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The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) latest national AusPlay survey has revealed that Australians adopt a flexible approach to their sport and fitness activities, with attending a gym and pickleball among activity favourites.

While the latest results reveal that 84% of Australian adults are active and two thirds choose to do some of their activity alone, walking, fitness/gym and running/jogging remain the most popular activities.

The AusPlay survey also showed Australians continue to move for fitness and fun while poor health, age and not having enough time remain the biggest barriers to getting active.

Data on emerging sports such as pickleball is also now reported with more than 90,000 Australians aged 15 and over saying they played the sport in the last year.

The findings align with Australia’s Sport Participation Strategy Play Well and reinforces the need for sports to continue to adapt their offerings to suit the needs and wants of today’s participants.

The data is the first available using a new methodology which has seen the sample size double from 20,000 to 40,000 Australians and the survey move from phone interviews to online.

The results capture the period from July 2023 to June 2024 and can’t be compared to previous years because the data has been collected differently.

While participation patterns, like the most active cohorts or top 20 sports and activities remain similar between the phone and online data sets, overall participation levels are lower with the new methodology.

Advising that the change was important to ensure that the AusPlay survey can continue to be a reliable source of information for years to come, ASC Chief Executive, Kieren Perkins stated “phone interviews are not as effective as they used to be, and people have changed how they get active, so AusPlay has also evolved.

"We know COVID accelerated an existing trend towards informal physical activity so we’re now collecting more specific data on the ways that people get active and if it was organised or not.

“The former method provided the best possible estimates of sport participation at the time and served the sector well, but the changes we’ve made means we can capture more detailed data moving forward to help sports track trends and better understand their place in the sport and physical activity landscape.

“This will take time, and we won’t be able to make any direct comparisons until we have more data in 12 months’ time.”

The results, from the ASC’s national AusPlay survey, also show that volunteers contribute more than 145 million hours to sport each year.

Introduced in October 2015, the national AusPlay survey now collects data on over 600 different participation sports and activities and is the largest and most comprehensive survey of its kind in Australia.

The latest AusPlay data is available via the Clearinghouse for Sport.

Access Australia’s Sport Participation Strategy Play Well

Image top. Credit: Pexels; Image centre: Credit: Shutterstock; Image below: Pickleball Credit: Brookfield Tennis Centre 

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