age 15 for most boys (which is ironically where football experiences a large drop off of players). They spend three years in this system in the hope they get selected to go to draft camp and hopefully be drafted when they're 18. It's a full on program, where they're training 3-4 times a week with games across the state on Saturdays - no way these boys would be capable of playing football at any meaningful level on a Sunday.

I appreciate that if a boy is physically fit he would be an attractive proposition to transition to football (Leckie anyone?) but the elite level players are born with a football at their feet - simple as that. Look at the elite players throughout history in football and they won't have done anything more in other sports other than for a bit of fun at school.

i know TAC cup, i thought it was 17-18 year olds...since when did they start taking 15 year olds?

The Geelong example is a good one, tapping into parochialism is the idea of having a multi-sport club. In somewhere like Adelaide or Melbourne, partnering with an AFL club is one way of dividing and limiting a fan base, especially in Adelaide where there is a large divide.
It may work for a new Adelaide team to link up with an AFL club to try and pickup a fan base but for AUFC to pick a side would be stupid.
But linking up with other codes with one team in town would work, the mens and womens basketball teams are both long established teams with success but have struggled off field at times, same with the netball team. Add in the baseball and ice hockey and you have a bunch of clubs that could benefit greatly by shared admin/medical/training to not only reduce cost but get a better service in those areas.
Has the ability for sponsors to get better access to a larger audience and allows the smaller clubs access to bigger sponsors.
But like many things it's easier to say than do.

Did have some decent players come through, especially Carlton SC. But agreed, as a general rule it was a colossal failure.

There's an excellent article that I read an extract from last night taken from here:

http://leopoldmethod.com.au/quarterly-edition-issue-2/

on Carlton & Collingwood in the NSL. I cant find the link where I read it though.

As a Carlton supporter at the time I was interested to read such a good write up and still a little cut too. I'm no Aussie Rules follower and I was very, very dubious of the whole thing at the start but Carlton eventually won me over, I think their heart was in the right place and they had appeal to me (that Collingwood certainly didn't). A big shame and as Lou Sticca claims, 10 years ahead of their time. They lifted the bar and had such a great squad.

eggball codes are fundamentally incompatible with football on all levels, administrably as well as mentally and culturally imo

#NorthQueenslandCowboys4A-League

Can't help to think that having a state of the art stadium like that without an A-League team just doesn't seem possible. I mean spending 300+ million for 8 NRL games and the odd rugby game doesn't seem feasible without an additional significant tenant.

Election 2016 - Townsville stadium doesn't stack up

Labor's proposed new $250 million sports stadium in Townsville is not financially viable and will cost taxpayers half a billion dollars in its first 30 years in operation, according to a confidential business case submitted to the federal government's peak infrastructure body.

While Bill Shorten has promised $100 million for a new home for rugby league in North Queensland - to match the state Labor government's $100 million pledge - the business case found the project would not deliver a positive benefit cost ratio (BCR).

A positive BCR - where the benefits outweigh the costs - is required to receive any funding from Infrastructure Australia.

The new 25,000 seat stadium in Townsville - which would only have an estimated 13 event days a year for home games for the North Queensland Cowboys - received a rating of 0.214 in the Queensland government's business case to Infrastructure Australia, obtained by The Australian Financial Review.

That is, for every taxpayer dollar spent on the stadium it would only deliver a return of 21 cents.

The business case prepared by the Queensland Department of State Development - which has never been publicly released - is a blow to Labor's economic credentials, with critics saying Mr Shorten's support for the stadium was a populist stunt aimed at winning seats in North Queensland in the July 2 poll.

The business case, which was signed off by the Palaszczuk state government in November, found the capital cost of a new stadium was likely to be $250 million, but the full cost of the stadium over 30 years would top $530 million in 2015 dollars.

A stadium with an integrated 5800-seat entertainment centre, as preferred by the Townsville City Council, would cost $380 million to build, but slug taxpayers with $785.3 million over the same timeframe.

The sensitivity analysis found the net benefit of the stadium - the difference between the present value of the total benefits and the costs - was a $170 million loss. The economic position would improve if the stadium had multiple tenants, the report found.

The negative BCR would explain why the Palaszczuk Labor government submitted the information on the Townsville stadium to Infrastructure Australia late last year, but did not ask the federal government body for a formal assessment.

It was not on the state's priority projects list this year, but they still expect the federal government to fund almost half of it.

The business case noted public stadiums struggled to deliver a financial return to state or local governments, but there would be wider economic and social benefits for the city.

"Notwithstanding the low BCR, the business case noted that the best-practice regional stadium offers significant potential for the catalytic development in Townsville, providing activation of the surrounding area and favourable community benefit uplift," the report said.

The secret document said despite the stadium not being financially viable there were a number of social and community benefits, including "increased levels of social cohesion and well-being in the community".

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was spruiking the Townsville stadium and Mr Shorten's support in state parliament on Wednesday. They want to build the stadium by 2020.

"We know the stadium will create jobs in Townsville because Townsville is hurting," she said. "We need to see a very firm commitment from Malcolm Turnbull to the Townsville stadium because that means jobs for families."

To increase pressure on the federal Coalition to match the funding, the North Queensland Cowboys have warned they may be forced to leave Townsville within five years if the stadium is not built.

The Prime Minister has so far resisted the urge to back the populist project. Local federal Liberal National Party MP Ewen Jones said he supported the project - which he believed could be reworked to focus on urban renewal - but it should be fully-funded by the state government.

"It certainly can't be funded by Infrastructure Australia. I think it's a great project but it should be funded by the state government like they do for stadiums in south-east Queensland," Mr Jones said.

Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive Brendan Lyon said the federal government would get a better return for their money and boost productivity by investing in transport projects.

"If the Queensland budget was strong the state would be able to do what Victoria and NSW do and fund it with their own money," he said.

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/election-2016--townsville-stadium-doesnt-stack-up-20160511-gosd8y

The Townsville stadium is a joke but the rednecks will love it.

Man City have a real nice 7000 seat stadium at their headquarters where the youth teams and the women's teams play.

Why can't they build a few of these little gems for the A-league?



The Townsville stadium is a joke but the rednecks will love it.

Man City have a real nice 7000 seat stadium at their headquarters where the youth teams and the women's teams play.

Why can't they build a few of these little gems for the A-league?



The Townsville stadium is a joke but the rednecks will love it.

scumbag

Still cut up about your Paraoos thread I see.

I'm assuming because you can read you're not from Nth Qld?

It's because you claim some moral superiority then go around abusing.

You are a creep.