The Netball Show
S7 Ep32: Liz Bloor (4th July 2024)
The net will show with Flyhawk, raising the bar for netball and winning sport. It's a netball show with Flyhawk, delighted to speak to Liz Blow, netball players association here in the UK. Thank you for your time, Liz. And a very exciting time of professionalising the league in the UK. So I suppose the first question is, how much of an involvement did you have in that overall planning? Hi Andy. Good to have an opportunity to share some of the background. We've been involved really from the start of the ideas and the concept because the players are key component part of the league. I suppose the first sort of formal thing we did was in 2021 when England netball commissioned a consultant to do a report on the potential professionalising the league. We constructed a survey working with the management consultant and put that out to all of our members. We got over 100 replies, about 75% of the people we questioned came back with a response, which is a brilliant volume of responses. And the overwhelming conclusion from that was that the players wanted the league to professionalise. It was interesting we split the results for those 24 and below and those 25 and above. And there was a slightly greater level of enthusiasm, like very important, as opposed to important in the younger age group. But even the older players, although some of their comments may have said things like, I don't think this will happen while I'm still playing, but I think it's the right thing for the sport. So it was pretty unanimous that the sport needed to specialise. And a lot of comments about the stress on them as players, being asked to train as professionals, play sometimes mid-week matches, Monday, Friday matches, and being expected to be professional, but not being rewarded for it. So they very much wanted to be professionalised. Obviously lots of questions still, but that was the sort of starting point. And from that, we worked with the management consultant to create a couple of focus groups, different age groups, different stages of their career, some in the roses, some in the thistle, some not in international teams. And so he dealt deeper into some of the particular topics. And that was part of the report that then went forward for the international board to make their decisions on specialisation. I was part of the specialisation group with other members of the Super League board to input the player's voice. And I did about 10 in-depth interviews with individuals. Again, I took a cross-section of ages stages of their career and fed back in. So all the way, we've been gathering player opinion. Obviously, what we put forward is always a collective opinion. So we do spend time surveying, asking questions, etc. And because there are a variety of views, but generally the sentiment was all we need to professionalise the league. So I'd say we've been very much included in it. And we looked at some of the salary structuring, some of the levels. We would all like the salaries to be even higher than they're going to be, but we have to be realistic. This has to be a sustainable project. It can't be something that starts overpaying people. And then the commercial values don't follow. So we've been very much involved in those conversations. What is the feeling there about the actual overall reduction in teams? I think there's a kind of an understanding, but also disappointment. That was one of the questions that was asked during surveys and during the in-depth interviews, how many teams do you think the league can sustain? Because the players understand the quality. They know the depth of the player in this country. They know the training demands to be a really top level super league player. And many of them in the conversations that I had with them said it probably needs to be 8. But everybody would love it to be 10 or 12 if the quality was there. So I think there's an understanding. There's obviously disappointment, particularly in the areas where the teams are not going to be going to carry forward. And there's going to be kind of holes in where spectators can go and can see super league matches. But I really do think people understand that we can't have the big spread at the moment of teams with very high standard of players and a very strong bench and other teams who don't have the quality mainly because they can't access enough training hours because of their other commitments. So we need to get those games much closer, much tighter. I mean, you'll know as a fan, it's much more exciting to see a game that's going goal for goal for the last five minutes. And then a key moment and that's where your result comes from as opposed to ones that are really over by the end of the first quarter time or half time. We're hearing obviously about increased payments as well to obviously those under bench as well. This is going to be vastly important as we move forward, isn't it? Oh, yeah, very much so. Very much so. The key to driving the quality of the super league, making it an exciting league and driving the quality of the roses is that people can commit more time to their training and their recovery and all the other things that happens in a performance environment, you know, just more time to do your performance analysis to get soft tissue therapy to the rest to get your nutrition right. All of that takes time. And if you're trying to hold out a full time job, it's almost impossible. So we're hoping that the payments now which are based upon a 0.5 full time equivalent contract will allow people to reduce some of their hours to be able to commit more time to training and not be pressured by, you know, their everyday living costs that they have to work those longer hours and full time jobs. We do still anticipate everybody I spoke to want it better be the option for people to continue with careers on a part time basis. And as we transition over the next two or three years, we will probably still have some