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Adult Sports Participation Survey 2019-20


Dunbar

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I was just looking through the Active Lives Adult Sports Participation Survey for May 2019 to May 2020 (I know, but these are long days when you are in tier 4!)

There continues to be a significant downward trend in participation in team sports while individual sports fare much better.

Rugby League has seen a 14% fall in participation numbers from 2015-16 to today (from 68,400 to 58,800).

While on face value this is very disappointing, other team sports have suffered more in these four years including Basketball (-19%), Football (-19%), Cricket (-19%), Rugby Union (-25%) and Hockey (-25%).

It is also worth noting that Hockey (+9%) and Cricket (+1%) have arrested the decline somewhat and have seen some growth in participation numbers in the last 12 months while Rugby League is 7% below 2018-19, Basketball and Football are down 6% and 9% respectively while participation in Rugby Union is down 13% in the year.

These are of course relative growth values and the absolute numbers for the sports differ (i.e. participation in Rugby Union in 2019-20 was 195,300 while in League it is 58,800) but the underlying story of growth or negative growth is interesting. 

In conclusion I guess we should be disappointed with the contraction in participation numbers in Rugby League but it is not as significant as some of the other team sports which is some consolation.  I would say this shows that continued investment in women's and girls Rugby League, touch and masters is definitely a strategic imperative for us.

Source: Active Lives data tables | Sport England

(NB participation in this report is defined as adults (aged 16+) who have taken part in sport and physical activity at least twice in the last 28 days)

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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13 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Rugby League is 13 a side by definition isn’t it? 

Can we assume (because it is exactly the thing they tend to do) that Rugby Union are claiming every single variation of Touch, Tag, Nines and Sevens in the country as exclusively theirs, in order to bump up their numbers?

And then adding a zero or three to the total, because they really can't help themselves.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I have just dug a bit deeper into the 'trends' tab in the data sheet and interesting to see the following.

From the data period ending November 2019 to May 2020 Rugby League has increased participation by 2% (57,500 to 58,800) while Basketball has fallen by 5%, Cricket by 7%, Football by 7% and Rugby Union by 14%.

Pity I can't see any commentary on the data as I would think the growth in the women's game would have helped with these numbers.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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If a similar survey where held in Australia the games of Touch, Tag or League Tag and in your country you could add X-League, would  be either added into the total figure or be a subset of the traditional 13 person tackle version.

For any company looking to get involved in sporting sponsorship these figures could be crucial.

Recently there was a push in the Northern Rivers Regional Rugby League, the old Group 1 in NSW, to disband the 8 team Womens League Tag competition and replace it with a four team tackle competition. I mention this because it reveals the conversion rate between the Tackle and non-Tackle versions of the game.

 

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2 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Not really surprised , full contact RL is a game for juniors and professionals , much like Gridiron

Just when I thought Gubby would make it a day without mentioning American Football on a RL forum.... hope your America Football forum ban finishes soon mate so you can fill your boots on all things with pads and helmets....😜

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4 hours ago, Dunbar said:

  I would say this shows that continued investment in women's and girls Rugby League, touch and masters is definitely a strategic imperative for us.

There may be a place in RL clubs in parts of the North for Touch, but in most of the UK it`s a lost cause. If UK public bodies were awarding grants to Touch, the vast bulk would go to RU clubs. Any RFL investment in Touch will ultimately be subsumed by the RFU.

For RL the far greater "strategic imperative" is Tag RL (Oztag and League Tag). Tag is self-evidently a non-contact form of RL, and thus less able to be conflated with RU, and more likely to be included in RL participation figures relative to funding applications.

BTW, does anyone know why the RU women are playing when our women`s season was cancelled?

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Just looking at the women's data set in the survey.

There are three time based data sets in the survey :

Set 1 is November 2015 to November 2016 

Set 2 is May 2018 to May 2019

Set 3 is May 2019 to May 2020

There is data across all three for women's Rugby Union: Set 1 23,200 participants, Set 2 36,600 participants and Set 3 21,400 participants.

Unfortunately there is only one data set for Rugby League which is Set 2 with 20,400 participants.

I think this is significant that we have (had) over half the number of players that Union had while overall in this data set League as less than a third of Union.

It shows that when we start with a more even footing on choice we certainly can attract people to the game.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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15 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Can we assume (because it is exactly the thing they tend to do) that Rugby Union are claiming every single variation of Touch, Tag, Nines and Sevens in the country as exclusively theirs, in order to bump up their numbers?

And then adding a zero or three to the total, because they really can't help themselves.

All NGBs were doing that which is why it's all done by Sport England now.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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4 hours ago, Dunbar said:

Just looking at the women's data set in the survey.

There are three time based data sets in the survey :

Set 1 is November 2015 to November 2016 

Set 2 is May 2018 to May 2019

Set 3 is May 2019 to May 2020

And here are the men's data using the same data sets as above and with a comparison to Rugby Union and Football as bench marks (remember this is adults above 16 participating in the sport at least twice in the last 28 days).

