As an American, have you ever seen/ heard the sport called "netball" being played in the US (amateur or pro)?

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BoseSounddock@reddit

Counter question:

Every Google image result for netball that I’ve seen shows women playing it. Do men also play netball where you are from?

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AnythingButWhiskey@reddit

You used the wrong search terms. Look up “coed naked netball”.

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I lived in Australia a couple of times and my Aussie roommate told me in high school they had one game a year where all the guys would wear skirts and play netball as a fundraiser. It’s like how in America girls will play a “powderpuff football” game where the girls will play flag football for fun and/or a fundraiser.

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Swurphey@reddit

It's got the same thing going on as softball and ringette

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humpty_dumpty1ne@reddit

In Australia I've only heard of women playing professionally but on a smaller local scale mixed competitions have been getting more popular lately

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

I grew up in the UK and in sports in school, girls played Netball and field hockey, boys played soccer and rugby. That is just how it was split. I think any boys who wanted to get into any ball-in-hoop sport would naturally go for basketball, which was an option also in school when it was raining as the court was indoors (whether girls played it too, I am unsure).

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Infinite_Crow_3706@reddit

Same for me. Netball and hockey were the girls sports, boys played football, rugby and cricket

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

Ah yes cricket and athletics in the summer. Rounders was an occasional one. I think girls did tennis too. Seems like a silly divide really.

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Waltz8@reddit (OP)

It's mostly female dominated. I've heard there's men's teams now, but I've never seen a professional men's league or an international game between men's national teams.

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

I believe there were mens teams in the Commonwealth games.

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Waltz8@reddit (OP)

Thanks for that. I don't follow the Commonwealth games a lot, but I originally come from a country which is good at netball (ranked top 6 worldwide); and I don't think they have a men's team. Also, growing up as boys we were told that netball was for women and men should play soccer.

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

Now I look it up, I can't find this being the case but there is a campaign to include it in the next one.

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bonzai113@reddit

I believe a few years back there was a netball tournament in Australia. The tournament officials invited a single boys team to complete and the boys swept the tournament.

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BoseSounddock@reddit

Do men of a similar skill set gravitate to basketball?

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TheLizardKing89@reddit

From the Wikipedia article:

It is one of a few sports created exclusively for women and girls and remains primarily played by them

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Ladybug_Fuckfest@reddit

I've seen it played. It's hilarious!

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alamedarockz@reddit

The game we called “netball” was a throw/catch volleyball lead-up game.

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BraddockAliasThorne@reddit

english schoolgirl game

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free-toe-pie@reddit

Nope. I love watching shows from the UK and Australia. So when I saw someone playing netball on a show years ago, I had to look it up. No one plays it here. But it seems alright.

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stevenmacarthur@reddit

While Netball isn't played at a high level in the US, being it's mainly played by women in the British Commonwealth, I can guarantee you this: if there is a sport somewhere in the world, Americans will eventually form a group and try to play it. They may not be great or even good at said sport, but they will try it out!

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Jordan_1-0ve@reddit

Yes. Looks stupid. Looks like the "defense" is playing mentally challenged kids (the offense) and just let's them make shots

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ButItSaysOnline@reddit

Never heard of it.

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anneofgraygardens@reddit

I'm aware that there's a game called netball that people play in Australia but I don't know what it looks like. It's conceivable I've seen it played but if so I wasn't aware of it.

But I can almost guarantee that sometime, somewhere plays it, despite my ignorance of it.

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Swimming-Book-1296@reddit

Its basically a misinterpretation of the 1900's basketball rules.

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dobbydisneyfan@reddit

I’d’ve 100% assumed you meant volleyball so I guess not

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Showdown5618@reddit

When basketball was first invented in America, it was very similar to modern netball.

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thatrightwinger@reddit

My understanding is that it's pretty much just a girl's sport in Australia. Perhaps it's widely played elsewhere, but I've never seen it played in the US at all. And there's a small presence of footy in the US.

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mickirishname@reddit

Like another poster said, I’d literally never heard of this sport until I watched Kath and Kim.

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Swurphey@reddit

OP where are you from? When I heard of it all the example pics were from Africa

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Swurphey@reddit

I stumbed across it on Wikipedia when reading about non-US sports (I ended up there after clicking "stick and ball games" on cricket and clicked basketball's umbrella category) but I've never heard of it aside from that once

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oligarchyreps@reddit

50 years old. I heard of netball once about 4 months ago. Had to Google it!

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jay5627@reddit

Yes, but only bc I worked with a bunch of Aussies

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kinkworks3000@reddit

As an American living in NZ...only heard of it after arriving in NZ

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Derplord4000@reddit

I've heard of it, thanks to places like this subreddit, but never seen it in real life.

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CatOfGrey@reddit

I remember going down this rabbit hole during the early covid years, watched a few videos on YouTube.

It reminds me of a version of basketball where the rules are written in an extreme way discouraging any sort of 'direct action'.

