England Netball Claims World Cup Inspired 160,000 Players

01 Oct 2019 | chris.mcmullan@sportindustry.biz

Share on

England Netball says the Vitality Netball World Cup, held in Liverpool, has inspired 160,000 women to play the sport.

The national governing body says a survey, carried out by YouGov on its behalf, shows that the significant number of adult women were driven to ‘start playing netball, or more netball,’ thanks to the tournament, while over 6m people in Britain say they, ‘followed or attended’ England games at the World Cup.

England Netball has also announced that there was a 1000% increase in visits to its online netball session finder compared to the previous two weeks, with over 900 new school registrations for its U11 Bee Netball programme.

In addition to the increased participation figures, the organisation also says that its social media channels also saw a surge in follower numbers, with its Instagram seeing a 28% increase throughout the tournament.

Joanna Adams, the former England Netball CEO, and who was in position at the time of the tournament, said: “The Vitality Netball World Cup was an absolute whirlwind and a huge success. It was the best-sold Netball World Cup to date and we had 9900 people register their interest to volunteer at the tournament, plus extensive press coverage across the ten days.

“To see a sea of red and white filling the arena during every England game will be a memory that stays with me forever. To the Netball World Cup team, all the volunteers, athletes, umpires, partners, fans and everyone else who played a part, thank you for making this a phenomenal success and for putting netball in the limelight once again following last year’s gold medal success at the Commonwealth Games.”

Simon Morton, COO, UK Sport – which invested National Lottery funding into the event – said: “We believe world class sport has the power to inspire the nation, so it’s wonderful to therefore see the Vitality Netball World Cup have a meaningful positive impact on a significant number of the fans.”

“A major part of our strategy, backed by the Government and National Lottery, is to bring more of the world’s most prestigious sports events to the UK. Sport has a unique opportunity to drive positive change, which has been demonstrated in netball, and we will continue to work in partnership to reap the benefits of hosting major events for the nation.”