Sister act: Whoopi Goldberg gives Super Netball a boost with global broadcast deal
Hollywood icon Whoopi Goldberg is taking Australian netball to the world with her new global sport television network dedicated exclusively to women's sport.
Netball Australia and the All Women's Sport Network (AWSN) announced on Monday a multi-year broadcast deal to show Super Netball matches to more than 65 new countries.
Goldberg said she was 'so proud' to see the Super Netball competition join AWSN.
'I think y'all are terrific,' she said in an Instagram video. 'I just watched you play and I see that your fans are really loving you, so we want to make sure that we put you everywhere in the world so that everybody knows about you.'
Goldberg and AWSN co-founder George Chung launched the network at the end of 2024, with Goldberg saying her motivation for the project was sparked by seeing women's sport not receive the same coverage as their male counterparts.
'I knew that if I couldn't find these sports and watch the amazing female athletes playing them, others weren't finding them either,' she told Forbes at the time. 'I really hope shining a light on women's sports will help elevate female athletes around the world.'
This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'.
Netball Australia's chief executive, Stacey West, acknowledged the opportunities the new partnership would bring the league and netball more broadly.
'This breakthrough deal puts netball on screens across the globe and cements our place at the forefront of women's sport,' West said. 'AWSN shares our vision of taking women's sport to new heights. Together, we're creating a platform for our athletes and game to shine like never before.'
The response to the announcement was swift and positive, with former Diamond and AFLW player Sharni Layton commenting on Goldberg's video saying: 'This is next level. Netball is going [up].'
Netball Australia chair and former Diamond Liz Ellis shared the video, adding that Super Netball was 'going places'.
The partnership is inked through to 2027 and will result in 41 Super Netball matches being broadcast to the network's 900m-strong global audience. Other leagues featured on the network includes Australia's WNBL, as well as the WTA, Uefa Women's Nations League, Sweden's Damallsvenskan, European cricket, roller derby and softball.
The WNBL joined the AWSN in November 2024, with then league boss, Christy Collier-Hill, saying: 'Reaching fans globally and showcasing our incredible athletes, clubs, and competition is a major milestone for the league.'
It's a much needed win for Super Netball and Netball Australia, which have faced extensive off-court dramas in recent years, and will help to solidify the revival the sport is undergoing in Australia.
The partnership also points to the continued growth of women's sport, and the business opportunities it offers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Margot Robbie gins up crowd at Glastonbury pool party
Margot Robbie was spotted hosting a pool party as she joined the revelers at the Glastonbury Festival in Britain this week. It was held to promote her gin brand, Papa Salt, and comes just 10 months after she welcomed her first child, a baby boy. The Barbie star, 34, looked casual in a brown strappy top and shorts as she sat by the poolside drinking her latest Blood Orange Gin Spritz, in collaboration with Fever Tree. Splashdown: A pop-hotel was erected on the outskirts of Worthy Farm and the Barbie star, 34, looked casual in a brown strappy top and shorts sat by the poolside drinking her latest Blood Orange Gin Spritz, in collaboration with Fever Tree Unlike most A-listers who opt to helicopter in and out of the Worthy Farm site in western England from their five-star hotels, Margot chose to stay with family friends in their farmhouse. A source told 'Margot is a long running friend of the festival and she's chosen to stay with some girls she went to school with in Australia who live just off the site.' She was later seen arriving at the festival grounds, beaming as she shared drinks with pals. The Hollywood star is beloved for her down-to-earth lifestyle having lived in London's Clapham area as a budding actress and partying in the local nightclub, Infernos. She joined forces with her producer husband, Tom Ackerly, and their three friends to create Papa Salt Coastal Gin, which is distilled using renewable energy in Byron Bay, Australia. Speaking about the gin, Margot said: 'We made Papa Salt because we wanted an easy to drink gin to share with our friends.' Remember was seen wearing an all-black ensemble paired with a Mr Wolf cap as she sipped on a Coca Cola and caught up with pals Glastonbury 2025 is set to be another star-studded affair with Rod Stewart, Olivia Rodrigo, Neil Young, The 1975, Nile Rodgers and Noah Kahan all in the line-up. Lewis Capaldi is also rumored to be taking to the stage at Glastonbury for a secret set after releasing his new single, Survive. The powerful track is the Scottish singer's first offering following a two-year career hiatus due to his battle with Tourette's. There have been reports that Lewis' new song will coincide with his big stage