History
Australia had not had a national netball league of any form until 1985, when the Esso Superleague was formed. It saw the top teams from each state league face off against each other in a short national season. However, this meant that the teams representing each state changed from year to year, and many teams struggled to raise the sponsorship necessary or attract sizable enough crowds to meet the requirements of travelling interstate. The competition became the Mobil League in the early 1990s, but when it continued to struggle, Netball Australia decided to terminate it and look at setting up a permanent national league. Finally, they announced that the Mobil League would fold at the end of the 1996 season and be replaced by a new format in time for the next season.
The National Netball League, as it was initially called, had a more commercial focus from the beginning. Eight teams were created - two from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia and one from Queensland and Western Australia. These were representative sides made up of the best players from each state, rather than being limited to members of whichever state club had qualified that particular year. The season was doubled in length, and the unpopular double-header contests (made necessary due to the financial limitations of the previous competition) were abolished. The teams were given generic mascots with the theme of birds in order to assist with marketing and merchandising, and the uniforms were revamped, with new brightly-coloured bodysuits being introduced to attempt to improve the image of the game. These last two moves did attract some controversy among players - several felt the use of birds as their mascots was condescending and sexist, and some felt that the new uniforms were using sex to sell the games.
The changes had an immediate impact in terms of sponsorship, as the Commonwealth Bank signed on as naming rights sponsor and several others followed suit, bringing in far more than the Mobil League had. They also brought sizable media attention in the months leading up to the first season of the new Commonwealth Bank Trophy. While netball authorities were disappointed with the low turnout at the early games, crowds rose substantially throughout the first season, and by its end, some smaller venues, such as Melbourne's Waverley Netball Centre were already becoming too small. People had to be turned away at some later games; an event that had rarely, if ever, happened in the Mobil League.
The Commonwealth Bank Trophy received a major boost in 2006, receiving a prime-time television deal with on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC2 digital-only channel. This saw matches televised live every Friday night for the first time, with additional highlights packages broadcast on regular free-to-air television.
Read more about this topic: Commonwealth Bank Trophy
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