Why Gold Coast Titans netball program is poised for Super Netball success
The Gold Coast Titans are continuing to build towards establishing a Super Netball franchise. Here’s why it won’t be a flash in the pan.
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If a Gold Coast Titans Super Netball franchise is to enter the competition, it will be a set up for success like few before it.
That is the belief of Gold Coast Titans CEO Steve Mitchell, whose club has strategically and methodically laid the foundations for Super Netball dominance well before the birth of its own top-level franchise.
Mr Mitchell said the club would take lessons from Collingwood’s failed expansion in the Super Netball space after its team collapsed in 2023.
“All the programs and the frameworks are there, and that early building work means you can just take it and lift it, that’s a huge help getting a national sporting club out of the ground,” Mr Mitchell said.
“I think we’re more advanced, but what you do have to do is make sure it’s sustainable.
“These sporting programs aren’t inexpensive to run so you have to ensure you can generate enough commercial interest to support it and keep the fanbase close.”
The Titans netball brand already encompasses teams in Netball Queensland’s Sapphire Series, second-tier Ruby Series, the southeast’s Elite Premier League. It also runs a schools competition which features over 600 athletes.
The Sapphire Series team is coached by New Zealand netball great Temepara Bailey who played 89 times for the national Silver Ferns team and led it to win gold at the Commonwealth Games and Netball World Cup.
The Titans are one of the favourites to land the next Super Netball licence that becomes available.
“Under Temepara’s steer we’ve built Sapphire, Ruby and then the pathway program feeds into that and our work with schools,” Mr Mitchell said.
“We run all of our socials and our marketing in line with if we were a Super (Netball) side … we sell out all of our home games.”
The club aims to establish its Super Netball franchise within two to three years but Mr Mitchell cautioned doing so would be dependent on several “environmental things”, particularly if the club can establish its own high-performance centre.
The club’s push to expand into the netball space, which began in 2022, was an easy one in the eyes of Mr Mitchell.
“We’re a community-based organisation and it’s important for us to connect. The more positive outcomes we can bring through netball as a sport, the more people that are closer to the business itself and the more people that understand the brand and what we’re about.
“It was a pretty easy decision to move into that space.”
Titans NRL captain Tino Fa’asuamaleaui’s partner Jordan Ngarimu has played for the Titans netball side, and Mr Mitchell said it would be beneficial to foster a connection between the programs.
“It would be fabulous to have a national netball side and to have both those national player groups (rugby league and netball) work to profile the Gold Coast … and help with the economic uplift of the Gold Coast,” Mr Mitchell said.
He added it was important for the club to be more than just a “shopfront”, which it would be if it relied solely on its NRL performances at Cbus Super Stadium.
“If your product is not good it’s going to hurt you,” Mr Mitchell said.
“But if you are genuinely contributing to society and to community uplift and giving back and being active you build a special relationship with the people and the area you sit in.
“We have a responsibility to do that.”
Evolution is also at the fore of Titans’ thinking.
“Between here and 2030 there’s so many opportunities around sport technology, athlete management, athlete programming, sports science, rehab.
“The more we can focus on our trade and build partnerships out through that across a number of different sports, the better placed we are as genuine elite level high performance programs.”
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Originally published as Why Gold Coast Titans netball program is poised for Super Netball success
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