Netball's TV rights blow highlights increasing competition

Analysis - The news that Sky TV's bid for rights to netball's ANZ Premiership and Silver Ferns tests is significantly lower than its current deal is concerning but not surprising.

One official with knowledge of the negotiations told RNZ the offer from Sky was "less than half" its current broadcast rights agreement, which will expire at the end of the 2024 season.

The current broadcast deal covers the salary caps of the six ANZ Premiership franchises.

The common denominator here is that over the past few years traditionally male-dominated sports like rugby, cricket, and football have invested more in the women's side of their codes.

There is so much more female sports content out there for Sky to broadcast.

Last year, two women's semi-professional leagues were established in New Zealand - Super Rugby Aupiki and Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa.

In 2021, Wellington Phoenix added a team to Australia's premier women's football competition.

Women's cricket is being shown on TV more than ever before. TVNZ has become the place to watch the White Ferns home summer season and super smash T20 competition, while Sky TV still broadcasts ICC World Cup events.

Next year, Super Rugby Aupiki is being extended to a round robin season of six weeks, as well as a longer pre-season, and more money for the players.

Non-Black Ferns players who are contracted will see payments more than doubling to a minimum of $17,000 for the season.

Super Rugby Pacific and All Blacks tests are the holy grail of broadcasting rights in Aotearoa so the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) has got a massive bargaining chip.

The NZRU can leverage that to get a better deal out of its broadcaster for its women's competition.

TVNZ, the former home of netball up until 2008, would be the most obvious alternative to Sky, although it would be unlikely to be able to match the money on the table.

While it might cause Netball New Zealand a lot of angst in the short-term, the silver lining would be a bigger audience, and therefore more sponsorship potential.

A few months ago, Players' Association executive manager Steph Bond told RNZ that the sport needed to consider going free to air.

"I think it's going to be a really interesting conversation. When you look at our playing population, the people that play and watch the sport there are a number of people that potentially don't have Sky subscriptions, so I definitely think that it's something that needs to be on the table and needs to be really considered around the next broadcast deal," Bond said.

The Players' Association started the bargaining process for a new collective agreement back in May, hopeful that elite players would get a pay increase given "that every other sport right now has invested heavily in the women's game, alongside their partners and broadcasters ...".

While women's sport is being championed more than ever, a sport that was made by women for women when there wasn't much else, is now finding itself at a disadvantage.

The only female sport that stands on its own two feet in New Zealand is trying to compete with codes that are getting more backing from male-dominated sports, that have generational wealth.

In Australia, rising AFLW and cricket salaries have fuelled concerns that netball might start losing players to other codes.

In 2016, after the trans-Tasman competition ended, Netball Australia announced a landmark pay deal making it the highest-paid sport for women in Australia, but they've been overtaken by women's cricket.

A few days ago, a new three-year Collective Player Agreement was finally locked in after an ugly long-running dispute between Netball Australia and the players' union.

The ability for netball to be able to compete with other sports is a growing concern for the game's administrators in Australia and New Zealand, the traditional powerhouses of the international game.

But there seems to be a complete lack of urgency at World Netball.

At the World Cup in South Africa in August, the World Netball president Dame Liz Nicholl and chief executive Clare Briegal gave a briefing to media.

When asked how netball was going to compete with this growing competition, the response seemed naive to the Australian and New Zealand journalists in the room.

"I don't see it personally as a threat. I think there's room for those opportunities for young women and girls across all of those sports," Dame Nicholl said.

"I'm confident that a significant number will continue to choose netball because of our values as a sport and the culture.

"We are still growing as a governing body, we're growing within nations and we're growing in the number of nations, so there are no indications at this point in time that it is a threat."

The future of the Commonwealth Games remains up in the air, with Australia's Gold Coast recently saying it didn't have enough government backing to launch a bid, following Victoria's withdrawal in July.

The exposure that the Commonwealth Games gives netball is huge and would be a massive blow to the sport if it disappeared.

World Netball declined an interview over the situation and didn't answer any specific questions but sent a statement about it being "committed to working with the Commonwealth Games Federation as it develops options and solutions for the Games in 2026".

World Netball and Netball Australia are hoping to push their case for netball to be included in the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, which would unlock crucial funding for the sport.

The International Olympic Committee is now committed to a 50/50 gender split after decades of under-representation of female competitors at the Olympics.

The irony here is that submitting a bid which includes men, such as mixed teams, would give World Netball a better chance of getting the sport into the Olympics.

That's despite males only making up a very small percentage of the 20 million people who play the game world-wide.

On the New Zealand domestic scene, there is a general consensus that change is needed to the ANZ Premiership, with it starting to feel pedestrian.

The Australian Suncorp Super Netball has a more in-your-face broadcast presentation and doesn't mind promoting a bit of controversy.

A classic example of that is when Giants player Kristiana Manu'a was ordered off the court for rough play in 2020.

Channel Nine, who used to be the host broadcaster before Fox won the rights, absolutely milked the incident by posting clips of it on social media and replaying it during future broadcasts.

Maybe it's just not the New Zealand way but netball needs to put itself out there more if it wants to stand out in an increasingly crowded female sport market.