girls who are pretty much full time or maybe on 0.8 contracts with their employer because they're maybe a couple of years away from stepping out of netball and they don't want to move back. So we always said we had to have that flexibility in these first few years that you could be full time, part time or full time in netball. So we're trying to build that in and in our discussions with Lee. It's one of the big strengths of the MPA have just been able to continue support relief for those player the game. Yep, that's very much what we're here for, you know, knowing that there were changes coming. We have been talking to players for a long time. I mean, I looked back in autumn last year, we sent out an FAQs giving them as much information as we could. We ran workshops in March this year on resilience and managing change, kind of helping people think about the emotional response that they may have if their club didn't go forward or if their club does go forward or they maybe don't anticipate being having a slot in there because we know that change for everybody is always something that is hard to manage. So we've been working with them and Sarah, Jen and I are always at the end of a phone for anybody to pick the phone up or send us a message and then we have a good network of support of different types that the players could tap into if they feel the need just to just offload sometimes just to express how they're feeling so that they can then start to gather their thoughts and prepare for what next for them as an individual. And then both players association membership remains strong throughout this, doesn't it? And it's just knowing that you're going to be there and it's important and there are many benefits of being the MPA, aren't there? And well, yeah, I mean, I'm down to say there are ideas because I'm too sensitive of it. There's a lot of benefits to being a member, partly because your voice gets included in everything that's fed into, to anything. But also, you know, we just checking quietly and gently with members, you know, during the regular play season, if we see somebody come off with an injury, you know, a few days later, we just, we just check in, see how they're doing, make sure they're accessing all the treatment that they should get and so on and just being another voice of support for them. And so when all these announcements happened, we made ourselves available to be at the meetings when the teams told the players if they wanted us there. And then again, we've checked in and seen individuals and allowed them just to share how they're feeling and also sometimes just to help them come up with the practical steps of, okay, so if I have to move now, because my time isn't going forward, what does that mean for my job? Who do I speak to? How do I plan this? And sometimes just calmly helping somebody work through the steps, you just kind of can relieve the pressure of all those thoughts buzzing around in your mind. So I think it's, I think everybody should be a member of their Player Association, whichever sport they're in, because they never know when you might need the help. So just like any insurance thing, if you all buy into it, it's there for everybody if they need it. Some will never do that, but others definitely need that support. I was a membership looking at the minute and explained maybe a little bit more about the actual overall structures and prices, that kind of thing. Okay, well, we have about 75% of the Superly players are in membership of the MPA. That's for this current season, obviously. And I think it's 95%, I can't move of the roses, our members. So it's at the moment the each individual buys their membership through our website and they can either handle your monthly. Our membership fees, which I'm not going to quote Andy, because we're actually looking, they haven't changed in seven years. So going into the new era, we are actually going to put to our AGM some changes in fees. What we're also looking for and I've discussed with the league is that going into the new era, that becoming a member of the MPA will be part of their registration process, because the work we do with the league, we negotiate the common contracts. We also negotiate the roses agreement. So those benefit every single player, whether they're in the league or in the roses. Definitely. And it does quite seem fair that some are paying their membership for that and others aren't, because our funding agreement with England Netball covers our welfare, player development and our kind of input and to any decisions and communication with players. But it doesn't cover what you would describe as the union activity. So the negotiating and the contracting side. So that is paid for basically by the membership fees. So going forward, everybody will, if they if they actively choose not to be a member, which they will have a right to do that, then there will be a fee just to contribute to that bit of the activity that we are doing on behalf of every single player. And that will be being paid by the player, but that will invoice the clubs and then they will deduct it from the players and first month or over the course of the employment. Netball Players Association dot com for more information on how to join. There's obviously busy time for the league, exciting time for the league and we look forward to seeing and finding out what happens next for the next couple of months. Yeah, well, thank you. And it is very exciting. It's been a long time in the planning. So I'm really looking forward to what's coming. It's going to be hugely exciting. And I think I can say that the players generally are very excited about the prospect, even though there's a bit of trepidation on the way. The netball show is now also available via Sky HD, Sky Q and Sky Glass. So let's stay and we're on the podcast's rail. (logo whooshing)
Liz Bloor is the CEO of the Netball Players Association in the UK. She shared more on their involvement in the NSL 2.0 talks.