“The sport of netball isn’t more likely to grow to be something a lot larger than it presently is.” These phrases, penned by a sports activities columnist in 2022, had been so daring of their nature, so matter of reality in consigning netball to the margins of the sporting world in perpetuity, that there was little room left for debate. Nonetheless, the game has persevered and continues to defy such audacious predictions.
The 2024 Tremendous Netball season, which completed on Saturday with Adelaide Thunderbirds holding the trophy aloft for the second yr operating after successful the grand closing towards Melbourne Vixens 59-57 in entrance of 9,694 followers, recorded the league’s largest ever attendance figures. Over the 14 rounds of competitors and the finals sequence, 366,222 spectators walked by means of the gates of venues round Australia. This represents a 25% improve on 2023 crowds, which in flip was a 25% improve on 2022.
With matches often bought out throughout the season, the best barrier netball faces in driving these numbers even greater will not be a finite quantity of curiosity, however the seats accessible in its stadiums. It’s a good downside to have, however one which directors might want to grapple with if the rise continues at these startling charges over the subsequent few seasons.
It’s not simply throughout the realms of netball that these figures are important – the attendance numbers additionally make Tremendous Netball probably the most attended home ladies’s sporting competitors in Australia. Netball attendances have blitzed the earlier report holders, the A-League Ladies, in total numbers (regardless of having 4 fewer groups and 9 fewer competitors rounds), and virtually doubled the subsequent greatest code, the AFLW, in common spectators.
Whereas comparability between sports activities is pure and helps perceive the astounding revival that netball has achieved in latest occasions, it’s also true {that a} rising tide lifts all boats. Ladies’s sport is a phenomenon that can’t be absolutely understood when solely taking every sport on its particular person deserves. The tide beneath ladies’s sport has been incrementally rising over a few years, choosing up its tempo over the previous 10 years significantly.
However in contemplating a pointy rise over the previous two years, the ‘Matildas impact’ can’t be discounted. It represented, for need of a greater (or perhaps a actual) phrase, the ‘coolification’ of girls’s sport. Australians of all ages, genders and walks of life attended and talked concerning the Fifa Ladies’s World Cup – it was not positioned as ‘household leisure’ as so many ladies’s sports activities have been previously. Abruptly it was clear that liking and attending ladies’s sport was not a distinct segment pastime and with that realisation, the teenage ladies got here flooding in. Whereas initially it was the Matildas that captured their consideration, as soon as the World Cup was over, they’ve continued to flock to ladies’s sport.
For a few years, netball fandom had a tough reduce off of 12 years outdated. Whereas packs of screaming younger ladies roamed the stadiums, dutifully adopted by a handful of baffled wanting dad and mom, teenage ladies had been extra more likely to be discovered at males’s NRL and AFL video games, absorbing the cultural capital that got here from being in these sacred areas that boys valued. Nonetheless this Tremendous Netball season contained extra White Fox hoodies per sq. metre than maybe another area in Australia.
Teenage ladies had been there of their numbers – with teams of mates, cheering for his or her staff, jostling to fulfill the gamers after the match. A selfie with Helen Housby began wanting just like the 2024 equal of a teenage woman turning as much as college with Craig Wing’s autograph in 2002.
Signal as much as From the Pocket: AFL Weekly
Jonathan Horn brings professional evaluation on the week’s greatest AFL tales
Privateness Discover: Newsletters could include information about charities, on-line adverts, and content material funded by outdoors events. For extra info see our Privateness Coverage. We use Google reCaptcha to guard our web site and the Google Privateness Coverage and Phrases of Service apply.
after publication promotion
After all the uptick in recognition for netball this season can’t be solely attributed to this surge from teenage ladies – the distinct downturn in off courtroom dramas is one other important issue, together with shut video games and larger visibility by means of advertising from each the league and golf equipment themselves.
That even the NSW Swifts – who completed in sixth place and missed the finals – broke attendance information this season speaks volumes concerning the loyalty that’s being created and the long-term plans which are being constructed and delivered. However teenage ladies have lengthy been on the slicing fringe of tradition and their presence is an indication that netball is starting to achieve its potential.
Whereas netball usually struggles to get a seat on the desk among the many powerbrokers of Australian sport, attributable to its lack of a high-profile males’s competitors to bolster it, the game has quietly been constructing a following that can’t be ignored. Whereas ladies’s sport will proceed to rise in all its kinds all through the remainder of 2024 and past, and these attendance information will quickly be damaged by one other sport, netball has constructed a platform that can hold the game rising over the approaching years. In 2024, its athletes have assured the Australian public by means of their electrifying performances that this progress is just the start and the game is more likely to grow to be a lot larger.
