Latest news with #NetballNewZealand
Otago Daily Times
01-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
NNZ finally confirms premiership will go ahead next year
After weeks of uncertainty, Netball New Zealand has confirmed the ANZ Premiership will return in 2026. NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie told the Otago Daily Times yesterday the competition is locked in for next season and logistics were still being explored. But she did confirm all six franchises would return and the competition was likely to be during a similar time frame — from May to July — due to the Commonwealth Games. Wyllie was pleased to affirm the competition's status. "It's been really important for us to give that sort of certainty to our system," Wyllie said. NNZ was "still working through a whole bunch of things" but with the announcement was "able to at least give that comfort so that we can all move on and really focus on the product we're delivering this year" Signing a broadcast deal — which was scaled back for the 2025 season leading NNZ to produce the Saturday games in-house — was not far away either. "We're still working on what the optimum broadcast scenario is for the sport. There's lots of moving parts in that. "It's something that we are not too far off being able to finalise, but we've just got to make sure that we explore all of those options thoroughly." All options for the future of domestic netball, including returning to a three-round ANZ Premiership, moving the competition's timeframe to allow players to compete in Australia and joining Australia's Super Netball, are being considered. But they could not be put in action until 2027, Wyllie said. "We're considering all of the options of what our future product might look like. "But [2027] gives us enough time to plan it, [get] some really good insight from the market, engage with the players, and the fans, to make sure that whatever changes, or considerations, that we have on the table are well thought through." Several players have expressed their concerns for their future with the uncertainty of the ANZ Premiership. Asked if she felt there had been enough communication, Wyllie said NNZ worked closely with the New Zealand Players Association, which had been informed "the entire way through our discussions". "They will be sharing, as appropriate, with the athletes, and to be able to give them clarity around the future." Southern Steel coach Wendy Frew said it had been an unsettling time for players, but they were focused on the season ahead. "To be honest, we haven't talked about it a lot," Frew said. "It is unsettling, but at the moment we're just focusing on the opposition and what we can control. "Next year, at the moment, we can't control. We're just trying to put our best foot forward for the season. "This netball competition's the best one in the world. We need it to keep going, so we're grateful that we're playing in it and we're just hopeful that it continues." Having reduced games had made it tough this season. "You pretty much could lose six games and you're not in playoff contention. "It's been hard to fit everything in the preseason, but every team's in the same boat, so you've just got to adapt as well as you can and just try put it all out there." Frew said she did not mind whether New Zealand joined the Australia domestically again, but hoped "this league stays alive". "It's a fantastic competition. "Whether it be the New Zealand domestic comp or we join the Aussies — I mean, I loved playing the Aussies — but whatever's best for the game in New Zealand. "Whatever's going to keep growing the sport and keeping those young girls, and boys, coming through and playing the game."
RNZ News
04-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Netball: More opportunities in Australia 'ideal outcome'
Amelia Walmsley of the Pulse during the ANZ Premiership match against the Magic. Photo: Photosport The NZ Netball Players' Association would like to see athletes have more opportunities to play in Australia, as uncertainty around the future of Aotearoa's domestic competition remains. When the 2025 ANZ Premiership season begins in a few days, New Zealand's elite netballers won't know whether it will be the last year of the domestic competition as they know it. The ANZ Premiership replaced the former trans-Tasman ANZ Championship, which ended in 2016 when New Zealand and Australia went their separate ways. But what the domestic competition might look like next year is anyone's guess with Netball New Zealand in the process of negotiating a new broadcasting deal, which could have a huge impact on the salary caps of the franchises. RNZ reported last year that Netball NZ's one-year extension to their broadcast partnership with Sky TV was for a significantly reduced amount of money. Players managed to avoid pay cuts under a new collective employment agreement signed last year - but that was only for a one-year period. RNZ also reported that the one-year broadcast extension was to effectively buy the national body some time to explore joining Australia's Super Netball competition (SSN). The NZ Netball Players' Association executive manager Steph Bond said it was something the national