Season of highlights for ANZ Championship

No matter what the result of Sunday’s eagerly anticipated Grand Final between the Melbourne Vixens and Adelaide Thunderbirds, the 2009 ANZ Championship season has already proved a winner, with key improvements and highlights across the competition.

ANZ Championship General Manager Anthony Everard said today that the 2009 season had been an overwhelming success and had seen a significant increase in fan interest.

“Perhaps most pleasing is the fantastic growth in our television audience, up 52% across Australia and New Zealand, from 5.8 million to 8.8 million,” said Everard.

Everard said the dramatic increase in television audiences (based on cumulative audience across Australia and NZ and not including finals matches) was the result of growth in audiences on SKY Sport in NZ, and the move to commercial free to air television in Australia, via the partnership with Network TEN.

“The professional way in which both SKY Sport and Network TEN have covered matches, has highlighted both the athleticism of the athletes, and the entertaining nature of the matches.”

“In only the second year of the ANZ Championship, we are finding that more and more sports fans are being attracted to the league, a trend we are confident will continue to grow into the future.”

Attendance figures also showed a healthy increase after 14 rounds, up 12% from 180,000 in 2008 to 201,000 in 2009, while visitors to the ANZ Championship website were up 59% on last year’s figures.

The intensity and quality of the on-court action continued to bring fans through the gates, with the 2009 season recording more goals scored (up from 48 to 52 on average per game) and more close matches (43% of games decided by a margin of 5 goals or less, compared to 36% in 2008).

Everard said that new initiatives such as Rivalry Round and Netball’s Festival of the Stars had also worked to broaden the appeal of the competition.

“The Grand Final this Sunday is a fitting finish to a great season, with two new teams competing for the Premiership in a finals series that was not decided until the last round of the last home and away match.”

In other competition highlights:

· Central Pulse won their first match, defeating last year’s premiers, the NSW Swifts;

· Colourplus Waikato/ Bay of Plenty Magic became the first NZ team to win in Australia;

· There was an even spread of Australian and NZ teams across the competition - Australian teams finishing in ladder positions 1,3,5,7,9 and NZ teams finishing in ladder positions 2,4,6,8,10 at the completion of 14 rounds