Mdaka hopes hosting World Cup will help commercialise netball

Former Spar Proteas star Simnikiwe Mdaka reckons that it’s time that netball becomes commercialised in South Africa to fast track the realisation of a professional league. Although Netball South Africa introduced the semi-professional league in 2014 and subsequently the contracts for national team players in 2022, the sport is still not a professional sport.

NSA has managed to build relationships with different corporate companies, including the SA Breweries, Spar, Twizza, and Telkom, among others, Mdaka says the federation needs to capitalise on these and the upcoming Vitality Netball World Cup in order to make the sport more sustainable.

“There need to be a lot more intentional discussions to commercialise women’s sport. For as long as we (netball) are a non-profit organisation, we are always going to be seen as a project or as a social investment and we are not. I think we can start with a change of structure, make it a registered PTY LTD then you will start realising that we are here for business. We are here because we have a product called netball and we want to sell it. We want to franchise our teams and we can start really building this thing and turning it around. We have to start at the top and say ‘how do we make netball bigger than it is’ because we are not a project but it can be a real business,” says Mdaka following the #BetwayWomenInSports breakfast.

Mdaka believes that transparent conversations with potential sponsors would be key in securing multi-year sponsorship deals which can potentially lead to professionalising the sport in the future.

“There has to be an alignment of strategies. It’s not just a case of getting money then there’s nothing after that. How do we create value (for sponsors)? We need to start talking the same conversations with corporate South Africa, there has to be a mutual benefit. I worry about one-event discussions, for me it has to at least be a five-year conversation. There needs to be transparency, there needs to be trust. There has to be more value creation, I think that is where we will need support as women’s sport, generally, how do we commercialise our sports and make sure that the partners get their value in return,” she says.

Having a large number of South Africans seeing netball and taking an interest in the game will make for an interesting atmosphere around the country when the world comes for the 16-team competition. South Africa becomes the first African country to host the World Cup with the Cape Town International Convention Centre playing the host venue. The SuperSport commentator feels the upcoming World Cup should sow seeds that will sustain the sport for years to come.

“It’s a massive thing for us to be able to host and be part of it as well because I know that not everybody will have the opportunity to be part of it in terms of the involvement. So from a broadcasting perspective, it’s an honour to be involved in it. The legacy I would like the World Cup to leave is making netball accessible. The fact that it is here already does

create the hope that anyone from Khayelitsha, Tembisa, Zwelitsha, or Ngcobo knows that netball is tangible. When you watch something on television as opposed to physically being there, are two different things, so for me, it’s always about accessibility, making sure that everyone can watch this beautiful sport that we are passionate about,” she says.

She reckons that hosting the global competition will birth dreams for players from walks of all lives and that playing sport at the highest level is not a farfetched dream.

“My dream, for example, started when I was at NMU (Nelson Mandela University) and I watched South Africa play Australia for the first time, before that I had no sense that I could even potentially be a Proteas player. So for me, those are the kind of dreams you start instilling by being able to host something of this magnitude. We need to do a lot more because not everyone will have the opportunity to go to the ICC. It could be fan parks, it could be building netball courts in our communities, which some of the work has already been done by the Department of Sports, so a lot of that needs to happen,” she says.

Mdaka says there must be more that has to be done so that the global tournament doesn’t become a distant memory after it’s done.

“But what is the plan after that? How do we transfer skills in those communities to make sure that netball is an ongoing event or project? That it’s not just about the World Cup but we can go and empower real communities and transfer skills, educate, and equip the kids to also participate in sports. That is what I would like to see and I am sure Netball SA has considered much more sustainable projects post the World Cup,” she adds.