body needed to investigate. "It's definitely something that I think in the long term really needs to be considered as sort of more of a natural progression of the ANZ Premiership and something I think everyone should be sitting down and looking at for maybe a medium to longer term pathway," Bond said. But it seems that 2027 would be the earliest that any new franchises would be considered in the SSN with the broadcast deal underpinning that competition in place until the end of next year. "There might be more of a short-term picture and long-term picture there. I think at the moment it does not appear that teams in the Australian competition is achievable right now." Steph Bond (right) at the launch of the 2007 trans-Tasman competition. Photo: Hannah Johnston So where does that leave players who are looking for opportunities to extend their game and earn more money now? Netball New Zealand's current eligibility policy means star shooter Grace Nweke has had to give up her place in the Silver Ferns this year, because she is playing in the Australian competition. Bond said it would be something the Association raises when it goes into collective bargaining negotiations with Netball New Zealand this year. "There will be a discussion around how players have more opportunities to play in Australia, particularly if the competition looks different here or if the medium to long term future is that we're part of the Australian competition. "How in the short term do we make sure that players are having that opportunity to play across the Tasman as well? Because I know there are players that I think would enjoy and embrace that opportunity." Bond said if New Zealand teams did join the Australian competition in the future, it didn't mean the end of a domestic competition in Aotearoa. "There's so many different options in terms of how it could continue, you could still have a competition here and only have a couple of teams in the Australian competition. "You could have both competitions joined, you could play at a different time to Australia. I think there's a whole lot of different mechanisms in which that could play out and it really depends on where each country sits at a point in time in which that could come together. "And both countries probably need to be on the same page around what the future might look like for netball on both sides of the Tasman because it was a great competition when it was both New Zealand and Australia and I think all the players would agree that having some opportunities over there would be an ideal outcome." The bargaining process for 2026 and beyond between the Players' Association and Netball New Zealand can't start until the national body reaches an agreement on broadcast rights. "We are hopeful that we will be able to go into bargaining as soon as they get an answer and hopefully meet that date so that players do have some kind of runway into what it might look like next year, so they can plan their lives for next year." Bond said they had been kept across the broadcast negotiations to date but did not have any indication whether a new deal would be able to sustain the ANZ Premiership at the same level. "We don't really know yet. Obviously ideally, we'd like to maintain or increase what it looks like for players so that we can maintain that professionalism of the sport because it has come a long way in the last 10 years. It would be great if we could maintain what that looks like so young girls looking to different sports to play still have netball as an option in which they can both love playing the sport but also be able to earn an income out of it." Grace Nweke is playing for the Swifts this year. Photo: Jason McCawley / Getty Images Bond is hopeful they will have some answers before the end of this season so players can enter into negotiations with franchises for 2026. "There's no doubt the timeframes are now sort of creating a little more angst and uncertainty really amongst the playing group." Netball New Zealand chief executive Jennie Wyllie said they were working in a more competitive environment than they were five years ago. "The sporting landscape has definitely become more competitive over the past five years, particularly in the women's space. This shift presents both challenges and opportunities, and it reinforces the need for us to continue evolving and innovating in our sport. "We're currently working through what the 2026 ANZ Premiership will look like, with the aim of ensuring the competition continues to evolve and support the high-performance needs of our athletes. With planning underway, we're conscious of the need to provide clarity to franchises and players as soon as possible," Wyllie said. Until this year the competition has not undergone any real change since its inaugural 2017 season. This year the ANZ Premiership has been cut from three rounds to two, in an effort to create more intense competition from the first whistle. This season will also see a handful of new rules introduced, the most notable being a two-point shot in the final five minutes of each quarter. The competition starts 10 May when the Pulse host the Magic in Palmerston North. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
