Informal Sport as a Health and Social Resource (2023)
While club-based sport remains an important part of the fabric of our wider society, participation statistics continue to reinforce the idea that more and more people are choosing to participate in sport outside of club-based structures (Cameron et al., 2022; Sport Australia, 2020). Our research illustrates how participation in informal sport is hugely beneficial to participants and their communities when it comes to delivering on social, health and economic outcomes.
The cost of inactivity is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions in Australia. The minimal costs of providing support for informal sport participation, combined with the documented benefits on mental and physical health, mean that more investment and better planning should be given to informal sports in Australia.
In this report, we summarise findings from phase two of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage project (LP180100038), which aims to enhance our understanding of informal sport in ways that can inform future planning and provision across all tiers of government, sport and community stakeholders. The research is funded by the ARC in partnership with VicHealth, Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (Western Australia), Centre for Multicultural Youth and Cricket Victoria.