General News
10 January, 2022
Participation numbers dive in Wimmera sports
Community sport group leaders discuss the fall of sports participation.
PARTICIPATION in community sport across the Wimmera has declined after two disjointed years of sport.
A recent report by Victoria University suggests many people have switched to bike riding or other unstructured physical activities over returning to community sports.
Registration records have shown a significant decrease in the state’s 10 most popular sports including football, cricket, netball, and swimming with an approximate 26 percent drop in memberships; from 868,000 in 2019 to 637,000 or less in 2020.
Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly executive officer David Berry said the report comes as little surprise following participation figures in 2020.
"We know there was a drop in the number of participation rates for community sports,” he said.
"We know that for a fact because the WRSA has had staff working on that category of data.
“I believe participation dropped around 35 percent; as well as a drop in volunteerism at around 53 percent by mid-2021.
"Winter sports such as AFL and netball had likely suffered the most because of the nature of the restrictions that they played under, as well as the lockdown halfway through the 2021 season.
"It would be interesting to see what the figures are for 2021 knowing that, anecdotally, there's been a struggle for participation.”
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Mr Berry said community sports clubs, particularly those of winter sports, will have to think of innovative ways to re-engage participants if they wish to build membership numbers up once again.
AFL Victoria area manager Jason Muldoon said the fall of local participation wasn’t quite as significant as the report stated; but does believe the COVID pandemic was the reason why there aren’t more young people in sports.
“On a local level we probably haven’t seen those numbers,” Mr Muldoon said.
“We’d probably be naïve to think there hasn’t been a bit of a drop in AFL and Netball Australia registration numbers, but I wouldn’t have thought it’d be to the degree of that report’s findings.
“What we’ve more or less found is that the younger people are still most likely keen.
“Instead, it may be more so the parents that possibly could have been taken out of the habit of taking their kids to Saturday games or Thursday training nights, due to falling into other interests during COVID lockdowns.
“This is especially impactful in regional areas, where a younger person may not be able to ride to training, it could be a 30 or 40 kilometer trip.
Mr Berry said the WRSA aimed to do their part to help ensure Horsham and surrounding regional areas experienced a vibrant year of community sports in 2022.
"The Regional Wimmera Sports Assembly will be running a sports expo on Sunday, January 30,” Mr Berry said.
"It will be the perfect opportunity for clubs to put themselves in front of a potential audience which will hopefully lead to them picking up more players and volunteers.
"We've invited around 40 community sport clubs from the Horsham area, alone.
"In my view, regional community sports clubs need to sell themselves … they need to give people a reason to a) come to their club or b) return to their club, and that's the hardest thing.”