Developing Winning Ways for Women’s Sport: New Zealand’s National Netball Team

Abstract

New Zealand is one of the very few countries where the national netball team (known as the Silver Ferns) has a high public profile. The popularity of the Silver Ferns reflects in part the status of netball as the most popular team sport in New Zealand in terms of participation. It also, however, reflects the ways in which the captains and coaches of the Silver Ferns have constructed a positive image of the team through developing their team culture and relationships with sponsors and the media. This paper examines how they have achieved this development since 1960, when international netball emerged as a seven-a-side game, and how they have done so while navigating changing societal values on amateurism, gender roles, race relations and national identity.