The Impact of Women’s Netball
Image courtesy of theguardian.com
By AVA MCNEIL ‘22
A netball game is sixty minutes, split up into four fifteen-minute quarters with a three-minute break in between each quarter. No running with the ball or dribbling is allowed, and the ball has to be passed within three seconds of receiving it. Players shoot into a basketball hoop that has no backboard. All this leads up to the goal of scoring as many points (or goals) as possible before the allotted time runs out. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, netball is “a game that resembles basketball and is played with a soccer ball between two teams of seven players each on a hard court 100 feet long and 50 feet wide.” The original intention of netball was to be the female modification of basketball, a sport that gained much traction after its creation more than 100 years ago. But, netball has grown to be so much more than a substitute for basketball.
In 1891, a school teacher named James Naismith invented basketball. However, the clothes deemed socially acceptable for nineteenth-century women restricted their ability to participate in sports—especially basketball. After much thought and discussion, female teachers decided to adapt the game to be more accessible for women. From then on, netball, originally called women’s basketball, became more and more popular, although almost exclusively in Australia, Great Britain, and New Zealand.
Every year, netball reaches twenty-million viewers across more than eighty nations. At a professional level, netball is played in a league called Netball Super League (NSL). In an article for The Guardian, Emma John writes that she’d “never been at a sports event where the spectators were so overwhelmingly female.” Netball is a sport played by and watched by mostly women: a combination that makes it a movement for women’s confidence, specifically in an athletic setting. Moreover, as a young female athlete, I think that it is empowering to see women who succeed in reaching their aspirations in spite of whatever hurdles or hardships they face along the way. These successful netball players raise the standard to which people hold women. For example, similarly to the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT), Super Netball players in Australia are fighting for equal pay. An ESPN+ article from last spring notes that “players from the eight Super Netball clubs will earn a minimum of $30,000, up from $27,375.” Although a $3,000 raise from a netball player’s minimum wage may seem like an insignificant change, it is important to acknowledge that women are gaining the courage to voice their opinions. In other words, women from various professions, but especially those from the world of sports, have dealt with enough inequality for being women and finally feel comfortable taking a seat at the table where gender equality is being discussed.
Although netball is not a sport that is popular worldwide, it contributes to the lives of millions of women. In today’s society, netball, among many other sports played by women, are often not given as much support as men’s sports. Netball provides women with the opportunity to engage in a sport that was directly designed to support women. All in all, netball is a great addition to women’s sports and should be recognized globally.