A Sporting Chance: Why Sydney needs a rethink on sport

Sport and active recreation are so deeply entwined in the way we live in Sydney, such critical constituencies for political power and influence, and so plainly visible in daily life, it’s almost unimaginable the system could break down. But it’s a reality we have to face. 

Large-scale changes to population, culture, climate, built form and sport itself are  disrupting a system that touches virtually every Sydneysider – an enormous network of 
players, fans, volunteers, administrators, organisations and infrastructure that is under growing pressure. 

Our new report, out today, ‘A Sporting Chance: Why Sydney needs a rethink on sport,’ examines the long-term challenges Sydney faces in grassroots sport and active recreation, kicking off a new program of policy research and advocacy to turn things around. 

Sport in Sydney is being rocked and reshaped in seven ways: 

• Greater Sydney’s population is projected to reach 5.7 million by 2031 and 6.3 million by 2041, putting even greater pressure on sport facilities that are already stretched
• Sydney’s housing growth is necessary and welcome, but every rezoning intensifies competition for land, and sport rarely wins that competition unless it has been planned in from the start
• Community sport is already losing ground to extreme weather, with more washed-out fields and dangerously hot days eroding the time and places available to play
• The nature of participation itself is shifting, as people move away from traditional club structures toward more flexible, informal activities
• Physical activity levels are falling among young people, particularly girls, with consequences rippling across physical and mental health, educational attainment, community cohesion and productivity
• Declining participation is also concentrated in groups the system has consistently failed to serve well – older, LGBTIQ+, disabled, culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• The instinctive response, to simply invest more in sports facilities and programs, runs into public budgets that are more constrained than ever. 

Cutting across all this are system-level challenges that have long held the sector back: a cultural fixation on elite pathways at the expense of broad participation, fragmented policy and investment across Greater Sydney, and a system that is being asked to do more with less. 

Taken together, they are not simply adding pressure to a system already under strain, they are fundamentally changing the terms on which this crucial system must operate. 

With just six years until the Olympic and Paralympic Games are again staged in Australia, we have a rare opportunity to benefit from surging interest and investment in sport – but we can only do that if the systems around sport and active recreation are positioned to translate that interest and investment into active participation.