Netball Australia's financial problems have been in the spotlight over the last month.
The peak governing body sold its Super Netball grand final to the highest state government bidder, revealing the serious economic challenges it is facing and later confirmed it was open-minded to exploring gambling sponsorship.
Netball Australia (NA) released its 2021 financial results last week after its annual general meeting, where it said it had experienced its "most challenging year to date" and recorded a loss of $4.4 million.
Its current debt amounts to $4.2 million and these bank loans are in the process of being extended to 2025 and, as of December 31, the sport only had cash reserves of $160,000.
All sports have been hit hard during the pandemic, but the negative criticism of netball's losses has been ignited by its lack of transparency.
Over time, this has led to a distrust in whether those in charge truly grasp the identity of netball and what it stands for.
Now that NA is considering lucrative deals gambling money can provide — despite its family friendly reputation, with its main target market young girls — many believe it is at a crossroads where it needs to decide whether it's willing to compromise on those values.
Former Diamonds defender and AFLW player Sharni Norder told the ABC that she felt like there were other ways the sport could get back in the black.
"Our sport is a f***ng great sport. There's nothing else like it and, yet, I honestly don't think netball even knows its value within the market," Norder said.
"I want the sport to survive and, if there's zero other options, then I understand, but it feels like there are industries netball hasn't tapped into yet, like the period market for example — almost every woman in the world needs a tampon or pad."
Norder's view is that the windfall from gambling sponsorship is more a short-term solution and could actually devalue what makes netball special and unique.
"The part I find so concerning about everything that's gone on over the past few weeks, including these gambling deals they seem to be prepping us for, is that you have to wonder who's representing our values in these conversations," Norder said.
"There are many anti-gambling campaigns that talk about how much it's affecting kids, and I've always thought how refreshing it was that they can watch netball and not be bombarded with it.
"We need to start viewing our differences in netball as our strength … If you don't have anything different to the other sports, how do you compete?"
Another former Australian netballer, Sharelle McMahon, has also spoken about the issue in the past.
"I have a seven-year-old and a four-year-old and it's really fascinating watching them when there's live sport on because, as soon as there's a betting ad, their attention is on the TV," McMahon said.
"That's challenging when you're a parent. You can't escape."
Netball needs to consider the damage gambling advertising can have on children
If netball was to go ahead and sign a wagering deal, it would put the two Victorian-based Super Netball clubs in a difficult position, as they already have partnerships in place with the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation (VRGF) as part of their Love the Game program.
Established in 2014, the program aims to combat the normalisation of sports gambling, with more than 650 partners on board, including Netball Victoria, the Melbourne Vixens and Collingwood Magpies.
As part of the agreement, clubs and sporting bodies must refuse betting sponsorships and equip their players with the skills to think critically about the risks associated with gambling.
In the past 24 hours, the VRGF has sent a letter to NA, urging them to look elsewhere, pointing to studies conducted by Nielsen data, that found an average of 948 gambling advertisements were broadcast daily on free-to-air television in Victoria last year, while 148 of those were shown in the prime time slot (between 6pm and 8:30pm) each weeknight.
Although netball is no longer available on free-to-air TV, VRGF chief executive Shane Lucas said the research showed young people were already being exposed to gambling ads at a saturated level.
"Young men aged 18 to 24 are the typical target for sports betting promotions, but a sponsorship deal with netball would suggest the industry is keen to expand its reach to young women," he said.
"This concerns us because kids absorb the content of these ads, which present betting as synonymous with winning and makes it seem like gambling on sport is normal and without risk.
"It's no coincidence that the first generation to grow up with these ads are now the largest group of sports bettors in the state."
While the AFL has a major sponsorship deal with a wagering company, every one of its Victorian clubs have also partnered with the VRGF.
These club values seem to be more in line with the community, considering a 2021 La Trobe University survey of more than 17,000 Victorian sports fans found that 70 per cent of participants disagreed with wagering companies sponsoring sporting clubs or codes.
"Victoria's 10 AFL clubs are working hard to address the impact gambling is having on the community, with coaches and players talking to kids — especially boys — about why they love the game, not the odds," Lucas said.
