Sports Management Issue 1 2012 - Leisure Opportunities

RESEARCH
ACTIVE
PEOPLE
SURVEY 5
The Active
People Survey
(APS) provides
robust and
independent information
about adult sports
participation in England.
Sport England’s director
of sport, Lisa O’Keefe,
discusses some of the
findings in the fifth survey
I
n the most exciting year for sport
in our generation, our eyes are
fixed on the home Olympic and
Paralympic Games and ensuring
everyone maximises the opportunities
the 2012 Games will undoubtedly bring
for community sport. Understanding
what’s happened in community sport in
the seven years since we won the Olympic
bid, in 2005, is helping to inform
APS data identifies the barriers that
prevent people playing regular sport
decisions and investments to grow participation
over the next five years.
The headlines from the Active People
Survey (APS) 5 show the number of
people aged 16 and over playing sport
at least three times a week has risen by
around 630,000 since 2005/06 to 6.927
million people. But look a little deeper
and we can see that this growth is not
being seen uniformly across the population;
in fact participation rates among
16- to 19-year-olds actually fell over
the past three years.
Addressing that challenge is a major
focus of Sport England’s strategy for
2012 to 2017. Our ambition is to ‘create a
sporting habit for life‘ by ensuring that
young people are regularly playing sport
and to break down the barriers that,
until now, have prevented young people
from continuing their interest in sport
into their adult life.
The latest survey results also illustrate
that the gender gap persists in sport.
While the number of men playing sport
regularly has risen from 3.73 million to
Team sports APS1 (2005/6) APS5 (2010/11) Individual sports APS1 (2005/6) APS5 (2010/11)
Football 4.97% 2,021,700 4.98% 2,117,000 Swimming 8.04% 3,273,800 6.62% 2,809,300
Cricket 0.48% 195,200 0.51% 215,500 Cycling 4.02% 1,634,800 4.15% 1,761,200
Rugby Union 0.46% 185,600 0.42% 178,900 Athletics 3.33% 1,353,800 4.47% 1,899,400
Basketball 0.39% 158,300 0.36% 151,500 Golf 2.18% 889,100 1.96% 833,200
Netball 0.27% 111,700 0.31% 131,700 Badminton 1.27% 516,700 1.20% 510,300
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Issue 1 2012 © cybertrek 2012