England Netball has reported record-breaking ticket sales for its inaugural Netball Nations Cup and Superleague events in 2020.
The governing body for the sport in England, which successfully hosted the Netball World Cup in Liverpool from July 12 to 21, has recorded its fastest and highest grossing ticket sales to date across the two upcoming competitions.
The Netball Nations Cup, which runs from January 19-26 and will see the Roses, which are Commonwealth Games gold medallists, face world champions New Zealand, South Africa and Jamaica across four days in Nottingham, Birmingham and then London.
More than 21,000 tickets have been sold for the Nottingham and London venues on three days of the tournament, all of which have completely sold out. The only tickets that now remain are for the second day of the series in Birmingham on Wednesday, January 22, which will see England take on South Africa.
Over 65 per cent of overall sales for the international series were made on the first day of tickets going on sale, which saw England Netball processing up to 85 transactions per minute.
Fans snapped up more tickets on the first day of sales for the Netball Nations Cup than for the whole January 2019 Netball Quad Series, which in total sold 11,500 tickets.
Jess Thirlby, Roses head coach, said: “It is wonderful to see the netball family and those with a new found interest in the sport getting behind the Vitality Roses. These incredible athletes inspired a nation when they claimed gold at the Commonwealth Games and when they stepped out to a sea of red and white in Liverpool during the Vitality Netball World Cup. Their ability to capture the hearts of the country is made clear by the phenomenal rate at which these tickets sold and the demand that there has been for them.
“I don’t think it’ll be long before Birmingham tickets are gone too for the Vitality Netball Nations Cup, despite it being a week night, as it’s going to be an incredibly exciting series with it being the first time the Roses have played on home soil since the World Cup. Netball fever is spreading, that is evident by the popularity of this upcoming series and the support the squad received during our most recent run out and impressive away victory against South Africa. I hope it continues as I can’t wait to see our fans out in force in 2020.”
England Netball has also experienced growth in ticket sales at the club level with the Vitality Netball Superleague. Around 95 per cent of tickets have already sold for the Season Opener competition on February 22 at Arena Birmingham.
Fran Connolly, chief executive of England Netball, said: “It is absolutely clear that success at an elite level drives growth across many aspects of the sport and it’s hugely reassuring to see the successes of the Vitality Roses now filtering down to positively impact our domestic ticket buying audiences within the Vitality Netball Superleague.
“To capitalise on this success we are focusing a lot of our efforts on supporting and growing the Vitality Netball Superleague, which sits just below the international level of the sport. We want this to be the best women’s league in the country and to get more people engaged with the competition.
“Seeing that almost all tickets for Season Opener have sold means we are on the right track and that netball in this country has never been in a better position. We’ve been working with our venues to ensure as many fans as possible can see elite netball in 2020, with an additional 10,000 tickets being made available to spectators across all of our upcoming events.”
Image: England Netball
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