Consultant: University of Brighton

The research:

Sport policy in England has set ambitious targets for physical activity and sport participation (As outlined in Game Plan and the National Framework for Community Sport in England) with a strong focus on youth.

The achievability of these targets is largely dependent on the ability to understand and demonstrate change within the sport sector, and to connect to external public policy priorities. However there is little evidence that solely encouraging traditional forms of sport will lead to the growth in participation required to hit the targets.  

In this context, recognising the diversity of sport cultures and practices that exist outside of traditional sport provision has become increasingly relevant to policy analysts, both in the UK and in other countries like Canada seeking to demonstrate sport’s contribution to health, citizen engagement and the economy.  

Yet, at present, there is little indication of how many people participate in lifestyle sports, nor who they are, nor the extent to which they are different from those already known to participate in other sports and physical activities. For example, it has been estimated (Mintel, 2000) that up to 2 million people participate in canoeing and kayaking each year, although less than one-fifth of these belongs to the British Canoe Union. Little is currently known about who the bulk of these participants are, nor what other activities they participate in.
The broad aims of this project are to explore the significance of lifestyle sport culture to national sport policies.

Specifically it will:

1. Develop a lexicon of lifestyle sports (including derivatives of ‘mainstream’ sports) and examine current evidence on participation, governance
   
2. Explore the governance of lifestyle sport through examination of the following issues:
   
   Tensions in attempts to institutionalise, professionalize and codify activities (eg resistance to Olympic Games and national governing bodies)
   
   Roles of sport governance, including commercial, and non-commercial sectors
   
   Effects of governance on youth and grass root cultures, and elite competition
   
3. Analyse the current and potential implications of lifestyle sport to government policy objectives and processes through examination of the following issues:
   
   Impact of the dominance of commercial sector governance vs. voluntary/state sector governance
   
   Consideration of lifestyle sport in future national sport and physical activity participation policies.

Progress to date: Project completed

Reports:
Lifestyle sports and national sport policy: an agenda for research  (303 Kb) PDF