Jason Pine: Netball NZ's dropped the ball - but can they fix it?

I'm not interested in a pile-on on Netball New Zealand. We are where we are and there's no real need to re-litigate how that happened.

As this was playing out over the last 12 months, we questioned those in positions of power, and many of those people are no longer in those positions.

We're here now... and we can't turn back time.

There's no question this has been a hugely disruptive time for the game of netball here, but with disruption comes opportunity.

Much as there's a fair degree of short term pain to go through here, Netball NZ now have the chance to reimagine what the domestic competition should look like, and most importantly, how it's financially underpinned.

Board chair Alastair Carruthers, who fronted media yesterday and did so pretty well in my view, said a couple of things that really stood out to me.

He said: "Turnarounds begin when you have a shared understanding of the problem". Which is a very corporate phrase, but it's an accurate one.

Netball NZ's biggest problem is obviously financial. For far too long, they've relied on the broadcasting money from Sky to run their domestic competition.

And because of institutional complacency, which flowed at times into arrogance, they believed that tap wouldn't be turned off.

They thought netball was untouchable because of its place in our sporting history and its incredibly strong community connection. But things change, nothing is certain, and having all of your eggs in one financial basket is never a sound strategy.

And now, that basket has been removed, and Netball NZ is financially exposed.

But there's a chance now to stop relying so heavily on one income stream and build a more diversified commercial model

It amazes me - and Cheryl brought this up - that businesses who target a female market are not queuing up to invest in netball, to connect with its enormous community base, and to align with our elite players, who are not only great athletes, but also really magnetic personalities.

We could sit here and very quickly and easily make a list of the products and services that large segments of the female population use, and also make the purchasing decisions about in their households.

• Hair-care and skin-care
• Clothing brands
• Technology
• Travel
• Food and beverage
• Motor vehicles

That's just a start. But commercial partners aren't charities.

Netball NZ can't go cap in hand to sponsors and ask them to bail them out, they need to show them the value of a long-term partnership with them.

There's no doubt that commercial sponsors currently undervalue netball, and maybe in a world where those partnerships weren't important because was a big pot of broadcast money, those relationships weren't nurtured by Netball NZ.

Because they always had the TV money, but now they don't. So let's start again.

Re-open these conversations, or start some new ones, come up with a suite of benefits for those partners, show them value, and start to build a diverse revenue base to support the domestic comp.

As I said at the start, we're here now. Previous netball leaders at governance and operational level have dropped the ball, or at the very least taken their eyes off it.

But it's only a disaster if you don't pick it back up again.

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