Is netball invisible to mainstream media?
I was recently looking through the Saturday sports section of The Gaurdian newspaper and I came across the results page. As you would expect there were results for football, cricket, rugby (both codes), tennis & golf – mainstream sports in the UK. There were also results for less popular sports such as: ice hockey, ice skating, squash and something called skeleton (I had to do a quick Google search to find out what that was!). Where was netball? No disrespect to other sports but are ice hockey, bobsleigh and ice skating more popular in the UK than netball? Surely, not.
The current Co-operative Netball Superleague (CNS) has been running since December, so why were there no results in my paper? A search of the online version of The Guardian newspaper reveals no mention of the CNS either. The last article they published online about netball was on 18th October last year. Netball is not even listed under ‘Other Sports’. Nor can you find netball in their Sport A-Z section. Things weren’t any better in the online versions of The Independent or The Times. There was a better effort by the Daily Telegraph, the last article was on 13th October but at least they had a netball section and they also feature netball events in their sporting calendar for 2010. However, top marks go to the Daily Express as they regularly feature articles about netball, such as this one about the England team selection for the upcoming Test series against Australia in February. When it comes to TV, Sky Sports are leading the way as they televise CNS games and international matches. There’s very little if anything on any other TV channel in the UK. Local radio stations do occasionally feature local netball news but it gets very few mentions on national radio.
It seems that for most of the national media in the UK, netball barely exists. I more than suspected this already but I thought I should confirm my suspicion with some research. I’ll admit my search wasn’t exhaustive – there are many more national titles in the UK – but the lack of coverage of netball was getting too depressing so I stopped looking. The England netball team are ranked 3rd in the world, and along with Jamaica, are seriously challenging the dominance of the Ferns & the Diamonds – isn’t that something worth writing about? In how many other sports is England ranked so high? Answers on a postcard, please. Sadly, the situation is probably just as bad in every netball nation, except in New Zealand and Australia.
So, what can we do about this? We’re so used to this situation that it seems normal but we should be challenging the status quo. Check your national newspapers for any mention of netball. If you think the coverage is inadequate tell them and ask why they don’t cover our sport. If necessary, keep asking. Make a nuisance of yourself and ask your team mates to do the same! Maybe then the media will realise how popular netball is and how passionate its fans are. Target your local newspapers as well. Contact the sports desk and offer to send in match reports from your team’s games. Ask if they’ll send a photographer to one of your games. What’s the worse that could happen? They can only say ‘No’ – but we’re used to that, right? Keep pestering until they say, “Yes! We’d love to cover netball. Please send us your match reports on a weekly basis.”
Does your national media ever mention netball? If so, how do you rate the coverage? I would welcome any suggestions on how to increase the exposure of netball. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.
Don’t forget that New Zealand tv is OBLIGED to feature netball after it was written into the contract for the NZ Broadcasting Authority that they HAD to feature more womens’ sport to counteract rising levels of poor health and obesity. Because the netballers were doing well, they featured them and so it snowballed as people realised that it was a great sport to watch.
Unfortunately, in the UK, football and the sponsorship £ rules all. Add to this the fact that sport is not “cool” for women and it’s not going to get much interest.
The Express HAS got a great netball column online and the Times occasionally features netball. And, of course, there’s great coverage on Womensportreport.com. Write to the editors of these publications and tell them how much you enjoy what they write: it’s a lot easier to get more of something than to start from scratch!
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about the situation with NZ Broadcasting Authority, if only we could do something similar here. Good point about giving credit to The Express, it makes sense to let them know that netball fans appreciate what they do and encourage them to keep up the good work. I have also emailed the Guardian about their lack of coverage of netball events and I await their response with bated breath!