In Part III of a special investigation, LINDA PEARCE reveals the factors that have pushed Collingwood Netball to brink of collapse.
The fact Collingwood’s netball program has bled money in its seven troubled years will ultimately be the cause of its death, yet to look at the seemingly doomed operation solely through the lens of its cost is to ignore benefits that will endure.
Or, to put it more cynically perhaps, a legacy that some suggest, and others have admitted privately, was a key part of the club’s Super Netball motivation all along.
A month ago, the last time this reporter visited Collingwood HQ, arriving to interview head coach Nicole Richardson involved negotiating the barriers erected around most of a complex in the final stages of its latest monster renovation.
MORE: Everything you need to know about the Collingwood netball saga
One funded, in part, by a $15 million federal government infrastructure grant linked to providing improved facilities and programs for female sports teams. Funded, also, by what CODE Sports understands was $7 million from commercial partner Nike that was linked to the existence of the Pies netball program.
Which brings us back to netball’s operating losses, which definitely occurred, as they do across the competition. Still, as minimal as the membership buy-in and as dismal the crowds in the latter years in particular, was netball really such a costly operation for Collingwood in a broader sense over seven years, assuming it cannot be persuaded to stay for at least one more to allow a new licence-holder time to get established?
Hmmm. Maybe not.
So, players and staff aside, if few at that shiny new redeveloped head office are likely to shed farewell tears over the impending loss of a program near the bottom of the club’s food chain, then how fascinating that much-maligned Magpies Netball might have almost turned a big-picture profit after all.
READ MORE: Medhurst – The real victims in Collingwood netball saga
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Ah, footy and netball. Such a natural marriage of traditional Aussie sports and such an enduringly strong partnership — in regional areas, at least.
Yet as the Collingwood divorce papers are being drafted, then this anecdote from soon after it was awarded a Super Netball licence in 2016 has something of a more 1950s vibe. You know: the good little woman knowing her place kind of thing.
One Thursday night in the old Netball Victoria offices in King St, the then Carlton chief executive Steven Trigg, who was keen, like the Pies, for a piece of the netball action, decided to make a presentation to the board, along the lines of “we want to get involved and here’s what we can do for you”.
Multiple people in the room — and senior Blues staffer Shane O’Sullivan, the long-time president of state league club Hawks (formerly Monash Uni) had to excuse himself due to the conflict of interest — were incredulous, with Trigg even producing a mocked-up image of Vixens captain Madi Browne wearing a navy dress with the CFC logo.
“They just wanted to use us,‘’ says Kirrily Zimmerman, former director and NV president from 2021-22. “Even though we were a bunch of women, with one man on the board at the time, we weren’t silly. And this was of course before AFLW, and there was an interest in having a female element within a footy club.’’
The offer? The investment? The money?
Zero.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Part I – Inside the dysfunctional, damaging birth of Collingwood netball
But you have to admire the sheer gumption. Or bravado. Or not. Suffice to say it was not well-received, with Trigg later told politely that what was disrespectful had also completely missed the mark.
“There were some strong-willed women on the board, and as soon as Triggy walked out and I’d come back in the room, it was certainly a no!’’ O’Sullivan laughs, while another senior figure present that night adds: “Imagine us coming into Carlton and saying, ‘Put your guys in a Vixens dress’. Like, seriously?
“They were just going to take the (NV database) and create a great rivalry between the Collingwood Netball Club and the Carlton Netball Club. That was their plan.’’
Shades of the Magpies’ attitude, too, says the same insider. “Collingwood came in with this hubris that was like, ‘We’re gonna come in and show netball how it’s done. We’re the brand, we’re the big guys’.’’
Does she think the Vixens dodged a bullet there by rejecting Carlton’s underwhelming advance? “I do. And I think the piece for football clubs originally that were wanting to go into netball was about capturing a different market, and I think that market is now sewn up with their AFLW.’’
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That database.
The 100,000-strong list of state members has been a recurring theme in CODE Sports’ netball investigation over recent weeks.
Netball Victoria owns it.
Collingwood wanted it. Expected it. Was furious to be denied it.
Asked if there was anything more the state body could have done to facilitate the glamorous new second team in town, Zimmerman — who served on the board from 2008-2022 — says it was outrageous to expect NV to share its “one asset” with a rival, without compensation, given the financial losses being made by both outfits.
