Super Netball fixture aims to carve out niche in sporting calendar

Super Netball’s leaders are aiming to carve out their own niche on Australia’s sporting calendar.

NSW Swifts players and staff celebrate winning the Super Netball grand final against Sunshine Coast Lightning in September. Picture: AAP

Super Netball’s leaders want to carve out their own niche on Australia’s sporting calendar with some tweaks to the fixture schedule aiming to deliver growing audiences in 2020 after a disrupted 2019 delivered marginal gains.

This year the competition was forced to pause for a month to accommodate the Netball World Cup, held in Liverpool, England.

“I’m a lot more excited about 2020 to be honest, in terms of the clear air that we’ve got to deliver in a really defined window and not have any interruptions,” league chief executive Chris Symington said of the schedule released on Friday.

“Our No 1 priority is making sure we can get more fans along, either at games or watching on TV, and to make sure we’re showcasing the sport in the best possible light in the best possible venues that our fans can access.”

The 2020 season begins on May 2 and will run without interruption until the grand final on August 30.

That final weekend was carefully timed to drop netball’s biggest match of the year into the AFL’s bye round, ensuring the season is wrapped up before a crowded sporting September.

Symington said there was “absolutely” a focus on netball carving out ownership of August in Australia’s sporting calendar.

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The chief executive’s message was one of “optimising the fixture” by placing teams in the timeslots and venues that draw the most attention. To that end, Super Netball staff used a new software-driven approach to crunch the substantial bank of data that had been collected on match performance to date.

“We’ve got a lot of background data that we used to inform what games are on (the Nine Network), and what games aren’t,” Symington said.

The Firebirds, Vixens, Swifts and Lightning have been given nine nationally televised matches in 2020. Adelaide Thunderbirds have been scheduled for four, the least in the league, with West Coast Fever given five.

Symington said the non-televised matches, carried on Telstra’s streaming platforms, are a key growth area and had been given timeslots designed to deliver strong viewership.

The Queen’s Birthday Melbourne derby between the Vixens and Magpies introduced this year was a definite hit, and has been locked in for Round 6.

A new addition in 2020 is a split round at the end of June, with four games spread over two weekends. But the innovation will also create an usual situation in Round 9, when the Lightning and Thunderbirds will both face opponents coming off an extra week’s rest.

The league has dialled back the number of double-headers in 2020, with only one held in Sydney and Melbourne. Those matches have traditionally drawn large crowds but also presented financial and logistic challenges for clubs that still run at a loss.

Elsewhere, Canberra and Launceston will host a game each next year but the Thunderbirds will not be returning to Darwin in 2020 after hosting the Lightning there in June.

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to get that across the line for 2020 but it’s something that we’ll still consider into the future,” Symington said.

The fixture announcement has also reignited debate over player workload and burnout in netball after a crowded 2019 season. Teams began pre-season this week, almost six months before the start of the 2020 season.

Netball Players’ Association president and Collingwood Magpies goal attack Nat Medhurst tweeted on Wednesday that the lengthy run-up was a “massive issue”.

“There’ll be debate about when players come back and when they don’t,” Symington said. “We have a collective players agreement that’s clear about the mandated number of hours athletes train per week.”