Sirens call: Super Netball heading for wrangle over name of new Sydney team

It is David versus Goliath – meets Odysseus – in a looming legal stoush on the fringes of Australian sport. One one side, there is an amateur women’s ice hockey team, long-established if under-resourced. On the other is one of Australia’s most influential sporting owners.

At stake is the legal right to use the name Sirens, the mythological creatures whose profile has exploded following the release of box-office smash The Odyssey.

Sports Entertainment Network (SEN) acquired the Giants’ Super Netball licence last week, immediately promising to scrap the failing brand tied to AFL club Greater Western Sydney. Four days before the announcement, SEN’s NSW entity had lodged a trademark application for “Sydney Sirens”.

“We’ll unveil a brand new brand, and look-and-feel soon for the wonderful Giants who we have been fortunate to acquire and partner with over the last 24 hours in the Super Netball league,” SEN chief executive Craig Hutchison said when announcing the takeover. “We see ourselves as positive disruptors in netball in terms of fun and energy and purpose and meaning and storytelling.”

The trademark application is currently being considered by IP Australia, and there is no guarantee – even if it accepted, with or without a challenge – the new netball team will be dubbed the Sirens.

The moniker was seen fit to trademark but SEN declined to confirm Sydney’s new netball team name. “We are exploring a range of options for the new name and brand of the team but are not in a position to provide any further comment,” a spokesperson said.

That offers little comfort to the already-established Sydney Sirens, who compete in the Australian Women’s Ice Hockey League, the highest level of the game played in this country. “We are currently looking into our options,” said team manager Natalie Caruso. “Sydney Sirens Ice Hockey Team has a 20-plus year history having been established in 2005.”

The Giants’ Super Netball licence was acquired by SEN last week. Photograph: James Gourley/AAP

The owner of the website domains sydneysirens.com and sydneysirens.com.au – an ice hockey community member and coach linked to the team – told The Guardian they received notification last week that there was interest for them to be acquired. SEN’s spokesperson said, “to our knowledge no one representing SEG [SEN stablemate Sports Entertainment Group] has contacted the club” about purchasing a domain.

SEN already owns the Bendigo Spirit and Perth Lynx in the WNBL and the Melbourne Mavericks in Super Netball, and completed a sale of NBL team Perth Wildcats earlier this year at a valuation of $40m.

The Sydney Sirens, meanwhile, are fully amateur. “We are a self funded team, without major sponsorship or support – unlike the men’s teams playing in the AIHL [Australian Ice Hockey League],” Caruso said.

Teams in different Australian sporting leagues already use the same moniker, such as the Tigers for Richmond in the AFL and Wests in the NRL. But having both the geographical marker and the mascot duplicated across two teams in different sports would likely create confusion and dilute search engine and social media visibility of the less prominent entity.

The interest in the name comes amid heightened awareness of the mythical Sirens in recent years. Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s The Odyssey triggered a rethink over their depiction in modern stories. Rather than sexualised temptresses, Wilson’s translation revived the original language of “cognitively tempting” bird-women that promised knowledge not sex.

Long after the Sydney Sirens were founded, the beings were adopted as a sporting team name in North America when the New York Sirens joined the new Professional Women’s Hockey League in 2023. The “siren” is a key part of hockey culture as a signal for goals and end of play, affording the name a dual meaning. Last week, Cleveland’s new WNBA expansion team also chose the Sirens for its entry into the competition in 2028. Potential US trademark issues were reportedly settled by conversations between the two teams.