Netball is the most popular women's sport in New Zealand, in terms of player participation and public interest.

[1] With the national team, the Silver Ferns, currently ranked second in the world, netball maintains a high profile in New Zealand.

[3] The game spread across New Zealand through primary and secondary schools, although different playing rules emerged in different areas.

The New Zealand Basketball Association was formed the following year, representing the first national governing body for netball.

A New Zealand national team was named in 1938 to tour Australia; games were played with the Australian seven-a-side rules (cf.

ANZ Premiership features six teams; SKYCITY Mystics, Northern Stars, Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic, Central Pulse, Silvermoon Tactix and Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel.

Exceptional players can be invited to participate in a development camp, from which the New Zealand Secondary Schools team is chosen.

Open-age regional competition can, for talented players, lead to competing in the New Zealand Netball Championships.

The National Netball League are contested between regional-representative teams, and provide players for the ANZ Premiership franchises.

The league consists of 31 games run over 13 weekends, allowing players to continue with work and study commitments, culminating in a Grand Final.

The competition includes six teams playing a double round-robin, with 10 matches to be televised on SKY Sport and 21 standalone games.

Between 15 and 20 Centres compete in this four-day, indoor tournament; an excellent pathway not just for players, but also coaches, umpires and other officials to gain experience at the next level.

The ANZ Premiership is contested annually by six teams based throughout New Zealand, with a total of 47 games played over 14 weeks.

The inaugural season of the ANZ Premiership was played in 2017, with the Southern Steel emerging as champions.

The ANZ Championship was inaugurated in April 2008 as the premier domestic netball competition in both New Zealand and Australia.

Netball New Zealand has several major events throughout the year: SuperClub: Super Club, an international competition featuring eight teams from all over the world.

Netball Youth World Cup: Since the inception of the four-yearly tournament in 1988, it was the first time New Zealand had won back-to-back titles, toppling old rivals Australia by three goals in the final of the 2017 edition to clinch a fourth trophy.

Players in this squad are selected from domestic competitions such as the ANZ Championship and are recognised as being potential members of the Silver Ferns by 2011.

A maximum of eight players are expected to be in the Accelerant Squad at any given time, which will be supervised by Silver Ferns head coach Ruth Aitken.

[8] The New Zealand U21 team includes players under 21 years of age that are considered to have the potential to progress to higher levels of netball in the future.

In June 2008, the New Zealand Secondary Schools team won the International Schoolgirls Netball Challenge in Adelaide.

[9] The Silver Ferns regularly compete with other national netball teams, both in tours and in one-match tests.

Regular television coverage of netball games in New Zealand began in the 1960s, and in the 1980s netball was included in the 'big four' sports – along with rugby union, rugby league and cricket – that received increased coverage from Television New Zealand, as well as being exempt from paying for broadcast time, and even receiving a minimal 'rights fee'.

[10] Domestic matches in the ANZ Premiership are televised live on SKY Sports,[11] which also televised the ANZ Championship and National Bank Cup; delayed coverage is broadcast by both SKY Sports and TVNZ New Zealand.

The final of the 1999 Netball World Championships between New Zealand and Australia was, at the time, the highest rating programme ever for then-televisor TV2.

[12] In New Zealand, as in other netball-playing countries, netball is considered primarily a women's sport, although men's and mixed teams do exist at various levels.