"What I am really keen to do is to stop calling netball women's sport and just call it sport. When our best athletes do their thing, it doesn't really matter what gender they are," Ellis said.

"You only had to look at the (ANZ Championship) grand final between the Firebirds and the Swifts. You can't point to any sporting event domestically this year that has been better than that. It was unbelievable. It didn't matter they were women - they were just athletes.

"There is a shift that is starting to happen and a huge appreciation of what our athletes are able to do."

That, indeed, was reinforced in the Trans-Tasman series final when the Queensland Firebirds rebounded from a goal down with 51 seconds left to snatch victory over their NSW brethren.

It was the full stop the competition needed in a year when television ratings dipped.

Despite this, interest will be strong in the World Cup, to be held in Sydney from August 7.

Ellis, one of four Australians to have played 100 Tests or more, will be a key component of the Fox Sports broadcast, with the pay television operator to show all matches. Channel Ten will pick up those games involving the Australian Diamonds.

While coverage of the 72 matches of the ANZ Championship is snappy and thorough, with all matches on Fox Sports and Sunday afternoon's match of the round simulcast on Ten, the financial deal between the pay television operator and Netball Australia isn't great for the sport. Under the two-year deal which began last season, Ten does not pay a cent to televise the match, and is guaranteed income from the sport's sponsors.

"What netball has done very, very well is really grow and protect its grass roots and so, it has a huge amount of strength at that grass roots base. Because of that, the sport has no trouble gathering sponsorship. But the last bastion, really, is broadcast, for the sport to be sustainable and gaining revenue from its broadcast," Ellis said.

"It hasn't got to that point yet. I really hope the World Cup is a huge push along in that direction. The fact that Channel Ten and Fox have committed to it is great, especially with Foxtel having every game on and committing a channel to it. That is a huge step in the right direction for the sport.

"I am hoping the World Cup really repays the broadcasters with eyeballs on sets and creating a real sense of excitement not only around the event but around the athletes and around the sport in general."

Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica and England will again be the nations to beat but Ellis looks forward to bringing the back stories to life of nations who have "won" simply just by participating, such as Uganda or Malawi, the latter a landlocked country in south-eastern Africa which is among the world's least developed nations and has a low life expectancy. The Queens, as they are known, will be led by Mwai Kumwenda, the first player from Malawi to play in the ANZ Championship.

"You would have to almost write a sociological essay on the issues facing women in third-world countries and how sport is on the lowest rank of things after coping with poverty, sexual violence and hunger," Ellis said.

"There are so many issues from the women of some of the countries that are going to be here that they might not be competitive with Australia, New Zealand and England and Jamaica but, the fact that they are here, should be celebrated. That is part of our job as commentator is to get that story across."

Then there is the challenge of providing tactical analysis in a sport which features frenetic action and few breaks in play.

"I watch commentators in other sports and really try to learn from them. One of the biggest skills in any sport is saying the same thing ten times in a game but using different language so it doesn't sound like you are saying the same thing," Ellis said.

"For netball, because the game is so fast, that's our challenge. Any football game you watch, cricket is at the other end of the spectrum, there is lots of space to breathe and lots of space to explain concepts and terminology, whereas I find as the expert commentator in netball, I have to get that across very quickly and very succinctly because if I don't do that, then the game has moved on.

"There is a goal scored every 30 seconds to a minute - if I want to make a point I have to get in, do it quick and make it short. When you speak to producers who come in for the first time and do the sport, they discover it's so fast, it's hard to fit in replays, it's hard to fit in time for analysis."