01-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
NZME Announces Exclusive Partnership With Netball New Zealand
Press Release – NZME Emily Travers, NZME Head of Commercial Sport, Partnerships and Events says the partnership represents a perfect alignment between NZME's audience growth strategy and its commitment to supporting New Zealand's sporting community. New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) is proud to announce an exclusive multi-year media partnership with Netball New Zealand including the Silver Ferns, ANZ Premiership competition and all six ANZ Premiership teams. The comprehensive partnership spans NZME's multi-channel media portfolio across its audio, print, digital and OneRoof real estate platforms, creating unprecedented exposure for netball across New Zealand. The partnership will be led by The Hits radio network, creating significant opportunities to engage with their target audience while supporting local netball communities. The Hits hosts will feature prominently on game days, bringing fans closer to the action both on and off the court. Emily Travers, NZME Head of Commercial Sport, Partnerships and Events says the partnership represents a perfect alignment between NZME's audience growth strategy and its commitment to supporting New Zealand's sporting community. 'Netball has such a strong presence in communities throughout the country, and we're excited to help amplify the sport's visibility while creating engaging content for our audiences across all our platforms. This new partnership also creates valuable opportunities for our advertising clients, allowing them to leverage netball-related content and audiences across NZME's extensive media network,' she says. Netball New Zealand CEO Jennie Wyllie says: 'Partnering with NZME gives us unprecedented reach across multiple media channels to share the stories of our athletes, teams and competitions. This collaboration will help us achieve our objectives of growing the netball community while bringing fans closer to the sport they love. 'With more than 145,000 registered netball players in New Zealand and its position as the highest participation sport in secondary schools, netball continues to be a cornerstone of the country's sporting landscape. The sport is also seeing increasing participation from men, reflecting its evolving appeal across diverse demographics.' Complementing this partnership, NZME and the Newstalk ZB podcast network has also launched a new weekly netball podcast called Inside Netball, featuring former Silver Ferns Adine Wilson and Anna Stanley, alongside renowned netball commentator and Newstalk ZB journalist Jenny Woods. A new edition of the podcast is available every Thursday on iHeartRadio.
Scoop
30-04-2025
- Business
- Scoop
NZME Announces Exclusive Partnership With Netball New Zealand
New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) is proud to announce an exclusive multi-year media partnership with Netball New Zealand including the Silver Ferns, ANZ Premiership competition and all six ANZ Premiership teams. The comprehensive partnership spans NZME's multi-channel media portfolio across its audio, print, digital and OneRoof real estate platforms, creating unprecedented exposure for netball across New Zealand. The partnership will be led by The Hits radio network, creating significant opportunities to engage with their target audience while supporting local netball communities. The Hits hosts will feature prominently on game days, bringing fans closer to the action both on and off the court. Emily Travers, NZME Head of Commercial Sport, Partnerships and Events says the partnership represents a perfect alignment between NZME's audience growth strategy and its commitment to supporting New Zealand's sporting community. "Netball has such a strong presence in communities throughout the country, and we're excited to help amplify the sport's visibility while creating engaging content for our audiences across all our platforms. This new partnership also creates valuable opportunities for our advertising clients, allowing them to leverage netball-related content and audiences across NZME's extensive media network,' she says. Netball New Zealand CEO Jennie Wyllie says: "Partnering with NZME gives us unprecedented reach across multiple media channels to share the stories of our athletes, teams and competitions. This collaboration will help us achieve our objectives of growing the netball community while bringing fans closer to the sport they love. 'With more than 145,000 registered netball players in New Zealand and its position as the highest participation sport in secondary schools, netball continues to be a cornerstone of the country's sporting landscape. The sport is also seeing increasing participation from men, reflecting its evolving appeal across diverse demographics.' Complementing this partnership, NZME and the Newstalk ZB podcast network has also launched a new weekly netball podcast called Inside Netball, featuring former Silver Ferns Adine Wilson and Anna Stanley, alongside renowned netball commentator and Newstalk ZB journalist Jenny Woods. A new edition of the podcast is available every Thursday on iHeartRadio.