return at Glastonbury, two years after he broke down on-stage at the festival. Following his emotional set at Worthy Farm in June 2023, the singer, 28, took time off to focus on his mental health and to 'adjust to the impact' of his Tourette's diagnosis. Yet earlier this month, it was revealed Lewis was set to return to the spotlight with a performance at this year's festival, in the 'secret slot' on Friday at the Pyramid Stage after Alanis Morissette. And now it has been claimed the singer will release his first single since he dropped Strangers And A Cure For Minds Unwell in January last year, to coincide with his Glastonbury set. During his last performance at Glastonbury two years ago, Lewis was coming out of a three-week mental health hiatus he had taken to 'rest and recover.' Returning to the stage, the singer admitted he had been 's**t scared' to perform as he opened up about his mental health struggles and battle with Tourette's. The neurological condition is characterized by a combination of involuntary noises and movements called tics, and can cause speech and voice abnormalities. In the middle of his set, Lewis confessed that he was struggling with his Tourette's and said his voice had 'packed it in' after coughing throughout the show. However, his supportive fans rallied around him, with the show coming to an heartwarming close as the supportive crowd sang out his hit Someone You Love at the top of their voices. Lewis emotionally left the stage, saying: 'Glastonbury, I'm really sorry. I'm a bit annoyed with myself.' Afterwards, he announced he would be 'taking a break for the foreseeable future' as it was 'obvious' he needs to spend 'much more time getting my mental and physical health in order.' The hitmaker, who had been due to embark upon a world tour, explained he needed time to 'adjust to the impact' of living with Tourette's, admitting it was 'the most difficult [decision] of my life.' Strumming: Myles Smith brought his guitar out as he performed for the revelers Up in arms: CMAT put on an animated display as she performed on the Pyramid Stage
BBC News
38 minutes ago
- BBC News
Build-up as British and Irish Lions face Western Force in Perth
Update: Date: 10:14 BST Title: Sheehan leads from the front Content: Western Force v British and Irish Lions (11:00 BST) Stand-in Lions captain Dan Sheehan has challenged his Lions team-mates to match the passion of their hosts Western Force. "I'm sure the Force will be 150% of what they usually are," said the 26-year-old Ireland hooker," said Sheehan. "They will be flying into it and that bit of extra hunger can produce some powerful things. "They would have been eyeing this game up since they probably first stepped into that Western Force change room. It'll mean an awful lot to them. "But I don't want them to think that they're going to be hungrier than us. We have to demonstrate back our own mindset." Read more here. Update: Date: 10:11 BST Title: Line-ups Content: Western Force v British and Irish Lions (11:00 BST) Western Force: Donaldson, Grealy, Proctor, Stewart, Pietsch, Harford, White (capt); T Robertson, Paenga-Amosa, Hoskins, Carter, Swain, Harris, Champion de-Crespigny, Ekuasi. Replacements: Dolly, Pearce, Tauakipulu, Faifua, Prinsep, H Robertson, Burey, Kuenzie. British and Irish Lions: Daly, Hansen, Ringrose, Tuipulotu, Lowe, Russell, Williams; Schoeman, Sheehan, Furlong, Cummings, McCarthy, Beirne, Van der Flier, Pollock. Replacements: Kelleher, Porter, Stuart, Chessum, Conan, Mitchell, Jones, M Smith. Update: Date: 10:08 BST Title: Team news Content: Western Force v British and Irish Lions (11:00 BST) With Lions captain Maro Itoje being rested, stand-in skipper Dan Sheehan leads the tourists on Saturday. The Ireland hooker is one of five players in the starting line-up who will make their Lions debut in Perth, his Leinster team-mates Garry Ringrose, James Lowe, Joe McCarthy and Josh van der Flier being the others. Four more Lions are set to make their debut off the bench - lock Ollie Chessum, centre Huw Jones, and props Andrew Porter and Will Stuart. Northampton tyro Henry Pollock will make his first start at number eight having come off the bench in the defeat by Argentina in Dublin last Friday. Update: Date: 10:04 BST Title: One down, nine to go... Content: Western Force v British and Irish Lions (11:00 BST) The Lions have already played a match this summer, albeit on home soil in Dublin. Andy Farrell's side lost their opening game of a campaign for the first time since 1971 with defeat by Argentina. How will they respond in their first game on Australian soil today? Update: Date: 10:00 BST Title: This is your Everest, boys Content: Western Force v British and Irish Lions (11:00 BST) The British and Irish Lions have a long and vibrant history. The story of the Lions began over a century ago in 1888 when they first toured Australia and New Zealand. Thirty-eight tours and 137 years later, the best of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales return Down Under to write the next chapter of Lions folklore. In tribute to Scotland and Lions legend Jim Telfer, the climb to the top of Everest for the Class of 2025 starts now...
