Women's Cricket, Hockey and Netball Join Forces To Launch TeamUp

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), England Hockey and England Netball have together launched ‘TeamUp’, a three-year campaign to maximise the legacy of three home World Cups and build a fan base for women’s team sports.

The next three years represents an unprecedented period for women’s team sports in England, with the nation hosting three consecutive women’s World Cups, starting next summer with the 2017 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup and followed in 2018 and 2019 by the Women’s Hockey World Cup and Netball World Cup. 

In addition to promoting all three tournaments and encouraging women and girls to support each event, the TeamUp initiative has an ambitious target to ensure that all 7 to 13 year-old girls across the country have the opportunity to experience the benefits of team sport, and includes a novel rewards scheme for schools and teachers.

TeamUp should have a significant impact on sport for girls in primary and secondary schools – with the goal of ensuring 150,000 7-13-year-old girls have more access to team sport.  The campaign has a target of over 5,000 participating schools each year; all increasing their offer of team sports for girls with at least 60% providing all three sports – cricket, hockey and netball.  The initiative will have a long term effect on the delivery of school sport as it is anticipated that half of the 6,000 teachers involved in the scheme will also access free training offered in partnership through the Youth Sport Trust.

Along with free training, once registered as a “TeamUp School”, teachers will have access to a variety of support resources.  The more girls’ team sport activity they deliver the more reward points they’ll receive, which can be used for incentives such as free tickets to events, along with “golden ticket” opportunities such as being ball girls for a World Cup Final.