Super Netball Grand Final: How the Adelaide Thunderbirds’ stadium gamble made them the hottest ticket in SA
The Adelaide Thunderbirds took a leap into the unknown this season when it took on a stadium triple the size of its former home. Ahead of hosting the Super Netball Grand Final, SHANNON GILL writes that the gamble is paying off
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“I think you build it and they will come,” says Adelaide Thunderbirds CEO Bronwyn Klei channelling her inner Kevin Costner from ‘Field of Dreams’.
Yet there’s nothing make-believe about her club’s success on and off the court in 2024.
This Saturday the Adelaide Entertainment Centre will once again be packed to the rafters as it hosts the Suncorp Super Netball Grand Final, with its team aiming for back-to-back titles.
When tickets went on sale there was a frenzy. It took just one minute for every last seat to be snapped up by an adoring Adelaide public.
Stuck on the treadmill
While the Thunderbirds are now the hottest ticket in Adelaide, the great turnaround took more than a minute though.
This was a slow burn that started when Klei took over in 2019 in the midst of nine years of mediocrity for a once-proud club.
From 2014 to 2022 the T-Birds never finished above 7th. At one stage they lost 27 straight games straight.
Despite that, the fans kept coming to their 3000-seat Netball SA Stadium at Mile End.
“There were 3000 rusted on fans no matter what we did, but you couldn’t grow,” Klei says.
“You couldn’t grow your commercials, you couldn’t grow membership, you couldn’t grow ticket sales, you couldn’t grow merchandise.
“We didn’t get good TV times because we didn’t have the big crowds, which meant we couldn’t get the big sponsors.”
“We were stuck on this treadmill that we couldn’t break free from.”
Before Klei joined the Thunderbirds she’d been at the SACA and the Adelaide Strikers where she’d seen first hand the Adelaide Oval redevelopment reinvigorate cricket and AFL in South Australia.
Netball in South Australia needed its ‘Adelaide Oval moment’.
The “big risk”
Originally lobbying for an upgrade to 500 seats at its home at Mile End, years of frustration flipped when the Malinauskas state government came to power.
Inspired by the success of the Adelaide 36ers in the NBL they asked the Thunderbirds to lift their ambitions, instead of 5000 seats why don’t you aim for 9000 seats at the Entertainment Centre?
“We were conservative,” Klei says.
“As a smaller member organisation there was a big risk for us to go from a venue that we sellout at 3000, to go to 9000.”
A stadium only one-third filled each game would not only look terrible, it would be a financial disaster.
The years of work with the government then paid off. They agreed to put their money where their mouth was and underwrite the move as part of a broader, and some would say long-overdue, package of funding for the sport.
Not only would the government minimise risk for the move, they secured hosting rights to the grand final for 2024 along with a $92 million upgrade to the Mile End complex to benefit all levels of the game.
At the same time this years-long jockeying was happening, the Thunderbirds were gradually dragging themselves out of the on-court mire.
The magic happens
While at the SACA Klei remembers her old CEO John Harnden telling her that if you get everything right off the field, the moment playing results turn is “when the magic can happen.”
The Thunderbirds have been magic for the last two seasons.
With local talent like Hannah Petty and Georgie Horjus maturing into stars, dynamic defenders Shamara Sterling-Humphrey and Latanya Wilson among the league’s best players, and the addition of English shooter Eleanor Cardwell, the Thunderbirds took all before them to win the 2023 Super Netball Grand Final in Melbourne.
It set things up perfectly for the great Entertainment Centre gamble of 2024.
The club had previously sold out one-off games there, but there was anxiety. Would eight games at the venue be a bridge too far? They would need to triple their crowds to get a sellout now.
An ‘unqualified success’
They needn’t have worried, the whole season has exceeded the club’s most optimistic expectations.
2024 home crowds at the AEC have averaged a near-capacity of 8500, meaning overall home attendance has jumped from 26,500 last season to 56,000 Pink Army fans pouring through the gates across eight games.
Membership has grown 85% to 4300 and four new sponsors were signed off the back of the move.
On the court this year the team has overcome the defection of Cardwell to the expansion Melbourne Mavericks and the departure of Tippah Dwan back to Queensland seamlessly with the signing of Romelda Aiken-George and the promotion of youngster Lauren Frew.
Finishing the season on top of the ladder they have not been beaten at their new digs since the big move.
“It’s been an unqualified success,” Klei says.
“Regardless of whether we win or lose, this year has shown us that netball is a major sport and it matters to people across South Australia.”
With another 9000 plus locked in for Saturday night and many 1000s missing out, it begs the question whether the T-Birds popularity has already outgrown its new home?
“You’ll have to ask the Premier that,” she laughs. “That’s above my pay grade!”
Adelaide Thunderbirds growth 2022-2024
2022: Attendance 22,000, Membership 1705
2023: Attendance 26,500 (15% increase), Membership 2300 (27% increase)
2024: Attendance 56,000 (115% increase), Membership 4300 (85% increase)
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