Zero contact allowed - I remember defenders had to work to stay far enough away from others to avoid penalty. Players can't run with the ball. I think it was 'pass or shoot' with the ball, not much 'dribbling' or other advancing with the ball. It looked like an extremely awkward game of basketball.

So it looked like a very awkward game of basketball, where defenders had to look like they weren't doing much to stop the opponents, while the attacking team had to either had to shoot, but if they couldn't, they had to give the ball up. Progress could only take place without the ball. It looked like both teams were trying to avoid the basketball objective.

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Tommy_Wisseau_burner@reddit

Yes, I’ve heard of netball. We played it in high school during gym. It just felt like offbrand basketball

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Antitenant@reddit

I lived in Australia for some time, so I am somewhat familiar with netball. My local park when I lived in Sydney had some netball courts.

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river-running@reddit

I've heard of it, always from British people, but have never seen it played or known anyone who played it.

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xSparkShark@reddit

I only know of it from basketball social media pages making fun of it.

It isn’t played in the US professionally and it’s not played among amateurs in my region at least. Men and Women both play basketball in the US.

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bmadisonthrowaway@reddit

Netball is so unknown in the US that I have had to google what it is multiple times, when it came up in various Australian contexts.

I was recently watching an Australian TV show and it took me like 2 episodes to realize that one of the people on the show was wearing a netball uniform.

The way certain people talk about soccer/futbol in the US ("nobody watches that and it'll never catch on here") is the actual reality on the ground where netball is concerned.

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bonanzapineapple@reddit

No, assuming it's different than basketball

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brzantium@reddit

I've heard of it, but I've never seen it.

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Inside_Ad9026@reddit

No, I only know of netball because I lived in England.

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1979tlaw@reddit

I’m familiar with netball as I’ve seen it online and I like all competition sports. No netball isn’t a thing here. There may be a league somewhere, America is huge with lots of people, but it’s certainly not popular and I don’t believe most people would even know what it is.

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_Smedette_@reddit

Only learned about it once I moved to Australia.

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Darryl_Lict@reddit

I only heard of it when I traveled in Australia.

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PrimaryAny6314@reddit

No, only on Kath and Kim (Australian show)

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BoseSounddock@reddit

No. I assumed you were talking about the game play on the beach here but apparently that’s called spikeball.

Never heard anything about netball.

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Existing_Charity_818@reddit

I also would have assumed spikeball

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cherrycokeicee@reddit

I assumed this was the sport that visually impaired people play (that I learned about from meeting a blind guy at a bar), but that's goalball.

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GrandmasHere@reddit

I have heard of it because my mother, who was British, told me on several occasions that she played netball when she was at school. Never heard of it being played in the USA.

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BillHistorical9001@reddit

Played it once 40 years ago.

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non_clever_username@reddit

Never seen it in the US.

Heard of it only because I was given that answer once to “how/why does Britain not seem to do anything with basketball, even though much of Europe picked it up the last 40 years?”

IIRC the answer was that guys see basketball as too close to netball, and netball is known as a woman’s thing, so there’s a stigma against playing basketball. Not to mention the regular competition from soccer, etc.

It’s super odd if you think about it. Britain is one of the more powerful developed countries and basketball is a pretty popular sport in the Olympics and worldwide. But tbh I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard anything about a British national basketball team (does it exist?) nor can I recall any British player making the NBA, despite there being tons on Europeans in it now.

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Infinite_Crow_3706@reddit

I think you're overestimating the popularity of basketball globally. It's a niche in some countries such as those in the Balkans but overall it's far behind rugby as the #2 or #3 sport. Football is of course far and away #1 in almost every country. The coutries with more basketball presence don't have (much) rugby presence such as Greece, Serbia, Turkey so that's probably a factor and you don't see basketball much in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France where Rugby is a solid #2 sport.

However, Netball is certainly regarded as a girls sport and the closeness of basketball to netball probably does hurt the uptake. My secondary school (11-16) had basketball, volleyball as an indoor sport in winter but usually 6-a-side football would be the preferred choice.

The similarity of baseball to cricket, especially T20, would similarly hurt the developemt of Britiah baseball players.

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

I can speak as a Brit, basketball is definitely seen as a cool sport, that part is OK. The widest played of the US sports recreationally, there are hoops in most school gyms, parks and I would say people know the rules, whereas they are hopeless with American football or baseball. Netball is seen as a totally separate thing, despite being a default girls sport in schools. It is an odd one, maybe it never gets beyond the playground / recreational level into anything more serious. The UK has cricket and rugby drawing people in which say Greece lacks. Still surprising though, there are a lot of tall, athletic people who it would be perfect for.

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G0PACKER5@reddit

Nope

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Visible_Noise1850@reddit

My first time ever being exposed to "netball" was reading the title of this post.

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pinniped90@reddit

I have heard of it but not seen it played live.

Women's basketball on the same floor and mostly the same rulebook as the men has become a much bigger sport. The 3pt line and ball itself are a little different but it's fully basketball.

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TopperMadeline@reddit

I’ve only come across it through YouTube videos or usually non-American teams playing it.