NZ Herald
29-04-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Reward for revealing netball's forgotten past
Taonga like the British Metropolitan Police bobby's whistle, gifted to Myrtle Muir – the first Silver Ferns coach and a woman who played a lead role in establishing Netball New Zealand a century ago. Or the 1932 film reel shot at the national netball tournament, concealed inside a metal canister and smelling like vinegar when it was discovered in the garage of a famous Silver Fern. And the real breakthrough: when Henley discovered netball – then called basketball – was first played on New Zealand soil in 1898, eight years earlier than previously believed. And even more remarkably, it was introduced by a pioneering young female teacher in Whanganui – not the male Presbyterian minister credited in history books. Even so, it took Henley two years to learn the innovative teacher Miss Knapp's first name. 'It's a bit like detective work, I suppose,' says Henley, 73, who was a lecturer in media and communication at the University of Auckland until the end of last year. 'A little fuzzy thread sticks out and you give it a wee pull, and sometimes you can't work out where it comes from, and other times it leads to another clue, another link. The more you pull out, the more of a picture you start to get of the sport. 'I look at all these plastic boxes and think there are so many stories in there, of so many women's lives. And all of this could have been turfed out. It just can't be lost.' As Netball New Zealand's centenary year draws to a close in May, Henley's decades-long commitment to chronicling and preserving the sport's history – all undertaken voluntarily – has been honoured with a Netball New Zealand Service Award. 'Margaret has played a vital role in ensuring that the legacy of netball is carefully documented and able to be shared with future generations,' her citation reads. Henley was a driving force in creating the recent exhibition Our Game: A Century of Netball in Aotearoa New Zealand at Auckland Museum, which has now been dismantled, and its treasures – like Dame Lois Muir's 1963 Silver Ferns tracksuit and the minute book from the first meeting of the sport's national body in 1924 – have been returned to storage. Henley is uncertain what will happen to the artefacts and footage she and Miller are now archiving. Sports like rugby and cricket have national museums, but netball would need financial help and a permanent space to do the same. For now, they'll continue to sift through the plastic bins overflowing with memories, deciding between them what's kept and what's discarded. Henley has been able to trace the origins of netball in Aotearoa back to Whanganui Girls College, where in 1898 (when it was Wanganui Girls College), a young teacher introduced the new game to her students, with day girls playing boarders. Most historians have recorded that it was the Reverend J.C. Jamieson who brought a game he saw in Australia to Auckland in 1906, and teams were formed from the YMCA and Presbyterian bible classes. But Henley's sleuthing found evidence in parliamentary documents and local newspapers that it was the Wanganui teacher Jessie Knapp who – after most likely reading reports in papers and gazettes of the new sport sweeping America called basketball – saw how it could be adapted for girls in her school. 'A school inspector came to the school, saw four basketball teams playing and thought it was jolly good; wrote it up, and it was recorded in the Journals of the House of Representatives,' Henley says. 'I worked out the teacher who introduced the game was a Miss Knapp, but it took me nearly two years to discover her first name.' Henley then unravelled the intriguing back story of Jessie Knapp. She was born in the same small Nelson town of Spring Grove – and in the same year – as 'the father of nuclear physics', Sir Ernest Rutherford. Knapp shared a unique connection with the world-renowned scientist: both earned scholarships to attend Nelson Boys' and Girls' Colleges, where they excelled academically. In an era when most girls left school around the age of 14 to work before marriage, Knapp stayed on to be mentored by headmistress Kate Edger, the first Kiwi woman to obtain a university degree. In 1890, at the age of 19, Knapp completed a Bachelor of Arts degree. 'I was able to contact her relatives in Nelson, who were so proud that she was an early, highly educated woman, but they didn't know what she'd achieved in the history of netball,' Henley says. She's also been able to trace exactly where basketball was first played in Auckland. There's a grainy black-and-white photo taken around 1906, of the A and B teams of St Luke's Presbyterian Church, dressed in their uniforms of white blouses and long black woollen skirts, with wicker baskets strung between tree trunks as goals. She's located the original 'court', a paddock on the Hood farm, off Armadale Road in Remuera – after finding an ad from Mrs Hood looking for domestic help. Five years ago, Henley and Miller also uncovered the first name of the first New Zealand coach, Mrs H.D. Muir – otherwise known as Myrtle. They also found her grandfather was a Cantonese gold digger, who came to Otago during the gold rush era and lived in poverty in a Chinese camp. Myrtle Muir was instrumental is establishing the New Zealand Basketball Association (now Netball New Zealand) in 1924, and coached the original 1938 Silver Ferns. On display at the Auckland Museum was an ACME Metropolitan Police whistle, gifted to Muir (also an umpire), likely by the Victoria Basketball Association in Australia in 1946. Two years later, the Australian national team toured New Zealand for the first time, convincingly winning all three tests. It was always going to be lopsided: a nine-a-side version of the game was still being played in New Zealand (until 1959), while the Australians played the now universal seven-a-side. Henley and Miller drove north to Waipu to collect the whistle from Muir's granddaughter, who 'absolutely treasured it'. Henley's passion for netball history came to the fore, she says, when she was researching for her doctorate into the evolution of broadcast images of netball as a women-only sport. 