The case for and against a Tasmanian Super Netball team, after AFL/AFLW green light for the island state
Could a Super Netball team in Tasmania work? Should it be a new ninth franchise, or the relocation of a certain club? LINDA PEARCE speaks to key figures, who deliver a raft of intriguing opinions.
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Sport in Tasmania: NBL’s JackJumpers. Tick. AFL and AFLW. Coming via a 19th licence from 2028. Tick.
Could Super Netball be next? What chance of a Tassie entry next time there’s either a vacancy or the dollars/appetite for expansion, given Netball Tasmania’s failed submission ahead of the current broadcast deal announced early in 2021?
That was all before current CEO Mitch Coulson’s time, yet the key questions remain: What would be needed to make it financially viable? Is the local market and appetite big enough? Would it work? How?
To which we can now add another element: might the AFL’s long-awaited expansion into the island state flow on to another grassroots participation giant with an — admittedly minuscule by comparison — national league?
“It’s certainly possible,’’ says Coulson, a former St Kilda Football Club general manager of consumer business, 13 months into his current post. “With Tassie evolving, we’ve seen the NBL come and now the AFL is on its way.
“So certainly now I think there’s that kind of proof-of-concept element to say, ‘Yep, Tasmania can support multiple professional teams and support them well in terms of fans and attendance and merchandise and those sorts of things’.
“Then there’s the other parts around commercial support and sponsorship, so that’s a two-pronged challenge to say, ‘Yep, if other teams can find the commercial backing that’s a great indicator’; but at the same time, there’s probably a question along the line of, ‘OK, at what point is it too many teams? Or not enough commercial money to go around multiple teams?’
“But what I’ve observed is that we’ve got a very strong netball community that is very very keen and very willing to jump on board to wrap their arms around a team that they can call their own. So that’s an ambition that we have and I’ve certainly made that known to Netball Australia.
“Then obviously we’ll work through the time frames and the processes, to make sure that we’re well prepared when the opportunity does come up to have those conversations or those presentations. So it’s exciting to think about but a bit of water to go under the bridge just yet.’’
Coulson admits he is keen to track how NA works with the current crop of eight SSN clubs — six owned by fellow member associations, two by AFL/NRL clubs, none apparently making a profit — in terms of building their commercial strength.
A little like the existing arrangements between the Tasmanian Government and Hawthorn/North Melbourne, the Rockliff Liberals signed a $1.23 million contract with the Collingwood Magpies in December to play one pre-season and one SSN fixture, one north and one south, in the state for the next three years.
That makes nine seasons overall and also buys some more time, for there is no expectation of any additional teams being admitted until at least the end of the current broadcast deal. The FOX Sports contract expires in 2026.
“That is absolutely my understanding,’’ says Coulson of a continuing status quo. “So we’re keen and we’re ambitious, but at the same time we’re probably in a bit of a wait-and-see type pattern at the moment for Tassie, or for anyone else I would imagine, looking at (joining) SSN.’’
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Worth discussing, though, noting the ongoing debate about the need to provide more playing opportunities for local talent, and netball potentially being left behind by cashed-up cricket and the powerful footy codes.
Indeed, Tasmania was a popular pick for expansion among the Super Netball captains in News Corp’s 2023 pre-season poll. Former Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander would also support its inclusion.
“You have to go to Tassie, cos it’s growing and they have earned it,’’ she says. “They’re doing a good job down there. They’re switched on and are the sort of organisation that could get it going, yes. I think it would be terrific.’’
Other possibilities mooted include Newcastle, Gold Coast and ACT, while Western Australia and South Australia each have a single club, compared with NSW, Queensland and Victoria with two.
Coulson, though, believes Tasmania is unique in that – unlike other east coast locations – the trade-off for the inability to offer local derbies is the power of an all-state buy-in and unified approach.
Nor is there a stadium hurdle, given that the former Derwent Entertainment Centre underwent a $66 million redevelopment before its late-2021 reopening to launch the JackJumpers; who play a summer season, while Super Netball typically starts in March-April.
Few local voices carry more weight than veteran coach Jon Fletcher, who will take Tasmania to the ANC in August and led his first state junior team in 1992; later spending two decades working in high performance roles around Australia, before returning in 2014.
Unsure of where Tassie sits in the SSN pecking order, the 60-year-old nevertheless believes it should be next in line and that the impact of inclusion would be immense.
“I think it would be a real shot in the arm cos realistically we are now in strong competition with AFL and particularly AFLW, and a lot of our best netballers share time between AFLW and netball, whereas once clearly netball was the only pathway.
