As the sun set on the ANZ Championship in 2016, the most salient question centred around where three new teams would come from to form a standalone Australian competition. Five Australian teams participated in the trans-Tasman league, all of which had history dating back to the start of the Commonwealth Bank Trophy in 1997 and were owned by their respective state netball associations.
Things moved quickly and with little time to build the kind of following those existing teams had, Netball Australia made it clear the new teams should have the ability to bring in their own fanbases. This resulted in the granting of licences to the Sunshine Coast Lightning (owned by Melbourne Storm), Giants Netball (a partnership between Netball NSW and the GWS Giants) and the Collingwood Magpies.