“So if two teams are haemorrhaging money, why are we going to risk propping someone else up?’’ she asks. “Forgetting the good of netball and all the rest of it, we were still running the business of a team that was losing a hell of a lot of money.’’
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Part II – ‘A disaster’: How powerful Pies fell to the brink of oblivion
That had been reduced to around $500,000 by the end of the trans-Tasman league, before ballooning out closer to $1 million for the 2017 start of SSN. And the Vixens are one of Super Netball’s successful franchises. Imagine how much the paupers have struggled.
“It’s a loss-leading team, and for Collingwood to make a $7 million profit as a club as a whole and then to say, ‘We’re not going to support this netball team that we committed to’, I just think that’s poor form,’’ Zimmerman adds.
So, she says, were Collingwood’s early tactics to build a fan base, referencing one double-header in which the Pies were scheduled first and placed a Magpies T-shirt on every seat in John Cain Arena, then strategically left them behind for the Vixens’ members who filed in for game two. “Netball plays quite nicely, and they didn’t,’’ she says. “Things like that upset everyone.’’
The Pies were also completely unprepared for what was involved, it seems. In the inaugural clash in 2017, the two Melbourne rivals invited each other to their respective functions, yet one Collingwood board member was outraged when two Netball Victoria heavies turned up wearing Vixens scarves — insisting they should be “neutral’’, despite the clubs being competitors.
“I think it had been oversold, and they didn’t know the system or the structure they were getting into,’’ says another. “It was always about coming in and accessing the data. They thought their ‘investment’ in netball would be repaid by access to the data, so there was just an information disconnect. They just did not know how netball operated, and the hubris was where they kind of came unstuck.’’
Netball Victoria declined to “speculate” on the future of any opposition club, but said in a short statement: “Our focus is on the Melbourne Vixens as we approach the finals on the back of another successful season, with strong performances on and off the court including strong revenues and home game attendances.’’
Ouch.
Yet it has always been able to justify the Vixens’ red ink as an investment into the top end of the investment pathway, and a means of showcasing the state’s elite talent across the sport.
“Whereas with Collingwood, they’re just losing,’’ says one experienced official. “No-one’s actually going to make money out of a netball team so you’ve got to understand why you’re in it.’’
In terms of the ideal ownership model, with the Melbourne Storm’s expansion child Sunshine Coast Lightning the only other team outside the traditional state association umbrellas, Netball Australia chief executive Kelly Ryan says that, despite the Collingwood experience, there is no right or wrong way.
One issue now is whether — like Netball NSW did back in 2016 when it acquired the licences for both the existing Swifts and the newcomers who would eventually be branded as the Giants as part of an alliance with football club GWS — Netball Vic should take over what Collingwood seems about to discard and set up a second team in either Melbourne or a regional area such as Geelong, Bendigo or Ballarat.
Frankly, it is hard to imagine any local association running a program without that financial backing, let alone stadia and other considerations.
“You know you’re going to make a loss, so what’s the opportunity cost of spending that money on that team?’’ Zimmerman says when asked if NV should take on the task, in the interests of providing more high performance opportunities, among other things.
“If you’ve got shared services to help split costs and so, say, your loss was half a million dollars, is that better off being invested in grassroots netball growing members, or is it better off being invested in a start-up?’’
READ MORE: Star players offered overseas amid uncertainty
Ryan stresses netball is not alone in its clubs’ struggles to make money in the current national landscape, nor is the financial return the most important bottom line.
“We look at the sport more broadly and in totality, and we believe that having an elite competition actually helps us drive a strong participation base,’’ she says.
“And the numbers that we’re seeing even this week — when netball’s participation numbers have grown, again, and we’re the third highest team participation sport, now surpassing AFL — would suggest that that is an incredibly strong success metric that is driven as the result of having elite competition.’’
Hawks VNL president O’Sullivan, who remains football administration manager at Carlton and served eight years on the NV board, thinks that perhaps the member association-owned model is preferable, no matter whether or not the brand itself is footy-linked.
“I think that’s why the Vixens have been a bit more successful, perhaps, because everyone’s a netball tragic, or person, and that’s their business,’ says the veteran administrator. “But if you get the right people in and the board support it, it could work. It all depends who are the people involved.’’
