Census to capture snapshot of every professional in Australian sport

Designed to help capture a national perspective of the Australian sports industry, informed by those who are actively engaged in it, the Australian Sports Professionals Association (ASPA) has launched the second annual National Sports Census.

The Census covers volunteers, employees and academics irrespective of their role or organisation - club, state or national sporting organisation, non-profit or private enterprise.

In 2019, the inaugural Census captured the sentiments of individuals from more than 51 types of sports, universities and government roles. Some insights included:

• 47% of people believed their pay was below what was expected for their role;
• 60% of people planned on remaining in sport for the next three to five years;
• 58% felt that the industry was heading in a positive direction.

Meanwhile, the 2020 Census is the first of its kind to do a national "headcount’ of sport, by capturing individual perspectives from a wide range of roles and organisations in sport.

Alex Mednis, General Manager of Business Development at ASPA, explains “there have been lots of surveys and questionnaires aimed at sporting organisations and related organisations in the past.

"But so far there's been nothing that has tried to include everyone as individuals. It's really important that we have as large a sample size as possible to really understand the sentiment and future of the professionals and administrators that make up the sporting industry."

Nicholas Watkins, ASPA's General Manager of Strategy, Operations and Finance, adds “whether you're a first year sports graduate, junior office worker, or a long term CEO, we want your opinion.

"Most communications are targeted at the organisational representative of a sport, or sports business - but not each person involved. We're interested in the perspective of each and every staff member - paid or otherwise."

Partnering with the state sport federations SportWest, Sport SA, QSport and Sport NSW, and aligned with over 50 foundation state and national sporting organisations and academic institutions, ASPA has grown to almost 500 members nationally in its first year alone.

Australasian Leisure Management is ASPA’s official magazine and will be publishing the results of the census later this year when they become available.

Click here to access and contribute to the Census, which will run until mid-September.