IN SUMMARY

Our latest Court Thoughts Survey, which was previously known as the Big Netball Conversation, has thrown up some interesting insights about our netball family. The survey, used to help us track the views and attitudes of netballers and continue to find areas for improvement, went out in August 2024 and had over 1,300 responses.

HOW PEOPLE PLAY

• Clubs are the most common way netball is played with 77% playing at an adult club/team and a further 5% for a junior club/team.

• The most popular England Netball programmes are Walking Netball (15% participate in this programme) and Back to Netball (11%).

• Almost half (46%) of players say they “live and breathe” netball and “can’t imagine life without it” while 49% say netball is one of their favourite sports but they play mainly because it’s fun.

CLUBS AND LEAGUES

• Nearly all netball clubs offer competitive netball (95%, the same as in 2022). 20% offer at least one of the England Netball programmes: Walking Netball, Back to Netball or Netball Now. The proportion offering Bee Netball is 9%, up from 7% in 2022.

• The vast majority (90%) of clubs are open to new players.

• 84% of those playing for an adult club/ team play in a local league, up from 81% in 2022. The proportion playing in informal tournaments has also increased, up to 68% from 61% in 2022.

SAFEGUARDING
92% of the netball family agree if they had a concern about a safeguarding issue in netball they would be comfortable reporting the issue; 94% also say netball is a sport where they feel safe from harm, abuse and neglect.

ENGLAND NETBALL PROGRAMMES

• The NPS (Net Promoter Score) – a customer loyalty metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend a product or service to others – for Walking Netball continues to go from strength to strength: +92 (up from +89) and Back to Netball has also seen growth back to 2019 levels (+80).

BEING COACHED

• 73% of netballers have received coaching in the last 12 months, up from 68% in 2022.

• The age group seeing the biggest increase in the proportion receiving training is 25-34 year olds with 74% receiving training in 2024 compared to 59% in 2022.

• The proportion receiving coaching from adult clubs/teams has increased to 69% from 57% in 2022

COACHES

• A higher proportion of coaches are now coaching more than once a week (44% vs 34% in 2022).

• Over a third (36%) say they would like to coach more often (38% in 2022).

• 53% of coaches now have a Lead Coach Level 2/3 qualification, up from 44% in 2019.

BEING UMPIRED

• 65% rate the standard of officiating as quite good and 14% very good.

• 99% say that officiating is very important or quite important to their overall netballing experience.

• The proportion agreeing that the standard of netball officiating is getting better recovered to 56% after falling to 48% in 2022.

OFFICIATING

• A slightly higher proportion of officials are now officiating more than once a week (33% compared to 29% in 2022).

• There is rising concern about the conduct of both players and coaches towards officials. 41% now agree that the conduct of players towards officials is getting worse (32% in 2022) while 20% agree that the conduct of coaches is getting worse (14% in 2022).

COACHING AND OFFICIATING EDUCATION AND TRAINING

• 43% of coaches have taken part in coaching learning opportunities in the past year, up from 38% in 2022. The recently introduced NETBALLHer Learning Offer has helped to drive growth with 15% of coaches accessing materials in the last 12 months.

• Coaching CPD virtual workshops (91% very or quite satisfied) and online videos (89%) gain the highest levels of satisfaction.

• The proportion of officials saying that the Course Finder element of the ENgage system is very or quite easy to access has improved significantly from 30% in 2022 to 51% in 2024.

• All online resources continued to achieve relatively high levels of satisfaction with very few expressing any dissatisfaction with any channel.

VOLUNTEERING

• 57% of those involved in netball have volunteered in the last 12 months, up from 42% in 2022.

• 61% of volunteers help out at least once a week. The average netball volunteer spends 5.6 hours a week volunteering, up from 4.9 in 2022.

• The NPS for club volunteers is now +20 up from +12 in 2022 and +3 in 2019.

• Just over half (55%) of those who don’t currently volunteer say they would consider volunteering in the future (56% in 2022). The activities that most appeal to non-volunteers are scoring (59% interested in getting involved), supporting at events (50%) and supporting a team at matches (50%).

FACILITIES

• 82% of those who have played netball in the past year agree that the facility is very good/quite good, a decline from 87% in 2022, and 88% in 2017.

• 39% say the affordability of facilities is getting worse and 30% say that the quality of netball courts is getting worse.

DIVERSITY AND BELONGING

• 81% of the Netball Family say their netball community is inclusive, with 69% saying the same about EN.

NETBALL’S IMPACT ON THE PERSON 91% of netballers agree that netball has made a positive difference to my mood and outlook (92% in 2022).

• 76% (69% in 2022) of players feel they’ve developed on the court, 70% feel they’ve developed beyond the court, and 84% feel more confident because of netball.

• 59% of players agree netball inspires them to exceed personal expectations in life.

COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS

We asked respondents about issues they face and these are a few that surfaced.

“Better access to indoor courts. Extremely hard to find an evening midweek venue”