Episode description
Episode description
As Netball in New Zealand gears up to mark its centenary, strong headwinds are appearing on the horizon.
Not a crisis, but a crossroads for New Zealand Netball - one that requires some bold decisions if it's going to survive another 100 years
There's plenty to celebrate about the state of netball in New Zealand as it heads into its centennary year.
It's still by far the top sport of women and girls with more than 350,000 participants; the Silver Ferns boast numerous world titles and Commonwealth Games medals.
It will be the first national netball association to reach 100 years but in its own Poipoia development plan, the former chair of Netball NZ Allison Ferguson writes "we live in an era of rapid change, and unpredictability is all we can count on".
Ferguson goes on to warn: "No longer can we plan out precisely what is needed across our sport. Rigid planning will leave us behind."
Some close to the sport argue that it is already being left behind.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say the sport is in crisis," RNZ's In Depth sports correspondent Dana Johannsen tells The Detail. "But I do think it's reached a real crossroads and netball leaders, they need to make some bold decisions and show some real ambition for the sport if it is going to survive another hundred years."
Netball NZ led the way in terms of the commercialisation and professionalisation of the sport, she says, with the launch of a semi professional women's competition in the mid to late 1990s around the same time as rugby was taking the same steps with its men.
"But over the last five to seven years it really feels like they've been overtaken by Australia and even England have a really strong domestic competition in place."
Johannsen describes the impact of the trans-Tasman league split at the end of 2016 when the two countries parted ways on the joint contest and went in different philosophical directions, with Australia pursuing a paid broadcast deal which included some "bold calls and controversial rules".
It included the removal of any limitations on imported players to attract the best from around the world to its Suncorp domestic competition. And it brought in the two-point shot at goal, a move that offended traditionalists but has won the crowds.
Meanwhile, New Zealand has had the "security blanket" of a Sky broadcast deal, says Johannsen. It reverted to the old six-team domestic league, now called the ANZ Premiership, but it was very similar to the old National Bank Cup of the late 1990s…