More like netball moving ahead than basketball falling behind.

As to the reasons netball might be moving ahead, look at what's happening more generally with women's sports' coverage and add the quote from the Netball Australia CEO.

Cricket Australia got pretty good ratings with the women's Big Bash. That showed that women's sports will work on tv if they're suitably pushed and promoted. In that environment, netball is a good bet to succeed.

As the Netball Australia CEO said - "Netball has long been the sleeping giant of Australian sport. It has a massive participation base and a national team who are ranked number one in the world as Commonwealth and World Cup Champions".

I imagine the AFL and NRL took this view when they decided to start this new netball league. I imagine too that they've used their considerable influence and deep pockets to make sure it gets high profile tv coverage.

Netball Australia has announced a new national league to be supported by a five-year free-to-air television deal.

Two teams from Melbourne and one from Sydney will be added to the five Australian sides in the current trans-Tasman netball league which is being replaced at the end of this season.

The three teams are being supported by the Collingwood AFL club, Melbourne Storm NRL club and the Greater Western Sydney AFL club, with games to be broadcast on the Nine Network.

Those three teams will be joined by the NSW Swifts, Melbourne Vixens, Queensland Firebirds, Adelaide Thunderbirds and the West Coast Fever.

Netball New Zealand also confirmed a new domestic competition on Thursday featuring the current five New Zealand teams plus a new team based in the greater Auckland area.

There will be 60 games played in Australia's new national netball league season from February, with two live games and two delayed games to be played as a prime-time Saturday night double-header on the Nine Network.

Are Australian networks still required include a certain percentage of women's sport as part of their operating licence? or something like that?

Cool, so while it can be said that Netball are moving ahead, it's not necessarily because their business operations are better. It's because they are women. And women sports and mens basketball are not treated equally.

I honestly think the success of the NBL may hinge on the success of the national team, especially in the Olympics over the next decade. If we can manage a medal then the doubters may come around and accept that we actually have some talent in this country.

Collingwood have only got involved in Netball, so Cloke has somewhere to play out his contract

I have never heard of TV networks having a "women's sport quota" to meet? It wouldn't make much sense.
Networks could simply televise women's lawn bowls at 3am to comply.

Fact is that coverage of women's sport has actually been DECLINING in Australia, with the inevitable calls to reduce that trend.

I don't know the details of this latest deal, but I assume it is the one they have been talking about for the past year? In which Netball Australia is actually PAYING the production costs, effectively giving Channel nine FREE product.

The thing with Netball is that Netball Australia gouges huge amounts from every player in Australia. When my kids played sport, Netball was by far the most expensive, (and what they received in return was not much) and the single biggest expense was the NA levy.

I don't know if BA does something similar? My kids only played basketball in local rec-centre based comps, so I doubt they would have paid such a levy.