'I decided I had to do a chapter on the history of the sport and look at how it worked back then with major forms of media,' she says. 'But where I fell deeply in love with it was through my obsession with cinema newsreels. Before the 1960s, the only way women in New Zealand could see moving images of women playing sport was in the cinema. And there were only a few locally produced cinema newsreels – once or twice a year, little vignettes of women playing basketball. I tracked down every piece of cinema newsreel that's been preserved.' But Henley was baffled by the whereabouts of a 25-minute film, shot at the 1932 national netball tournament in Invercargill. For 20 years, it was played in netball associations throughout the country, travelling with a film projector, so women and girls – particularly in smaller towns –could see the top level of the game being played. 'I kept saying to everyone I met, there's this film out there, and I can't believe it's been lost,' she says. Henley and Miller finally tracked down the 16mm film in the garage of past Silver Ferns coach Yvonne Willering, inside a box of memorabilia given to her by Dame Lois Muir. 'After I had a little cry, Todd told me it smelled of vinegar,' Henley says, a sign that the acetate film base was degrading and releasing acetic acid. A film preservationist was able to salvage all but the first 10 seconds of film and digitise it. Henley would have been too young to have seen the film as a child. Growing up in Wellington, she'd wanted to play netball from the age of 8, but there wasn't a team at her school. 'So my mother started me a netball team with other girls from the Anglican church,' she says. 'We'd go to the Hataitai courts every Saturday but we were so small and no one knew what they were doing, we would always get beaten.' By 12, she was playing senior netball for Onslow. 'It was a rich melting pot – we played against the typing pool and women who had rollers in their hair and freshly painted nails ready for Saturday night. You didn't dare knock their rollers out,' Henley laughs. 'When I became an academic, I found there were men writing about netball, about the hyper-femininity and how it was so controlled, and that just sent me into orbit. There was nothing hyper-feminine about the way we played. It's where I learned to stand up for myself. And I loved it. 'They didn't understand how liberating it was for us to play. And the whole socialisation – all these women who ran it, organised it and umpired us, told us off and fed us. Everything was women's labour for the interests and wellbeing of women and young girls. You were part of this living machine at every netball court all around New Zealand for decades and decades.' The next 'big, crucial push' in Henley and Miller's project is to digitise the hundreds of VHS tapes of New Zealand netball footage from the 1980s and 1990s. She still has a VHS player at home so she can watch a lot of the tapes. 'Our job is to identify and preserve it, but also to recognise what it represents – a section of New Zealand society that evolved and built its own processes, protocols and its own cultural heritage. It looked after itself,' Henley says. 'The first phase is to identify, sort, collate and catalogue. Once that happens, it's harder to ignore, dismiss or lose. Then it's getting it digitised and then sharing it, getting awareness of it. That's very important for me, that would be the most rewarding goal.' Although she's no longer teaching, Henley is still a researcher, working with Professor Toni Bruce on their three-year Marsden-funded project, titled Netball's enduring role in the intergenerational health and wellbeing of Aotearoa women. 'There are these whole areas of women's social history that are still hugely under-researched, under-published, under-resourced and under-preserved. They're just not saved,' Henley says. 'Ultimately, it belongs to the generations of women in New Zealand, and the dream is to be able to share it with them, make it easily accessible for them, in a way that they will get absolute joy from discovering their mothers, their aunties and their grandparents, who expressed themselves through sport.' Henley loves working with Australian-born Miller: 'We have shared heritage, my father was Australian,' she says, 'and there are many points of sympatico. Our relationship is very rewarding and irreverent.' The feeling is mutual. Miller – who received a World Netball Service Award in 2023 for his 30-year involvement in the sport – says working with Henley is a privilege, as someone he respects greatly. 'Her depth of knowledge and care for our sport to uncover and tell the history is unmatched,' he says. 'It's also incredible to have someone to call when you uncover a piece of information or image you've never see before – and she's as excited as I am.'
