Super Netball
Netball · Australia
Australia’s eight-team pro netball league — the country’s best-attended women’s competition, and the club stage the rest of the netball world still plays against.
Updated Aug 7, 2026
- Founded
- 2016 (first season 2017)
- Headquarters
- Fitzroy, Melbourne / Netball Australia
Key stats
- Eight clubs nationwide; naming-rights partner Suncorp
- Most attended Australian women’s sports league — 386,455 total fans in 2025
- Adelaide Thunderbirds hold a record three Super Netball premierships (latest 2026)
- Nine Group rights from 2027–2031: every league match, Diamonds internationals, and World Cup Sydney 2027
- Unlimited international imports; ~23 overseas players in the 2026 season
Super Netball is Australia’s top professional netball competition: eight clubs, a March-to-July season under Suncorp naming rights, and a product Netball Australia built after the trans-Tasman ANZ Championship ended in 2016. Sunshine Coast Lightning won the first title in 2017. Adelaide Thunderbirds now lead the modern premiership count with three, including a 61–40 grand-final win over the Melbourne Vixens in 2026.
The league’s commercial case starts with crowds. The 2025 season drew a record 386,455 fans and held its place as Australia’s most attended women’s sports league for a second year, capped by a 15,013 grand-final sell-out at Rod Laver Arena. From 2027 the broadcast home flips back toward free-to-air scale: a five-year Nine Group deal covering every Super Netball match across the 9Network, 9Now, and Stan Sport, plus Australian Diamonds fixtures and the Netball World Cup in Sydney. Fox and Kayo remain the window through 2026.
Ownership is the other story. State associations still run flagship clubs such as the NSW Swifts. Private operators have filled the gaps AFL clubs left behind — Sports Entertainment Group launched the Melbourne Mavericks after Collingwood’s Magpies exited in 2023, and takes the Western Sydney Giants Netball licence from Netball NSW on October 1, 2026, with a rebrand to follow. One private group will then hold two of eight licences. Unlimited import rules keep Jamaican, English, and — after Netball New Zealand eased overseas bans — Kiwi stars on Australian lists, which lifts weekly quality and also trains opponents for Diamonds nights.
What the league still has to prove is durability. Attendance and a home World Cup can sell a season; clubs still need owners who fund lists through a longer collective deal, and fans still need Mavericks–Sydney matchups to feel like sport rather than a house game. If the Nine era and private capital turn sold-out finals into stable payrolls, Super Netball keeps the weekly standard other countries chase. Crowds already showed up. Ownership and contracts have to keep them.
Related reading
Browse the league index or return to the Medalist Index.