“As much as we try to promote it, it’s still seen as a long way away to be an SSN player coming from Tassie. We just don’t have that regular viewing of the game and the strength of the competition locally, whereas the chance to play at AFLW level seems to be that little bit closer down here.’’
The state last hosted a Test match in 2016, at Launceston’s Silverdome. There have since been under-age nationals and the Tasmanian Magpies (basically a topped-up Collingwood reserves team) won the second-tier Australian National League title in 2018.
Encouragingly, after a solid post-Covid bounce back, the federal government’s latest AusPlay data has netball in the state at around 11,500 participants, behind only basketball (13,200) and Australian football (14,500).
“We certainly have aspirations that we would love to have an SSN team here and a lot of our programs we’re gearing up around not necessarily getting to SSN, but getting as strong as we can and as visible as we can, so that if ever an opportunity came we would be considered,’’ says Fletcher, Netball Tasmania’s high performance coach.
“Basketball’s done well and I believe (the AFL’s entry) might just give some other teams a little bit more leverage or credibility that Tassie can be involved at the next level, and that it is doable, whether it be the A-League or SSN.’’
Magpies head coach Nicole Richardson has strong Tasmanian connections, as the cousin of ex-Tiger Matthew, but says she would prefer to restore larger player lists for the existing eight clubs first, given the limitations of the current 10 and inability to bring in replacements for those out of form.
“You’d consider Tassie. (Or) are any of the states that have a single team looking to go a double team? SA or WA? I’m not sure they have the depth of talent,’’ says the Victorian, also noting the challenges around the recent expansion of AFLW to 18 — much larger — squads.
But can extra teams be sustained?
“We need to make sure that we do have opportunities for younger athletes to get exposed; otherwise do we lose them to other sports?’’ Richardson says. “So that needs to a consideration, in line with making sure that we are still able to put out an elite level competition, which we have right now.’’
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If triple world champion Marg Caldow — who left for Victoria in her mid-teens and is a two-state Hall-of-Famer — is regarded as the greatest Tasmanian-born netballer, the most recent Diamond was Natasha Chokljat.
Now 43, and a five-time Melbourne Phoenix and Vixens premiership midcourter, Chokljat’s peak achievement at state level was as part of the Tasmanian team that finished a best-ever fourth at the 1998 Open nationals.
In 1996, she followed Fiona Doran in becoming Tassie’s second scholarship-holder in the AIS program. That meant moving to Canberra, where the 17-year-old knew no one, and where she discovered a different world and a training environment so elite that, she quips, “my tiny little mind was blown’’.
Back home as a youngster in Launceston, access to games had been minimal from both close and far; the days before pay TV and with even fewer free-to-air channels than on the mainland. Development pathways were limited, too.
A Tasmanian Super Netball entry would be well supported, Chokljat believes, and a great boost to the state’s young players. “They would have a clear goal and it’s right there on their home soil, so it would be absolutely amazing,’’ says the 2003 world championships silver medallist.
As for how likely: “There’s so much work that needs to be done. The feasibility. The sustainability. Is it going to draw money, as a business? That’s one of the big things. To get an AFL team has been a long time in the making. Netball would need the backing from everyone to make it feasible.’’
What would help in the meantime, she says, would be participating in the Victorian Netball League for the first time since the late-1990s demise of the short-lived Southern Lights, for cost and scheduling reasons. Indeed, as part of its AFL build-up, a Tasmanian team will join the VFL from 2025.
“The girls go away to nationals every year but what other hard games are they playing?’’ Chokljat says. “There needs to be a solid pathway and development plan, because there is some talent there. But they need to be playing week-in, week-out, to just get that (experience) and build from that.
“And that’s where I was really fortunate to be with the Phoenix and be surrounded by that strong culture. That expectation of excellence the whole way through is what actually can take you to that next level.’’
Fletcher says a VNL return has been discussed internally, but rates the current depth and level of competitiveness as “probably as good as it’s been for a long time’’. Australian pathway squad members Ellie Marshall, Paige O’Neill, Charlotte Walker and Jessica Owen are among the standouts, plus 19s captain Ashlee Turner and the Kidmas twins, Esther and Eunice.
Training partner roles at SSN clubs would be a stepping stone to contracted positions but even the current lack of Tasmanians on team lists may not be a huge drawback
“SSN really isn’t based around local talent,’’ Fletcher says. “It’s a franchise model, so it’s about who’s available.’’
