Netball’s Chair on the ‘missing piece’

By Linda Pearce 

 A favourite Liz Ellis saying is that netball is a place where women learn to lead.  

So, given that leadership is something the triple World Cup-winning former Diamonds captain knows plenty about, have there been lessons for Ellis in her first three months as the Chair of Netball Australia? 

“When I was much younger I used to think that leading was about being the loudest and bossiest and I learnt throughout the course of my playing career that leadership is about listening,’’ she said.  

 “And the last three months have reinforced that: being ambitious and encouraging everyone to think big and to look big and to dream big, but then listening to the people around you about how you get there.’’  

Yet while Ellis is clear about where she wants the sport to go, she knows what she prefers not to hear, too.  

That she is netball’s saviour, for example, for it is CEO Stacey West and her team who lead the sport; Ellis merely leads the Board. 

Indeed, another quote Ellis likes that she heard more recently is that opportunity is rarely presented in a box with a pretty bow. It resonated in part because, this time last year, making the Chair’s speech at Suncorp Super Netball’s premiership presentation after a record-breaking season was not necessarily in her plans. 

“Twelve months ago, I was just trying to find a steak after being in the jungle!’’ laughs the winner of reality TV show I’m a Celebrity. 

“Frankly it’s not a convenient time, because I’ve got a young family who are all into sport and it’s a real juggle. 

“But at the end of the day I just care deeply about netball, and if I can lead a Board that gets netball realising its full potential it will be 100 per cent worth the sleepless nights and the time away from my family.’’  

The commercial and broadcast challenges that keep her awake are also what excite Ellis the most. 

With two seasons of the current agreement with FOX Sports to run, that means fine-tuning the broadcast strategy and driving a better next-deal by attracting eyeballs to match the numbers in stadiums and on community courts around the nation.  

“That is probably the missing piece, and that has its own level of stress,’’ Ellis, a qualified lawyer and successful author and businesswoman, said.  

“It’s the thing that I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the most, but I also think that’s the biggest opportunity for us, as well.’’  

The philosophy is more straightforward than the execution, as successive broadcast partners attracted by netball’s mass participation base have discovered in the difficult quest to build a commensurate mass viewing base.  

“The broadcast numbers are growing, year on year, but the opportunity now is to really find that step change. So what is our strategy going to be that will make a massive difference to those numbers in a season or two?,” she queried. 

“The sport has tried to do that over many years, but the answer is there somewhere, and the product is fantastic.’’  

Back on grand final day, after acknowledging an outstanding contest won 59-57 by the back-to-back Adelaide Thunderbirds, Ellis lauded an aggregate season attendance of 366,222 - a record for a female league in Australia.  

But is that the best benchmark, given the 51-year-old shares with this writer a distaste for even just the general concept of ‘women’s sport’? Should we be aiming higher? 

“I’m all for that. I have a dream one day we’ll stop talking about ‘women’s sport; and it’s just sport,’’ she says. 

“And now we’re at that point of ‘OK, we‘ve broken all the records, we’re the most attended league in Australian women’s sport history’, the next thing is to go ‘how do we take on the biggest sports?’ 

“I want us to play in that arena. I want us to be considered a top tier sport. And we’ve threatened it for so long; we’ve got to figure out how to do it.’’  

By year’s end, after drilling down into the financials - “which is not sexy, but necessary’’— and collectively honing an all-of-sport vision, Ellis wants every director as well as each member of the executive team to be able to distil the strategy for the next decade into a two-minute elevator pitch. 

 In some respects, the former defensive great is looking back to move the sport forward, by dusting off the 2021 State of the Game report whose esteemed committee she chaired, and elements of which are still to be actioned.  

Her personal wish list includes a thriving and engaging SSN competition, a strategy to grow the engagement of First Nations people at all levels of the game, the Diamonds as Australia’s pre-eminent sporting team and a game-changing Sydney 2027 World Cup, along with sustained grassroots growth. 

“We saw what FFA was able to do with the Matildas, so the blueprint is there. I’m really keen for the World Cup to leave a really strong legacy and we’ve got to figure out exactly what that legacy is and how we achieve it,’’ Ellis said.  

In percentage terms, off a low base, netball is the fastest-growing participation sport in Australia for men and boys, and Ellis believes strongly that although it has historically - and rightly - been a place for women and girls to shine, there is room for all and a huge opportunity to harness a largely untapped cohort.  

Expanding Suncorp Super Netball is a priority, but so is the need to practice fiscal responsibility, with Ellis’ declaring as “super-healthy” a sport that has returned to surpluses - just - in the past two years.  

Whether or not SSN includes New Zealand teams is a maybe, with decisions also looming about the sub-elite competition necessary to develop local talent. The guiding principle is always what is best for Australian netball, Ellis insists, with much to be determined over the next six months. 

Since succeeding Wendy Archer in May, and only starting as a director in April, the main surprise so far has been a pleasant one: how much goodwill exists, everywhere, for netball to succeed. 

Ellis has already had a small win while coaching daughter Evelyn’s Headlands 13/U team in the local Ballina association: no longer needing a supply of Zooper Doopers to lure reluctant young poppets to training. 

Yet that community environment still encapsulates all that Australia’s most-capped Diamond loves about netball - from providing visible role models to physical literacy, networks and friendships, confidence and resilience - and thus her desire to repay a sport that has given her so much.  

“The girls in my team think I’m yelling at them to get them to stop contacting and stepping, but it’s always the bigger game, and that’s what I keep saying to Stacey and our staff; that we need to play a bigger game,’’ Ellis says.  

“So that’s what’s driving me: what’s the bigger game, how do we play it, and what do we need to do?’’