For a player who garnered success through domestic hockey – seven straight league titles in a row no less with Surbiton women – Emily Atkinson knows a thing or two about how the club game has played second fiddle to the international programme since London 2012.
GB women’s bronze at the London Olympics, coupled with Rio gold, should have paved the way to make inroads into the domestic product. But that hasn’t been the case, and there remains a structural stumbling block for that to change.
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We’ve been having this same conversation for years. Why does netball have a TV deal and hockey doesn’t? They set up a franchise league.
A franchise system in hockey would allow us to spread elite club hockey around the country and enough commercial concentration to have fans & a TV deal
99% of clubs will never get to the Premier Division anyway, so the loss of a theoretical but extraordinarily unlikely possibility of doing so is pretty moot.