Sunshine Coast Lightning‘s outgoing CEO Danielle Smith calls for in perpetuity licences to secure future of Super Netball

The last of the original SSN chief executives has called for a key change to shore up the league, writes LINDA PEARCE.

Outgoing Sunshine Coast Lightning CEO Danielle Smith is calling for in perpetuity licences to secure the future of Super Netball. Picture: Patrick Woods / Sunshine Coast Daily

However accurate the speculation earlier this year that the Sunshine Coast Lightning was considering joining its former sibling Collingwood in Super Netball extinction, the Melbourne Storm-owned club is nevertheless leading a push for a key change to the terms under which it will stay.

As with the Collective Player Agreement still being finalised, the renegotiation of the Team Participation Agreement has proved to be a drawn-out process that all parties hope will end later this week to enable the SSN contracting period to start, as belatedly planned, on Monday.

The original TPA extended across the five-year length of the league’s inaugural broadcast deal from 2017. The second ran for two years. Netball Australia’s initial proposal to its clubs was that the next would be in place for a further three.

But the Lightning is the most insistent of those seeking an “in perpetuity” agreement such as have long existed in the AFL and basketball, for example, to provide security for owners who have bled seven-figure red ink over the national league’s history.

“Definitely over a seven-year period — and if the licences only went for another three years, over a 10-year period — in terms of losses each club has incurred, it would be in the millions of dollars for each club,’’ outgoing Lightning CEO Danielle Smith told CODE Sports on her final day in the job.

“That is our investment in the league, and so we also feel that we should be the beneficiaries of the league growing in the future. We’ve invested all along the way and so we want that seat at the table in perpetuity.

“All seven, now eight, clubs are really committed to the long-term growth of the SSN and we feel that if we have a perpetual licence we can work in partnership with the league to keep growing.

“Then the focus can be on expansion, because we really believe the league needs to expand with more teams in the future, and so we don’t want to be in these cycles of almost starting all over again to negotiate a licence; we want these long-term perpetual licences that enable us to just get on with doing that.’’

Super Netball premiers in 2017 and 2018, the Sunshine Coast Lightning are seeking greater certainty on their club licence. Picture: James Worsfold/Getty Images

While Smith described as “mainly rumour” suggestions that the Storm had been prepared to hand back its licence around the same time Collingwood was heading for the exit, she reiterated that the club’s keenness to secure a longer TPA was a “key requirement going forward”.

So, if it was not to happen, would owner Matt Tripp’s Storm Group reassess its netball commitment?

“They haven’t got a no yet, so it’s more about negotiating the terms,’’ Smith said. “So pretty confident that that’ll happen, it’s just getting the terms right.’’

Before finishing at Sippy Downs on Monday, the last of the original SSN chief executives stressed that perpetual agreements would not hinder changes to such components as broadcasts rights and revenues, with NA two seasons into a five-year deal with Fox Sports.

No additional teams are expected before 2027, with Craig Hutchison’s Sports Entertainment Group recently taking over the licence vacated by the Magpies, although the highly-regarded Smith would like to see an extra two to four franchises operating within five years.

Netball Victoria CEO Andrea Pearman backed the Lightning’s TPA push for extended licences, generally, admitting the granting of perpetual licences was also the first choice of the NV-owned Melbourne Vixens.

“We’re very invested in SSN and want to be here for the long haul, and so anything we can do to get the longevity of the licences so that we can have the security that we will have a future, and then would invest in that future, is our preference as well,’’ Pearman said.

While CODE Sports is aware of ongoing friction between the national body and some of its stakeholder clubs, Pearman insisted that what could be tense at times was also a fundamentally productive relationship.

“I think there’s always a healthy tension between the national body and the states and teams,’’ she said. “We have a different perspective than them and one thing I can say is the amount of conversations and workshopping and compromise that’s happened on both sides in the last six months has been extensive.’’

Smith described as “somewhat protracted” the negotiations around cornerstone agreements the TPA and CPA, with athlete signings for 2024 controversially postponed until after the current Netball World Cup in South Africa.

“I think relationships have definitely been tested along the way, but we’re pretty confident that by the end of this week both agreements will be largely agreed in principle, so we can get on with player contracting next Monday, the 7th of August,’’ said Smith, who believes the player association’s push for a revenue-sharing deal is currently unaffordable.

A new team owned by the Sports Entertainment Group will take Collingwood’s place in Super Netball. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Pearman and Hutchison will also meet in the coming days to help advance plans for the admission of the new Victorian club, to be based in southeast Melbourne, with the SEG bid having been preferred to Netball Victoria’s submission for a regional/metro hybrid concentrating on the western growth corridor.

While Collingwood claimed to have been hindered by a lack of co-operation from the state association, Pearman, who only started in the role six months ago, said collaboration with the new licence-holders had already begun.

Not that it will extend to sharing NV’s membership data base. Indeed, Smith confirmed that the Lightning — the only other club not owned by a state association — had never been granted access to the Netball Queensland equivalent, but had found other ways to attract and market to its members.

Pearman reiterated that members’ data was subject to privacy conditions and thus could not be shared or distributed, but said the type of marketing assistance it had provided to the Magpies would also be among the offers to the replacement club.

“We can’t hand over people’s private data. That’s just illegal,’’ she said. “But we will definitely market for them and we will look at doing a lot of grassroots activation for them as well.

“If you put your Netball Victoria hat on we see this eighth licence as the opportunity to grow participation at that grassroots level and we know every time we get elite athletes out in the community we get more fans and we get greater participation.

“So we’ll be working with SEG to activate around the state, help with marketing, and then make sure that the derbies are really successful.’’

Originally published as Sunshine Coast Lightning‘s outgoing CEO Danielle Smith calls for in perpetuity licences to secure future of Super Netball