Sky Sports renews multi-year broadcast partnership with England Netball

All Vitality Netball Superleague 2021 games to be televised or streamed live on Sky Sports for the first time

The agreement marks the biggest ever media deal in England Netball's history

2021 season to be played at two venues, behind closed doors

Sky Sports has announced a new multi-year broadcast partnership with England Netball, the biggest media partnership in the netball governing bodies history.

This new agreement will see every match of the Vitality Netball Superleague (VNSL) 2021 season broadcast across Sky Sports and England Netball platforms, giving the competition its greatest visibility to date. This ensures the sport continues to drive new audiences, building on the momentum around audience growth seen in recent years.

The Vitality Netball Superleague will be returning on 12 February 2021 featuring 11 teams, with the addition of newcomers Leeds Rhinos. The 2021 season, which is set to be the most competitive and exciting yet, will feature some big-name signings from across the world of netball, ready to showcase their skills on court and make their mark on the competition as netball fans celebrate the return of the domestic game on home soil.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic the decision was made to host the Vitality Netball Superleague behind closed doors across two venues this season, to enable strict and consistent COVID-19 protocols to be in place for all games, supported by an extensive season-long testing programme across the league. The season will get underway at Studio 001 in Wakefield for the first nine weeks and move to the Copper Box Arena in London for the remaining fixtures.

The VNSL 2021 season fixtures are available here https://www.netballsl.com/fixtures-results/ Matches will be available on Sky Sports linear (Sky Sports Arena & Sky Sports Mix), the Sky Sports YouTube channel or England Netball YouTube channel. Sky will also make highlights available, allowing fans to catch up with the best of the action whenever, wherever they want.

Rob Webster, Sky Sports Managing Director said: Sky Sports has been a long-term partner of netball since 2006. We are delighted to be expanding upon our existing deal to bring the thrill of the game to our audiences for years to come. Popularity for the sport has increased in recent years as viewing figures saw 550k people tune in to watch England's Vitality Roses in 2019's thrilling Netball World Cup semi-final. At Sky Sports our goal is always to be the best partner to sport and we hope by working together we can help Netball continue to grow in future.

Fran Connolly, CEO of England Netball, said: It is such a pleasure to be able to announce this new deal with Sky Sports. Over recent years they have been able to capture huge moments in our sport and bring fans closer than ever to netball and I can't wait to see that continue.

We were delighted to bring elite netball back to the court during our recent Vitality Netball Legends Series, that saw the Vitality Roses play an international All Stars side, made up of talent from the Vitality Netball Superleague, and we cannot wait to continue that momentum and give our Netball Family something to look forward to.

This partnership is a huge milestone for netball in this country and underlines the continued interest in our sport. The increased visibility this will bring will shine a light on the incredible role models in our game and help to inspire a nation of women and girls to take to the court.

I am very much looking forward to our ongoing relationship with Sky Sports and hope to see more netball history made together in the coming years.

It's set to be a thrilling 2021 on Sky Sports with continuing coverage of the Premier League, EFL and the Scottish Premiership. F1 is set to return to Sky Sports in March with a busy summer of domestic and international cricket headlined by The Hundred, which will see the best cricketers battle it out in the sport's newest format. As well as that, Sky Sports will be your home for exclusively live coverage of every one of golf's majors, plus the best of boxing, NFL, NBA and much, much more.

For more information:

Sky Sports Press Office

0207 032 1445

skypress@sky.uk

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