Set 1: Football: 2,083,900 Rugby Union: 236,400 Rugby League: 58,900

Set 2: Football: 1,842,500 Rugby Union: 187,700 Rugby League: 42,600

Set 3: Football: 1,656,200 Rugby Union: 172,200 Rugby League: 47,500

Again, there is some solace in the fact that League has increased it's playing numbers in the last 12 months compared to the downward trend in some of the other team sports.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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To be able to `iron`out or to provide a relative base line figure a clever sports economist could create an equation that gave a value to all the different aspects effecting the absolute participation rates of a particular sports.

In this case it could be done for the three main sports being focused on above but there is no reason why any sport couldn`t be included. It would be a matter of making certain assumptions and plugging those figures into the equation.

 For example they might start by creating a quotient, say from 0 -1, for the difficulty of the sport to play; the higher the score the more difficult to play, so League may score 0.9 whereas soccer may score 0.2, union may score 0.7.

The same could be done with other aspects of the game, let`s say 1) age of the sport: the longer a sport has been played, the longer that sport has had the opportunity to grow, therefore it`s absolute numbers should be adjusted accordingly.

 Off the top of my head other categories may include the amount of media coverage, geographical spread, international footprint.

The point I am making is that if you adjust for all the other things that may effect participation, League may fare even better than you think.

Typing this made me think of something my father pointed out to me many, many years ago, he was referring to union at the time but you could add soccer into it as well, He said union has a 50 year head start on Rugby League, and any comparison between the codes has to make allowance for that.

On an even more optimistic note given those trajectories pointed out in the recent figures, League could be said to be in an even better position than we think.

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On 30/12/2020 at 18:57, GUBRATS said:

Not really surprised , full contact RL is a game for juniors and professionals , much like Gridiron

Is this serious? If not, it's an unhelpful contribution to a discussion.

If it is serious, I'm finding it difficult to believe that some one thinks that rugby league should not be enjoyed by adults for the sheer pleasure of playing. It certainly invalidates 15 years of my sporting activity.

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9 minutes ago, Cerulean said:

Is this serious? If not, it's an unhelpful contribution to a discussion.

If it is serious, I'm finding it difficult to believe that some one thinks that rugby league should not be enjoyed by adults for the sheer pleasure of playing. It certainly invalidates 15 years of my sporting activity.

It's an opinion , it's still a free world , apart from taxes , and wife's , and kids 😂

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12 hours ago, The Rocket said:

To be able to `iron`out or to provide a relative base line figure a clever sports economist could create an equation that gave a value to all the different aspects effecting the absolute participation rates of a particular sports.

In this case it could be done for the three main sports being focused on above but there is no reason why any sport couldn`t be included. It would be a matter of making certain assumptions and plugging those figures into the equation.

 For example they might start by creating a quotient, say from 0 -1, for the difficulty of the sport to play; the higher the score the more difficult to play, so League may score 0.9 whereas soccer may score 0.2, union may score 0.7.

The same could be done with other aspects of the game, let`s say 1) age of the sport: the longer a sport has been played, the longer that sport has had the opportunity to grow, therefore it`s absolute numbers should be adjusted accordingly.

 Off the top of my head other categories may include the amount of media coverage, geographical spread, international footprint.

The point I am making is that if you adjust for all the other things that may effect participation, League may fare even better than you think.

Typing this made me think of something my father pointed out to me many, many years ago, he was referring to union at the time but you could add soccer into it as well, He said union has a 50 year head start on Rugby League, and any comparison between the codes has to make allowance for that.

On an even more optimistic note given those trajectories pointed out in the recent figures, League could be said to be in an even better position than we think.

How did he work out the 50 year head start in union compared to league? 

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15 hours ago, Taniwha Warriors said:

How did he work out the 50 year head start in union compared to league? 

Rugby Union was first played officially in Australia in 1864 and in England around the middle of the same century, although I believe ball games representing an earlier form of union were played long before that. League was first officially played in Australia in 1908 and although breaking away to form a professional `League` in 1895 in Northern England the rules were changed to represent an early form of Rugby League as distinct from union in 1906.

Considering that League was barred from the armed forces for a long time which gave union a considerable leg up in the British colonies, no coincidence it is these countries where union is very strong. I imagine there was similar advantages in the school system.

Similar arguments can be made regarding soccer.

I think therefore when considering current participation numbers we should take these things into consideration.

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, The Rocket said:

Considering that League was barred from the armed forces for a long time which gave union a considerable leg up in the British colonies, no coincidence it is these countries where union is very strong. I imagine there was similar advantages in the school system.

I think therefore when considering current participation numbers we should take these things into consideration.

Not sure whether you know this, but RL was banned in the UK armed services until as recently as 1994.

And Union was the default setting in education. For a school to prefer League over Union it would generally need someone to make a concerted effort to introduce and keep it there, and probably risk being characterized as having a bee in their bonnet or a chip on their shoulder.

So you could argue that RU had nearer to 150 years head start than 50.

In the UK it all relates to the case I made on the "selling the drama" thread. For a very long time the owners of pro clubs saw the game as "Rugby", and the difference between League and Union was that between professional and amateur. Whether their players came from junior League or Union, it was all junior "Rugby" to them.

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