Smoke and mirrors<\/p>\n
The application process on \u201cZeil\u201d immediately captures attention with the image of a dishevelled pantsuit lying on the ground, reminiscent of products formerly listed on the Southern Steel\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
An energising job description follows, in which the writer shows genuine passion and issues a call, particularly to women, to take ownership and \u201cdominate globally\u201d. They point to a clear objective of bringing Kiwi players back from overseas and showing the younger generation a clear path to professionalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery girl who steps onto a court in this country should be able to see a straight line from where she stands to the very top of the world game, and we intend to build that line, pass bypass, until it can\u2019t be denied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe stand for ambition. For backing our own to dominate globally. For a game that appreciates the women who play it, keeps them in NZ, and sends them out into the world as champions, not exports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t nostalgia for what netball was. It\u2019s a platform for what it\u2019s going to become.\u201d<\/p>\n
A slightly bizarre list of job benefits follows. As a keen drinker and watermelon enthusiast, \u201cFruit box\u201d, \u201cFree drinks\u201d and \u201cCare and Appreciation\u201d particularly caught my eye.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear whether the successful candidate will get a new fruit box every day or once, upon arrival.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether the successful candidate will get a new fruit box every day or once, upon arrival.<\/p>\n
I was too lazy to create a CV but thankfully Zeil provides an AI-driven CV generator. I simply entered my relevant skills \u2013 being a sports journalist, social indoor netball participant and social media creator \u2013 and voila!<\/p>\n
AI added to my \u201csocial indoor netball\u201d experience that I can: \u201cCoordinate, manage, and facilitate competitive social netball programs, ensuring smooth operations and fostering community participation.\u201d I\u2019ve never done any of those things, but it should give my application a little more clout.<\/p>\n
Crafting an enticing cover letter with my fairly limited adult work experience appeared an unenviable task, and quite frankly, I couldn\u2019t be bothered. Luckily, Zeil\u2019s built-in AI cover letter generator wrote me a unique manifesto, and all I had to do was select the tone. I went with \u201chumorous\u201d.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence dressed up a fairly average collection of semi-relevant experience.<\/p>\n
I was particularly impressed with the AI\u2019s summation of my apparent strengths, including \u201chaving opinions\u201d and \u201cmaintaining strong relationships with people who may not always enjoy reading what I have written about them\u201d.<\/p>\n
Satisfied with my work, I moved on to the all-important \u201cApplication Questions\u201d. It\u2019s a slightly misleading title, as there appeared to be only one question.<\/p>\n
\u201c1. What excites you about the opportunity to build and lead a new netball league?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoping to showcase my nous for the business side of the sport, I pointed to two of the defunct ANZ Premiership\u2019s bizarre primary sponsors, Summerset Retirement Villages and Waste Management. To me, these seemed like odd branding alignments. I am unsure exactly what rubbish collection has to do with netball\u2019s athletes or audience, but I suppose everyone has to put the bins out now and then.<\/p>\n
Don’t let the title fool you: there is only one question.<\/p>\n
If I were in charge, I would attempt to recruit some vaguely more relevant sponsors. Women\u2019s brands like Lululemon, Lorna Jane or even Puma, which makes the Silver Ferns\u2019 dresses, may be more appropriate. It\u2019s one of my more radical ideas, and admittedly, netball may not be ready for such a change.<\/p>\n
Nowhere in the application process was there an option to provide references, which is probably to my advantage.<\/p>\n
A genuine candidate<\/p>\n
In all seriousness, Williams and Mowbray need to appoint someone with a proven track record of course correction in sports leadership. Netball cannot settle for a caretaker when the league is starting from ground zero and attempting to repair the sport\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n
A potential candidate is Cycling New Zealand chief executive Simon Peterson. The former cricketer led Rowing New Zealand for 12 years, redeveloping the high-performance programme in Cambridge and overseeing a highly successful decade at pinnacle events, including the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. Peterson managed a public falling-out with legendary New Zealand coach Dick Tonks<\/a> (sound familiar\u2026?) in the lead-up to the Rio Games, but Mah\u00e9 Drysdale and men\u2019s pair Hamish Bond and Eric Murray clinched gold anyway.<\/p>\n Peterson took the helm of Cycling NZ in 2023, tasked with leading a rebuild after a damning review into the organisation\u2019s high-performance programme<\/a>. New Zealand went on to win five medals in the velodrome at the 2024 Paris Olympics, headlined by Ellesse Andrews\u2019 two golds.<\/p>\n Whoever Mowbray and Williams appoint, they must bring a business-minded approach, understand their audience, be confident negotiating an evolving broadcast environment and dare to make radical changes.<\/p>\n Nathan Limm<\/a> has been a journalist with Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald since 2020. He covered the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, hosts The Big League Podcast<\/a> and commentates rugby and netball for Gold Sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smoke and mirrors The application process on \u201cZeil\u201d immediately captures attention with the image of a dishevelled pantsuit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18516,96939,73808,5195,3500,3937,4962,14736,3938,17515,1874,42,8577,321,13489,14731,40479,184539,89505,16762,117,43,69,1136,29952,11929,223,25447,61,40,38,41,39,65770,1533,102],"class_list":["post-613196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-18516","tag-applying","tag-appropriate","tag-be","tag-ceo","tag-chief","tag-competitions","tag-domestic","tag-executive","tag-experience","tag-found","tag-headlines","tag-horizon","tag-investors","tag-leader","tag-league","tag-leagues","tag-limm","tag-nathan","tag-netball","tag-new","tag-news","tag-nz","tag-private","tag-ring","tag-searching","tag-the","tag-thrown","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-transformed","tag-will","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Simon Peterson has experience leading sports organisations out of turbulent times at Rowing NZ and Cycling NZ. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n