Netball's nice little earner

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The great Kiwi tradition of unpaid sports volunteers helped to create a $1 million turnaround in the fortunes of the world netball championships when they were held in Christchurch this year.

The New Zealand-run event reaped a profit of $750,000 - a massive improvement on the 1995 world championships in Birmingham which lost around $270,000.

It sounds even more impressive knowing that organisers for the Christchurch event secured only one-third of the sponsorship budget before the first pass was thrown.

Netball New Zealand will get roughly one-third of the profit; IFNA gets the biggest chunk and the rest is divided between the other 25 countries who played.

Sheryl Dawson - the woman who ran the event and now heads the International Federation of Netball Associations - put the surplus down to a "very, very conservative attitude.

"It was a good old female shopping mentality," she said.

"We watched all of our costs, we had a small, lean staff and a tremendously hardworking team of volunteers. The final result was exceptional."

Obviously, most of the money came from ticket sales. The 7000-seat Westpac Trust Centre wasn't always full, but unexpected sellout days during pool play boosted the coffers.

"Most of the money came in on the final three days of the event. Package sales were steady, but it was mostly the walk-up component which went far better than we had anticipated," Dawson said.

Netball New Zealand have yet to discuss what they will do with their share.

However it is likely to help the New Zealand under-21 side for next year's World Youth Cup in Wales, and other developmental areas of the game.

The money going to IFNA will help develop a contentious area - better umpiring skills for future world championships.

The 2003 world champs will be held in Kingston, Jamaica - a netball nation which has struggled financially.