"Athletes are role models, especially for young people, which makes it extraordinary that a clean sport like netball would consider abandoning its core values and align itself with a product associated with harm.
"It is incumbent upon them to look for solutions that not only maintain netball's clean reputation but are in the best interests of our community."
Not everyone is against wagering sponsorship
It's important to note that not everybody in netball is against the idea, in fact some of the key figures in administration — such as interim Netball NSW chief executive Andrew Jones — say it could, potentially, be a smart move for the sport.
Jones has previously worked in cricket and is in the final week of his role with the state netball body before he takes the reins at Racing Victoria.
"Wagering on sport is a form of entertainment for millions of Australians, that a lot of people like and a lot of people don't like, and that's fine," Jones told the ABC.
"Whether it is the right fit for netball is a separate debate, but I really don't see the big fuss about it.
"It just must be done by over-18s and, so, the question is where they should and shouldn't be able to advertise it, but wagering is a totally legitimate category [of sponsorship] so I think [netball] are entitled to explore that opportunity.
"Whether that compromises its values or not really depends on what you think those values are.
"There's a diversity of views on that topic, but the vast majority of Australians punt, whether it be on sport or buying a lottery ticket, purchasing a scratchie or being involved in a sweep for the Melbourne Cup."
Although Jones didn't agree with Norder's views about sports wagering, he echoed her thoughts that netball was only scratching the surface, commercially, and that it could be doing the basics better to connect with its grassroots.
"Netball has a massive participation base, and it has a different demographic to most sports in that it skews heavily female," he said.
"Those two things present huge opportunities, both in magnitude and concentration, because it makes it really easy to find netball fans and so it shouldn't be too hard to make the professional teams and competition really popular by connecting the dots.
"Netball reaches a demographic that most sports don't, and in numbers that most sports don't. So, if you want to access teens, young women from 18-30 or women in families, all of those age groups are available to you and in ways that you just can't get in the NRL, AFL or cricket."
Does netball need to rethink the way it measures the value of its fans?
Ben Hartman is the managing director of No2ndPlace, an agency that focuses on advocating sport as an important platform for social change, with an impressive group of strategic advisers, including Adam Goodes, Madison De Rozario, Craig Foster and David Pocock.
Hartman suggested that netball might need to reconsider the way it measures the value of its fan base, in order to grow commercially, pointing to a US women's sport initiative called The Fan Project.
The Fan Project uses fans' personal social media data to provide evidence that women's sports are a good financial investment and lays out a business model, based on its findings, to show companies how to generate revenue in this area.
On the flip side, it is also a helpful tool to encourage women's sports to think outside the box when it comes to the way they market their elite product, as well as its worth in the digital era.
Part of this has to do with the idea of the "fluid fan", where new age consumers may follow players instead of teams and are increasingly looking to their smartphones for sports content instead of traditional networks.
The Fan Project argues fluid fans are inspired by social change and that women's sports fans have largely been fluid from the beginning, as they've had to navigate digital channels and find niche distributors of information with less mainstream media coverage.
It also makes some interesting points about the way sports can shift their view on consumers to more of a community-based model, where a quality-over-quantity mindset is key, considering the data shows women's sports fans are loyal to brands that invest in this space at a much higher rate than general sports fans.
"The opportunity exists for netball to rethink its approach in attracting incremental revenue from brands and it's an oversimplification to consider new sponsorship categories, such as gambling, as the only fix," Hartman said.
"The commercial appeal for many brands looking to be involved in women's sport goes beyond eyeballs and lies in its ability to impact not only fan consumption behaviour but also drive tangible social change … and, so, short-term influx from gambling companies may actually lead to longer-term sponsorship reductions."
Beyond the gambling discussion, Hartman raised the question about where fans draw the line in their attitudes towards investment in the sport and whether there should be more government intervention.
"Sport is often left to make moral decisions in an increasingly competitive commercial landscape and these decisions are not always significantly regulated by government, with the exception of tobacco sponsorships. Yet, clearly, they stimulate conversations and reactions from fans.
"It's interesting that gambling has evoked a strong fan response in this scenario but that there is seemingly less of discussion around the major sponsorship from a fossil fuel company.
"Moving forward, this is a moral and commercial challenge that sport will have to address as part of its future commercial success."
