“The sport of netball isn’t likely to become anything much bigger than it presently is.” These words, penned by a sports columnist in 2022, were so bold in their nature, so matter of fact in consigning netball to the margins of the sporting world in perpetuity, that there was little room left for debate. Nevertheless, the sport has persisted and continues to defy such audacious predictions.
The 2024 Super Netball season, which finished on Saturday with Adelaide Thunderbirds holding the trophy aloft for the second year running after winning the grand final against Melbourne Vixens 59-57 in front of 9,694 fans, recorded the league’s largest ever attendance figures. Over the 14 rounds of competition and the finals series, 366,222 spectators walked through the gates of venues around Australia. This represents a 25% increase on 2023 crowds, which in turn was a 25% increase on 2022.
With matches regularly sold out during the season, the greatest barrier netball faces in driving these numbers even higher is not a finite amount of interest, but the seats available in its stadiums. It is a good problem to have, but one that administrators will need to grapple with if the rise continues at these startling rates over the next few seasons.
It is not just within the realms of netball that these figures are significant – the attendance numbers also make Super Netball the most attended domestic women’s sporting competition in Australia. Netball attendances have blitzed the previous record holders, the A-League Women, in overall numbers (despite having four fewer teams and nine fewer competition rounds), and almost doubled the next best code, the AFLW, in average spectators.
While comparison between sports is natural and helps understand the astounding revival that netball has achieved in recent times, it is also true that a rising tide lifts all boats. Women’s sport is a phenomenon that cannot be fully understood when only taking each sport on its individual merits. The tide beneath women’s sport has been incrementally rising over many years, picking up its pace over the past 10 years particularly.
But in considering a sharp rise over the past two years, the ‘Matildas effect’ cannot be discounted. It represented, for want of a better (or even a real) word, the ‘coolification’ of women’s sport. Australians of all ages, genders and walks of life attended and talked about the Fifa Women’s World Cup – it was not positioned as ‘family entertainment’ as so many women’s sports have been in the past. Suddenly it was clear that liking and attending women’s sport was not a niche pastime and with that realisation, the teenage girls came flooding in. While initially it was the Matildas that captured their attention, once the World Cup was over, they have continued to flock to women’s sport.
For many years, netball fandom had a hard cut off of 12 years old. While packs of screaming young girls roamed the stadiums, dutifully followed by a handful of baffled looking parents, teenage girls were more likely to be found at men’s NRL and AFL games, soaking up the cultural capital that came from being in these sacred spaces that boys valued. However this Super Netball season contained more White Fox hoodies per square metre than perhaps any other space in Australia.
Teenage girls were there in their numbers – with groups of friends, cheering for their team, jostling to meet the players after the match. A selfie with Helen Housby started looking like the 2024 equivalent of a teenage girl turning up to school with Craig Wing’s autograph in 2002.
Of course the uptick in popularity for netball this season cannot be entirely attributed to this surge from teenage girls – the distinct downturn in off court dramas is another significant factor, along with close games and greater visibility through marketing from both the league and clubs themselves.
That even the NSW Swifts – who finished in sixth place and missed the finals – broke attendance records this season speaks volumes about the loyalty that is being created and the long-term plans that are being built and delivered. But teenage girls have long been at the cutting edge of culture and their presence is a sign that netball is beginning to reach its potential.
While netball often struggles to get a seat at the table among the powerbrokers of Australian sport, due to its lack of a high-profile men’s competition to bolster it, the sport has quietly been building a following that cannot be ignored. While women’s sport will continue to rise in all its forms throughout the rest of 2024 and beyond, and these attendance records will soon be broken by another sport, netball has built a platform that will keep the sport growing over the coming years. In 2024, its athletes have assured the Australian public through their electrifying performances that this growth is just the beginning and the sport is likely to become much bigger.