The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Richard Flanagan: ‘When I reread Evelyn Waugh's Scoop it had corked badly'
My earliest reading memoryMy mother reading Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows to me – and reading it again and again, because I loved it and her. I was perhaps three. We lived in a little mining town in the middle of the rainforest. It was always raining and the rain drummed on the tin roof. To this day that's the sound I long to hear when I relax into a book – a voice in the stormy dark reminding me that I am not alone. My favourite book growing upBooks were an odyssey in which I lost and found myself, with new favourites being constantly supplanted by fresh astonishments. Rather than a favourite book I had a favourite place: the local public library. I enjoyed an inestimable amount of trash, beginning with comics and slowly venturing out into penny dreadful westerns and bad science fiction and on to the wonderfully lurid pulp of Harold Robbins, Henri Charrière, Alistair MacLean and Jackie Collins, erratically veering towards the beckoning mysteries of the adult world. The book that changed me as a teenagerAlbert Camus's The Outsider. It didn't offer a Damascene revelation, though. I was 11. I absorbed it like you might absorb an unexploded cluster bomb. The writer who changed my mindWhen I was 27, working as a doorman for the local council, counting exhibition attenders, I read in ever more fevered snatches Kafka's Metamorphosis, which I had to keep hidden beneath the table where I sat, balanced on my knees. A close family forsaking their son because he has turned into a giant cockroach, after the death of which they marvel at their daughter's vitality and looks? It dawned on me that writing could do anything and if it didn't try it was worth nothing. Beneath that paperback was a notebook with the beginnings of my first novel. I crossed it out and began again. The book that made me want to be a writerNo book, but one writer suggested it might be possible for me – so far from anywhere – that I perhaps too could be a writer. And that was William Faulkner. He seemed, well, Tasmanian. I later discovered that in Latin America he seemed Latin American and in Africa, African. He is also French. Yet he never left nor forsook his benighted home of Oxford, Mississippi, but instead made it his subject. Some years ago I was made an honorary citizen of Faulkner's home town. I felt I had come home. The book or author I came back toWhen I was young, Thomas Bernhard seemed an astringent, even unpleasant taste. But perhaps his throatless laughter, his instinctive revulsion when confronted with power and his incantatory rage speak to our times. The book I rereadMost years, Bohumil Hrabal's Too Loud A Solitude, humane and deeply funny; and Anna Karenina, every decade or so, over the passage of which time I discover mad count Lev has again written an entirely different and even more astounding novel than the one I read last time. The book I could never read againOn being asked to talk in Italy on my favourite comic novel I reread Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. It had corked badly. My fundamental disappointment was with myself, as if I had just lost an arm or a leg, and if I simply looked around it would turn back up. It didn't. The book I discovered later in lifeGreat stylists rarely write great novels. Marguerite Duras, for me a recent revelation, was an exception. For her, style and story were indivisible. Her best books are fierce, sensual, direct – and yet finally mysterious. I have also just read all of Carys Davies's marvellous novels, which deserve a much larger readership. The book I am currently readingKonstantin Paustovsky's memoir The Story of a Life, in which the author meets a poor but happy man in the starving Moscow of 1918 who has a small garden. 'There are all sorts of ways to live. You can fight for freedom, you can try to remake humanity or you can grow tomatoes.' God gets Genesis. History gets Lenin. Literature gets the tomato-growers. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion My comfort readOf late, in our age of dire portents, I have been returning to the mischievous joy of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson: 'There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but the laughter and love of friends.' Question 7 by Richard Flanagan is published in paperback by Vintage. To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
