Liz Ellis says no option is off the table as Super Netball examines its future

After almost a year in the Netball Australia hot seat, chair Liz Ellis is closing in on unveiling the sport’s strategic future. Ellis reveals to EMMA GREENWOOD the ‘bold’ new direction.

Netball Australia is just weeks away from revealing the strategic direction of the sport for the next decade, supported by a “huge piece of financial work” to underpin the future of the game.

As chair Liz Ellis approaches 12 months at the helm of Australia’s biggest sport for women and girls, she underlined the importance of gathering key data to help inform the sport’s 10-year strategic plan and future direction of Super Netball.

Ellis said no option was off the table for the world’s best league and its future iteration that will be aligned to the new broadcast cycle in 2027, with investment and sale both options for the competition.

But just as she relied on data to plan her on-court decisions, the former Diamonds captain outlined the importance of NA and its board having detailed information to back up strategic decisions that will be announced in the coming months.

Liz Ellis is leading netball’s new strategic direction.

After her first six months in the job were spent “listening and consolidating” following a period of major organisational change, the NA board will in the coming months unveil an exciting road map for the next decade.

“We’re going to go big, we’re going to go bold, and we’re going to tell a story about where we’re going to get to in the next 10 years,” she said of the release of the strategic plan in quarter two, just after the sport’s AGM, and Super Netball 2.0 direction in quarter three that’s tipped to recommend expansion at the start of the next broadcast deal.

“We can’t have a strategic plan that looks like business as usual … so it will be ambitious, and we will very clearly state where we want to get to.

“I’m super excited about SSN 2.0 and the opportunity to really go hard at 2027 with a new broadcast deal that aligns with being able to host a World Cup.”

Some outside the tent have been critical of the number of consultants working at NA’s Melbourne headquarters over the last year on a range of projects.

Ellis has been leading the charge for netball’s next decade. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

But Ellis said having the information to back up strategic decisions was crucial.

“We did a huge piece of financial work, getting a financial analysis done that really will underpin a lot of the decisions that we’ll make in the next 12 months,” she said.

“And you can’t make good decisions until you’ve got data. That was something that I knew as an athlete, that you need all the data to make good decisions and to set your game plan up.

“The same thing goes when you’re an organisation, if you don’t have data, you can’t make good decisions.”

SUPER NETBALL 2.0

No option is off the table for the world’s best league - a competition Ellis described when chairing the 2020 State of the Game Report as the financial jewel in the sport’s crown.

Investment, divestment, partnership, all options are on the table for a decision the NA board will ultimately make.

But Ellis said the sport needed to get it right.

“You only get the opportunity to seek investment and/or sell your business once,” she said.

“So we need to make sure we understand clearly why we’re doing it. We need to understand how we’re going to do it and who we’re going to do it with, and be very clear about that.

Ellis says they have a small window to get Super Netball right. Picture: Getty Images

“We may get to the end of SSN 2.0 and go actually, we don’t need to sell anything, but we can.

“I think we can bet we can afford to be really innovative about this.”

At an exciting moment in time for women’s sport around the globe, a world’s best competition based in a country with a million grassroots participants should be a significant carrot to investors and sponsors alike.

Ellis agrees but knows the investment window will not be open forever.

“We’ve got people who have approached us who I’ve had lots of conversations (with) and it’s really opened my eyes to the fact that there’s a number of ways to skin this cat - and we’re going to get one shot at it. So let’s choose the right way,” she said.

“There’s people on our board who are super savvy at this sort of stuff, and they’ll need the evidence and that’s happening now, building that evidence case.”

What doesn’t seem in any doubt is that the revamped league will align with the new broadcast cycle, starting from 2027, the same year the World Cup will be held in Sydney.

And there seems little doubt that expansion will be on the table for a sport in which there are currently only 80 full-time contracts in a league with no restrictions on imports and the best in the world clambering to get it.

As Ellis says, “we don’t have a product problem”.

“Really, it’s just about driving viewership. Well, what a problem to have. It’s a great problem to have, right?

“So it’s not a product problem, it’s a promotion problem. Well, let’s solve the promotion problem and get our product out there.”

WE ARE HERE

In a shift for a sport whose “here if you need” catchcry has too often meant it has sat back politely despite being a sporting juggernaut, once those decisions are made and plans released, NA will be shouting them from the rooftops.

“We’ve been humble, too humble, too long. And that’s a beautiful trait to have, but it’s not going to get us the commercial partnerships we need, the investment we need and the partnership with government,” Ellis said.

Governor-General Sam Mostyn meets Liz Ellis (Chair) and Liz Watson (Captain) from Netball Australia at Government House, Canberra. Picture: Andrew Dakin

After losing millions in government grants during the last administration, Ellis and CEO Stacey West have visited Canberra three times already to ensure those in the halls of power know netball is a sport capable of becoming “the partner of choice for government”.

“When they want to speak to Australian women, they (can) come to us because they know that we’re organised, we’re capable, and we’ll deliver,” Ellis said.

“We were really clear that we are not just here if you need. We are here to be partnered with we are here to speak on behalf of … a million women, and we want to make sure that where we can represent them, that we do, and that where we can speak to them on behalf of government, that we can do that.”

Originally published as Liz Ellis says no option is off the table as Super Netball examines its future