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TheRealCrustycabs@reddit

no. I've barely heard of Jai Alai

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papercranium@reddit

I played netball when I lived abroad, but I've never once seen it played in the US. Girls here just play basketball like boys do.

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MortimerDongle@reddit

I've heard of the sport, but as far as I know it isn't played in the US.

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Visible-Shop-1061@reddit

No, but I have heard of it being played in New Zealand.

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Vast_Pension1320@reddit

It’s a great way to rough up the Bolton sisters for seducing Bretty.

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BankManager69420@reddit

I’ve heard of it but it’s not common knowledge. It’s a fairly niche sport that the average person has never heard of.

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gnfnrf@reddit

I have heard of it only in the context of (sorry) "that strange women's sport that looks like someone forgot half of how basketball worked and tried to make up all the missing bits quickly that they play in other countries." I've seen maybe 15 seconds of video of it being played. I have never played it, seen it played, or heard of anyone in the US playing it. People probably do, there are a lot of us, but not many.

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PomegranateCool1754@reddit

No

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Current_Poster@reddit

I've heard of it, but never seen it played in-person. From what I understand, some countries use it for womens' scholastic athletics the way (traditionally) girls' softball was used instead of baseball in the US. We just go ahead and have "girls' basketball", for contrast.

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Prometheus_303@reddit

I haven't heard of it in America. But I'm not particularly jock-y and don't engage in too many sports related conversations so I may not be the best person to ask...

Though I am aware of its existence... From the YouTube clip posted plus it was also involved in an episode or so of The Almighty Johnsons, a series from New Zealand's TV3.

In one episode the main character gets a gig as a mascot for a netball team so he might potentially get with a few of the players. Though iirc you don't actually see any of the game. It's just him getting into a fight with the opposing teams mascot and thus getting kicked out ...

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IwannaAskSomeStuff@reddit

I am only familiar with it from QI as well. I think it's mentioned in a few episodes, and if they hadn't given the explanation of it's creation stemming from basketball, I would have thought it was a variation of volleyball.

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Electrical_Feature12@reddit

No never

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RichardRichOSU@reddit

Netball was once viewed as the women’s version of basketball here in the United States, similar to how softball is to baseball. Some parts of the United States didn’t allow women to play basketball, and netball or similarly women’s basketball(different than basketball we know) were accepted in its place. Once Title IX came into effect in 1972, basketball quickly swallowed up netball and women’s basketball.

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Standard-Outcome9881@reddit

Don’t have the slightest idea what “netball” is. I only watch baseball, football (not soccer) basketball and hockey.

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nogueydude@reddit

Nope

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zebostoneleigh@reddit

Never heard of it.

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Hajidub@reddit

No dribbling btw.

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shelwood46@reddit

I've seen it on tv during the Olympics but otherwise, no

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dan_blather@reddit

Heard about it from Australian TV shows, but I've never seen it played in the US. I've seen people play cricket in a parking lot, but the closest thing I've seen to netball is a basketball net with a missing backboard at a public park.

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Master-Collection488@reddit

Here and there, but it's never been massively popular here.

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DeadMemesNowPlease@reddit

I have seen clips on TikTok.

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AcidaliaPlanitia@reddit

I know it exists, but I'm barely aware of what it is.

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Dapper-Importance994@reddit

I've seen multiple highlights on tik tok, but can't remember ever seeing highlights anywhere else, even sports reports

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CleverGirlRawr@reddit

Nope, never.

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izlude7027@reddit

Netball's development traces back to American sports teacher Clara Gregory Baer's misinterpretation of the basketball rule book in 1895.

Exquisite.

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Super-History-388@reddit

I knew someone from South Africa who played it, but it doesn’t exist in the U.S., except maybe as an exhibition.

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Rourensu@reddit

As a non-sports person, I would use the term “netball” to describe volleyball.

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Help1Ted@reddit

Honestly the first thing I thought of before reading the other comments.

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seifd@reddit

No, I've only heard of it through stories written by British people.

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slothfarm@reddit

I’ve lived all over the south, done Boy Scouts and stuff, learned a lot of weird schoolyard games, never even. Heard of this.

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663691@reddit

Yrs I’ve heard of it. Like basketball without a backboard player in Australia and I think Britain.

I have never seen or known about anyone playing netball here. I assume some people do but it would be very rare

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letskeepitcleanfolks@reddit

Sounds made up

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lsbnyellowsourfruit@reddit

My British coworkers at summer camp taught us this and I had literally never heard of it before.

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Infinite-Surprise-53@reddit

I would say that for all of the reasons cricket and rugby aren't played in the US, double it for netball

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LSATMaven@reddit

I’ve only heard of it from one Australian who likes it.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

I've heard of it, and I'm sure there has been at least one netball game played in the US at some point in history, but I'm not aware of any organized netball leagues here, and I doubt it's played by anyone other than immigrants from countries where it's popular.

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ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit

Netball is kind of an ersatz basketball. I don't think it's widely played here.