The UK Netball Superleague: a case study of franchising in elite women's sport organisations

Abstract

This paper draws on theories of franchising in examining the emergence of the UK Netball Superleague (UK NSL) in 2005. The focus of the paper is to explore the development of an empowered franchise framework as part of England Netball's elite performance strategy and the consequences of the Superleague for player performance, team success and commercial potential of the franchises. Twenty-two in-depth interviews conducted between 2008 and 2011 with franchise and sport media/marketing personnel inform the discussion. The paper explains the UK NSL as an empowered franchise model characterised by a shift from the centralised hierarchical model of the business format franchise to one which is decentralised and informal and whereby different franchises are characterised by high degrees of diversity in terms of organisational environment and their own structural characteristics of specialisation and standardisation.

Keywords:

• Netball Superleague
• women's sport
• empowered franchise
• strategy
• decentralisation
• commercialisation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback, which has shaped the arguments in this paper. The research was supported by the Centre for Sport, Physical Education and Activity Research (SPEAR) at Canterbury Christ Church University.