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One year after Netball New Zealand unveiled their bold plans to join forces with their Australian counterparts and create a new transtasman league, the flashy ANZ Championship product is finally ready to hit the court.
Tomorrow heralds a new dawn for the sport, as netball emerges from its amateur cocoon to embark on the journey into a brave new world of semi-professionalism.
The pre-season marketing gush promises netball like we've never seen it. And already it's proving to be the case. Having the country's top netballers on a payroll is just one aspect of the sport's rapid evolution on these shores over the past few months.
With live coverage of all matches both here and across the Tasman, record sponsorship deals, billboards littered around Auckland's CBD and ads running in primetime television, the exposure netball is getting is truly unprecedented.
General manager of the league Tony Holding says the semi-professional status is a huge milestone for the sport.
"The ANZ Championship gives players a new standard to aspire to. With only five teams in each country the competition truly is an elite one."
With all the hype and anticipation surrounding the new competition, it is not surprising the players are sick of the talk and eager to get on court.
But Mystics coach Yvonne Willering suggests for the coaches and administrators the start of the season has perhaps come around too fast. "As a coach you would always like more time, but the players are all itching to get out on court," she said. "So I guess they're all ready to play, but I'm not."
There is little wonder that Willering feels she needs more time.
With the step up in standard and intensity, the new competition presents a huge challenge for coaches in the league.
Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic coach Noeline Taurua says not only do they have to contend with different playing styles and scouting new opposition, but also managing players over a longer 17-week competition.
"I think the uncertainty of the opposition and also the uncertainty of the longer competition makes its very exciting and a great challenge," she says.
Taurua's Magic side and the Melbourne Phoenix appear on paper to be the standouts on either side of the Tasman, but the beauty - and danger - of an ambitious new semi-professional league built from the ashes of two domestic competitions is that so much is unknown.
Taurua believes there are up to six teams that could be in the hunt for a finals berth, with the Vixens, Mystics, Robyn Broughton's Southern Steel side, the new-look Adelaide Thunderbirds and traditionally strong NSW Swifts all tipped as strong title contenders.
"It's not until we get under way that we'll get a better gauge of where everybody is at," Taurua says.
The Magic coach says her side have purposely paid little attention to the pre-season predictions being bandied about.
"We've really kept our feet on the ground and we've trained pretty hard," she said. "We do have some players in the team that are pretty huge, but we know names alone won't give you the win at the end, so we're real about where we're at."
The Waikato franchise are $3 favourites with the TAB alongside the Vixens to take out the championship in the inaugural year. The Sydney-based Swifts are ranked third with the bookmakers on $6, with the Mystics not far behind on $7.
Betting? On netball? Since when was there betting on netball league matches, one might ask?
It is all part of the new era of semi-professionalism.
They call it an evolution.
