Super Netball 2019 season fixture officially announced

The 2019 Suncorp Super Netball season fixture has been officially announced with Nine to be a major broadcaster of the competition.

Netball fans from Australia and across the globe will be treated to 17 weeks of premier netball, with the season kicking off on April 27.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE COMPLETE 2019 SUPER NETBALL SEASON FIXTURE

There will be more international athletes than ever before this year too, signalling an exciting era for the sport and the domestic competition.

Starting with a bang, the first few weeks of the season will see a Round 1 derby between the NSW Swifts and Giants Netball, a Round 2 Grand Final rematch between West Coast Fever and Sunshine Coast Lightning and a Round 3 showdown between the two Queensland teams.

"It’s going to be a season not-to-be-missed," Giants head coach Julie Fitzgerald said after the fixture was released.

"Each team will provide a unique challenge to the Giants and I am personally delighted to see such an exciting and thrilling line-up of talent across the competition. Australian fans are certainly lucky to be able to witness this level of elite netball in their backyards."

Suncorp Super Netball in 2019 will be travel to regional locations with the Collingwood Magpies taking on the West Coast Fever in Bendigo during Round 5 and the Magpies playing the NSW Swifts at the Silverdome in Launceston in Round 13.

The season will also feature two theme rounds with Give for a Goal Round in Round 4, raising funds for Netball Australia’s Confident Girls Foundation, and Indigenous Round in Round 8, which will celebrate Australia’s rich Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.

The 2019 Suncorp Super Netball Grand Final will be held on the 15 September.

Viewership of the Super Netball competition has been on the rise after a stellar 2018 season.

Netball Australia Executive General Manager of Events Chris Symington says going by last year's results, netball fans can’t get enough of the Suncorp Super Netball league with the average home-and-away match viewership on Channel Nine channels up 25.9 per cent.

"We couldn’t be more impressed with how Suncorp Super Netball is being embraced in arenas across Australia and on broadcast, both on free-to-air and digital channels," he said.

"We saw more than 35 million minutes of the 2018 season viewed live and on demand across Telstra and 9Now platforms including the Netball live app, and more than one million viewers tuned into the Grand Final on Nine, so we’re incredibly excited to see what the fierce 2019 season will bring with the support of our broadcast and league partners."

Like the 2018 season, two Suncorp Super Netball matches per round will be broadcast live on Nine’s main TV channel during family-friendly timeslots and two matches will be exclusive to Telstra TV, with all four matches available on the Netball Live app, both live and on demand.

For the first time, a match will be played on the Victorian Queen’s Birthday holiday between the Melbourne Vixens and the Collingwood Magpies and across the season there will 12 matches played during Saturday night timeslots.

All eight Suncorp Super Netball clubs will continue to play each other once at home, and once away.

The season will break for a four-week period from 23 June during the 2019 Netball World Cup, and then resume on 27 July for the final five home-and-away rounds before a three week finals series, to be contested by the top four-ranked teams.