KEY POINTS:
A proposed transtasman competition is unlikely to turn netball fully professional immediately but could be a step in that direction.
It has been tipped that a 10-team transtasman competition will replace New Zealand's National Bank Cup and Australia's Commonwealth Bank Trophy next year.
Fox Sports are believed to have bought the broadcasting rights to the competition in Australia with Sky TV having done the same here.
However, it is understood TVNZ have the rights to netball here until 2009 so an agreement would have to be reached between the two broadcasters.
Most of that money is expected to finance the competition, including high travel costs, therefore the players are unlikely to benefit significantly financially.
At the moment, only one or two Silver Fern players in the National Bank Cup are on $60,000 or more. The other Silver Ferns probably earn around $20,000 while the rest would be lucky to make $5000 a season.
That means, of course, most have to work, either full time or part time, to support themselves.
In Australia, the situation is even more dire with most players making less than $1000 a season in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.
Suggestions that all those taking part in the new competition (120 players) will be fully professional seem a little premature - particularly considering the game is nowhere near as popular in Australia as it is here.
The Australians are constantly having to battle for sponsorship and television coverage.
However, a transtasman competition is a step in the right direction. The proposal was one of three put forward last July after Netball New Zealand's review of the National Bank Cup.
The other options to come out of the review, which was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, were extending the National Bank Cup or a partial transtasman competition which would see the top teams in the National Bank Cup and the Commonwealth Bank Trophy competition square off.
The proposed competition is expected to run from March to July and see an equal split of five teams from New Zealand and five from Australia - the first transtasman competition of its kind.
To get the five teams, Netball NZ would probably have to dissolve the eight franchise teams and create the new ones probably based around Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago/Southland.
In Australia, it is understood the Commonwealth Bank Trophy teams are owned by the different states, therefore Netball Australia would have to establish their five teams possibly around Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Queensland and Adelaide.
The National Bank Cup and the Commonwealth Bank Trophy competitions are in need of a revamp.
When Netball NZ disclosed their three options last July, a fully fledged transtasman competition was the option most wanted to see.
Now what needs to happen is for the game to develop further commercially in Australia and even in South Africa - then maybe this country's top echelon of players can wave goodbye to working full time.
