AnalysisWhat can netball learn from the success of this FIFA Women's World Cup?
By Brittany CarterAlmost a fortnight ago, the Diamonds lifted the Netball World Cup for a 12th time, pinching back the title at the tournament held in Cape Town, South Africa.
No other team has come close to winning the trophy that many times. Yet despite Australia's success and netball's dominance as the number one Oceania women's team sport, you could be forgiven for missing their campaign altogether — such has been the country's obsession with the Matildas run at the FIFA Women's World Cup.
As someone that covered the national football side and the old W-League closely in her early years in the industry, it's been amazing and rather emotional to arrive home and see the extent of support the Tillies have received.
It's all anyone can talk about.
Doesn't matter your age, gender, religious or cultural background. The diversity of people wholeheartedly invested in this team is seriously impressive.
Record-breaking crowds and ratings are just one measurement of the tournament's impact, with its real legacy expected to be felt through a boost to grassroots participation and increased investment in elite women's football over the coming years.
Off the back of this, a whole generation of Australian children are going to want to be Matildas when they grow up, which is a wonderful thing.
But what does that mean for netball?
Make no mistake, this article is not going to buy into code wars. It is possible to be well and truly on football's bandwagon and still be disappointed in your first love at the same time.
The best thing for the next generation is that there are choice and rapidly changing attitudes towards women's sport.
For that, the successes of the Diamonds, Matildas, Australian women's cricket team and more feel like part of the fight for a greater good, with each helping the other.
As some sort of unspoken collective effort to better sport for women in this country, considering we're all fighting similar battles for recognition and equality.
Through success, these women have forced people to pay attention and have pressured governing bodies to ensure there are greater standards and pathways for girls to pursue any code they like.
What that also means is more competition than ever before for participation numbers and talent retention.
So, how will that affect a sport like netball with smaller resources, less male participation, no Olympic presence, and a dwindling chance of retaining its place at a second major tournament, now that a) it's no longer a compulsory Commonwealth Games sport, and b) the Games look like they're on their last legs?
As is the case for many Aussies, I grew up playing netball because my mother, friends and peers did.
It was encouraged at school, and back then felt like one of the only places girls could be taken seriously in a team sport that was made for women by women.
What kept us around as we got older was the love of the game, the competitive nature and the friendships we made along the way. But the reason we took it up in the first place and perhaps its ongoing dominance in this country, could very well be attributed to tradition and cultural norms.
As the years have worn on, netball's greatest power as a sport focused entirely on lifting women up could play a major role in its downfall.
The other main codes popular in this country have had men's sport to help fund their presence in a crowded market, and the more they catch on that women's sports can also be entertaining and profitable with the right support, the more netball is starting to lag behind.
There are genuine fears for those that love the game that if it doesn't become more commercially progressive it could be overrun completely.
Netball Australia and the Australian Netball Players' Association are currently at loggerheads over pay, as negotiations for the next Super Netball collective player agreement drag into the off-season.
Super Netball still boasts the best contracts around the world for a domestic netball league, but due to its recent financial struggles, Netball Australia says it cannot afford to offer its stars the pay rise or revenue-sharing model they desire for at least another three years.
If nothing changes on this stance, then the athletes will need to sit tight as other codes surge ahead.
Overseas, Sam Kerr reportedly makes $600,00 a season with Chelsea in the Women's Super League, while each of the Matildas are set to receive between $246,000 and $270,000 in prize money for their role at this FIFA Women's World Cup depending on where they finish on Sunday.
In comparison, the Diamonds will receive no prize money for their role in Cape Town. With all this in mind, it seems fair to suggest netball did itself a disservice hosting its World Cup alongside FIFA's.
The Netball World Cup began long before FIFA's – 60 years ago – but both sports synced up when football launched its first tournament back in 1991 and they are typically hosted in the same window.
July to early September seems to be the sweet spot, where netball has held 14 of its 16 World Cups and football has staged six of its total nine.
Despite this, an overlap has surprisingly only happened three times throughout history, and you could argue the last time it happened, 12 years ago, that women's football was operating with a level nowhere near the global interest it has today.
Moving forward, it's therefore key that netball avoids another schedule clash, especially if it plans to capitalise on the full commercial potential of the Diamonds looking to defend their title on home soil, with the next major netball tournament locked in for Sydney in 2027.
Particularly now Football Australia is also one of the frontrunners in its bid to host the 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup.
Although this Netball World Cup had its largest media presence than ever before, with roughly 300 accreditations approved, journalists on the ground struggled to pitch stories and were turned down on the basis that budgets and space had already been dedicated entirely to football.
Of course, interest – as it always does – ramped up towards the back end of the tournament in Cape Town, where the top nations met for finals and medal placings. But by then most people – particularly Australians – were high on Matildas fever and that bubble was hard to penetrate.
Sure, the time difference didn't help and it's hard to compete with another World Cup played in our own backyard, but those that did manage to catch the netball agree that the product was elite.
There were tighter margins and a change somewhat to the "world order", with New Zealand missing out on the final for the first time in 28 years and England winning its maiden silver medal.
The problem is not the fundamental game itself, it's the framework around it, with many national teams still funding their own way to play.
The competition format in the early stages led to many one-sided matches, and tickets remained at a minimum $70 throughout the preliminary rounds no matter which ranked team was playing.
Top-of-the range tickets to the final cost more than $200 per person, while tickets to FIFA's group stages started as low as $15 and finals tickets topped out at $120.
Football has also done a better job with its resale option, where fans can offer their tickets to another member of the public at a price capped at 110 per cent of what they originally paid.
A crowd of 75,784 people turned out to watch the Matildas play England in the semifinals on Wednesday night.
Compare that with the 5,000-capacity netball had for its main court at its World Cup and it's sad to think that the only time it reached those heights was during the opening ceremony, matches featuring hosts South Africa, the second semifinal and deciding final.
During a press conference held towards the end of the tournament, World Netball fielded questions about where the sport was headed, and while the figureheads did their best to outline all the positives of the event and the legacy it will leave behind in Africa, there was little said to ease concerns about netball's commercial future.
"What I would say is the world of netball is rich in people resource, but poor in financial resource," World Netball president Liz Nicholl said.
"Netball was a sport created by women for women and girls when there were no opportunities so, to be perfectly honest, I'm encouraging the netball community to celebrate the growth of women's sport as a whole and I don't see it personally as a threat … I'm confident that a significant number of women and girls will continue to choose netball because of the values of our sport and its culture.
"On the timing, much of this comes down to when announcements are made about locations and dates, and we were definitely out ahead of FIFA.
"It would have been nice if actually they had approached us to consider the opportunity that's missed for both events to have a lot more profile and reach."
In the wake of the Matildas' 11.15 million viewers for their semifinal, breaking Cathy Freeman's record as the most watched sporting event in Australian history, it's clear that one of these sports was definitely impacted more than the other, and it certainly wasn't football.
Netball can only dream of creating that kind of momentum in four years time in the same country for its World Cup and it won't get there by sticking with its conservative nature or by falling back on excuses of limited resources.
Imagine what a greater commercial drive, bolder targets and an aggressive push to grow the game could do to help this next World Cup become its best yet.