Outgoing Lightning CEO Danielle Smith believes running a privately-owned club is not necessarily more difficult, but is certainly different, given the inability to communicate directly with participants at grassroots level. Where the Sunshine Coast has its advantage is in a regional location that has fostered valuable engagement with the local community as a whole.
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Super Netball Team Participation Agreement applications are due to be lodged next week, and NA would not confirm or deny a suggestion that Collingwood would receive an extension if one was requested.
Meantime, publicly at least, Tasmania has confirmed it is at the head of the “pick-me” queue, several years after it lodged its first submission to join SSN. One that failed to even reach board level, incidentally, as part of what has been described as “a challenging process” by those involved.
Yet fast-forward just a few weeks and the enthusiasm of Netball Tasmania CEO Mitch Coulson was palpable in his now-unexpectedly regular interviews with CODE Sports, and if Victoria must still surely be the natural home for Collingwood’s replacement then that’s not to say Tassie is not also worthy.
“It’s been a bit of a whirlwind and it’s hard not to let your mind get carried away in terms of what could be,’’ Coulson admits. ”Obviously at the moment there’s still a bit of water to go under the bridge, and from a numbers point of view I totally get why there’s that theory or principle around Melbourne being big enough for two clubs. It probably is. Absolutely.
“But if things eventuate or unfold as they might, then just the potential of this opportunity, it’s pretty hard not to be excited about it.’’
Coulson and Ryan are due to chat early next week, when the Tassie boss will no doubt spruik the revamped Hobart stadium that is home to NBL’s JackJumpers among selling points that include a whole-of-state approach – despite the potential stumbling block that may be host broadcaster FOX Sports, given that a big mainland location is clearly a far more comfortable logistical and financial fit.
Yet the Magpies’ withdrawal would free up at least an initial $820,000, one would assume, which is the balance of the Tasmanian Government’s current three-year arrangement to bring one Collingwood pre-season and one SSN to the island until the end of 2025, and few would suggest there has been great value from the millions spent over the past six.
Geelong is another location being suggested — not the AFL club, but the community, and also where a fit-for-purpose stadium is a key consideration. But in this case, as an important missing piece, and Kelly Ryan insists that just because there are currently two Victorian teams “doesn’t necessarily equate to having two in the next iteration’’ of the league.
Indeed, a lingering concern is that if the Magpies and their collective might were unable to make a success of a netball team in Melbourne — as distinct, of course, from whether or not they should have been — then what hope anyone else?
Or, to go a bit more macro, how much of all this is even about Collingwood at all?
Maybe a competition in which every team loses money, despite Lightning owner Matt Tripp claiming this week that the Sunny Coast are close to breaking even, is simply not sustainable in the long term without a large injection of funds.
Cue last year’s private equity nibble from a consortium headed by netball fan and entrepreneur Matt Berriman, with which NA chose not to engage, and then commissioned its own review (to use netball’s world of the week) into SSN.
Results are still yet to be released.
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Collingwood insists that reports of its netball death are premature; that its review is unrelated to the disappointing on-court performance the year after its third finals appearance in six seasons, and simply about whether the operation is financially viable.
Dejected players and staff, who hold out little hope of a reprieve in an HIA centre environment where others are now awkwardly tiptoeing around, will be in Sydney this weekend for round 10. Which, coincidentally, is when one of netball’s oldest clubs and its most successful — noting that the Vixens were divided as the Phoenix and Kestrels until merging in 2008 — play their annual heritage match.
Seven-time premiers across the three versions of national competitions, the second-placed Swifts will compete in the yellow dress that pays homage to the Sydney Swifts era from 1997-2007, before its rebranding as NSW, while Paige Hadley (150) and Sarah Klau (100) are both celebrating milestones.
While the Magpies are ticking off their last handful of appearances before the black-and-white netball frocks are almost-certainly mothballed forever, the wooden spoon favourites will soon log a milestone of their own that will be far more bitter than sweet.
Game 100 for Collingwood netball will tick over in round 13.
Against guess who?
The Vixens.
Who else?
NEXT WEEK AT CODE NETBALL: IF NOT COLLINGWOOD, THEN WHERE? AND WHEN?