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Sharni Norder (nee Layton) has her own left-field solution: relocate Super Netball’s lowest drawing club, Collingwood.
As a foundation Magpie in 2017, Norder recalls a small group of players suggesting a permanent move south in that first year, with TV infrastructure barriers having since been dismantled with the introduction of the JackJumpers.
“We hated not playing in front of crowds,’’ Norder says. “And we went down to Tassie to play, we had a full house, they were loud, we won, it was epic and we were just like, ‘How fun would it be to play in front of this crowd every week?’
“We needed a majority, which we didn’t have, which was the whole problem at the time; none of us could agree on anything, let alone whether we should move the team or not!’’
Coulson expects there would be less resistance to a transplanted team than was the case in the AFL, given netball’s less-established national league, which has shifted between multiple different formats and incarnations over far less time.
“Obviously if that eventuated you’d want to make sure it wasn’t a half-in, half-out,’’ he says. “We’d want to try and make it feel like it was our own, but I don’t think it would come with all that historical connotation of someone that’s been picked up after 100 years of playing and put down here. It’s like, ‘Well, the whole league itself is still relatively new’.
“So it may be somewhat easier to do that in netball in an SSN sense but we’d be open to looking at it. There’s really a number a different scenarios that might eventuate, or they might not, but I think we would take a view that we’re happy to see whatever scenario presents itself and see if it’ll work for us.’’
Collingwood crowds in Tasmania, pre-Covid, ranged from around 1,700 to 2,200, and Fletcher does not believe that attendances would be a problem for a truly local product; with the caveats of strong marketing and on-court success.
“I think we would get crowds, because we don’t have to find 20,000, do we?’’ he says, alluding to the AFL’s proposed Macquarie Point Stadium, which will house a few more than that. “We have to find 5,000, or 4,000, so I think that wouldn’t be an issue.’’
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So why did the bid fail last time? Led by Coulson’s predecessor Aaron Pidgeon, part of the reason lies in a process that spanned three NA CEOs: Marne Fechner, interim Ron Steiner and incumbent Kelly Ryan.
Netball Tasmania research and planning included obtaining successful past applications from several current teams and Tassie’s bid is believed to have compared well in terms of stadia, membership, financials, list building, etc etc.
“We felt like it was a strong submission and one that at the very least should have built a foundation for some really good, functional ongoing discussion about what could be achieved,’’ Pidgeon says, of what he describes as “a challenging process” but one that was nevertheless worthwhile.
“It would be fair to say that through the changes of leadership, and therefore the need to restart conversations, there was both some differing views and some mixed messaging, just through the challenges of handing it from one person to the next, to the next. I believe everyone was acting in good faith, but it was frustrating and felt like the goalposts kept shifting.
“There was certainly some discussion towards the end that we’d missed the boat in terms of the current broadcast deal, which had settled on a certain number of teams and who those teams would be.
“As a supporter of netball in Tasmania, I still want to see it happen and I believe that we can make it happen and sustainably support a team down here. However, to do that, I think that Netball Tas will need a really clear and open process for the lodgment and assessment of any future submissions.
“If Netball Australia does seek geographic expansion, and I’m not aware whether their current strategy for the league supports that or not, then there has to be a clear process and timeline for new licence submissions and an appetite to push for that when Netball Australia has ongoing conversations with sponsors and particularly the broadcast partners.’’
A statement to CODE Sports from NA said it remains committed to growing SSN and ensuring its status as the world’s best netball competition. “Netball is a popular sport in Tasmania – it has a strong fanbase and participation rate. Netball Australia continues to work closely with Netball Tasmania to determine the viability of introducing further teams into the competition. Any expansion would need to see a commitment to upgrade facilities.’’
But in a small and increasingly crowded market, will there still be room, if and when Netball Tasmania tries again?
Strategically, Pidgeon says the previous bid was well-timed around the NBL’s entry and before the AFL sign-off, given there is finite corporate and membership money and hard decisions that will need to be made.
“It’s a different market now to what it was when the submission was made a few years ago,’’ he says. “That said, I think the success of the JackJumpers and the groundswell of support down here around the Tassie AFL team is proof that Tasmania is a passionate sporting state.
“So it can work both ways: the (success of) the other clubs can demonstrate the support that Tasmanians show for their sporting teams; but on the flip side, netball would be coming into a market down the track that’s occupied by more national competition teams in Tasmania than we’ve ever seen before, and that presents a unique challenge.’’
Originally published as The case for and against a Tasmanian Super Netball team, after AFL/AFLW green light for the island state
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