Clubs are still the backbone of our sports system but Sport Otago chief executive John Brimble believes they will have to adapt if they are going to flourish in the future. Adrian Seconi reports.
The list of reasons why people have walked away from sports clubs during the past three decades is as long as an Otago Nuggets losing streak.
We could talk about the rising cost of living, the erosion of the weekend, growing individualism or any number of wider social issues.
None of it will change one salient fact. Sports club membership in Dunedin has declined significantly during that period.
A review of the Otago Daily Times sports draws from 1985 reveals there were 80 club rugby teams, 181 netball club teams, 52 club cricket teams, 74 club football teams and 46 club softball teams.
Football is bucking the trend - up three teams to 77 - but otherwise the numbers have fallen away.
This season there are 26 club cricket teams, 12 club softball teams and earlier this year there were 57 club rugby teams and 38 club netball teams.
We did not count junior club teams or school teams playing in senior competitions.
And there is an argument to say the comparison is a little unfair given there are 116 social netball teams and a flourishing twilight cricket competition, for example. But that is part of the issue for clubs.
People might still be playing team sport but they are not necessarily involved with a club anymore.
None of that information comes as a great surprise to Sport Otago chief executive John Brimble.
He is aware of the decline during that period and accepts there are some significant challenges ahead.
However, he is optimistic the worm might be about to turn.
‘‘The statistics from 2010 to 2014 show total membership in national sports organisations has remained static,'' he said.
‘‘So it has stabilised a bit.''
‘‘Locally, touch has increased. Football, if you include futsal, has certainly increased. Rugby is up slightly.''
‘‘I'd also have to say, if you look at the trends across Otago, we are still relatively strong in our club network and club sport.
‘‘Clubs still serve a purpose. They are still the backbone of the New Zealand sport system and our clubs are particularly strong at the junior level here in Otago.''
While that is reassuring, Brimble is not making light of the task ahead.
Sports clubs operate in a much more competitive environment than they once did. New sports such as futsal, and even a resurgent touch, are perhaps more appealing to those of us who do not want to commit to training on Tuesday and Thursday with no guarantee of a game on Saturday.
And mum and dad play a big role in what sport their children get involved in, too.
Chances are if they both work then a midweek nightly slot is much more convenient than two or three hours on a Saturday morning.
‘‘People are time poor now,'' Brimble said.
‘‘And I think a lot of youth are attracted by the idea they can just rock up, do what they want to do, be physically active, engage with their friends but don't have to actually train or be part of a structured sport.''
Attracting club members in an environment like that is a challenge.
And once membership starts to slide it can be very difficult to slow the momentum.
‘‘A lot of clubs are struggling to keep people involved in running the club,'' Brimble added.
‘‘And if you look at the Community Trust of Otago's survey of regional sports organisations, what came through there was the challenge of attracting and retaining volunteers to help ... and that flowed through to coaching as well.
‘‘It is about just getting enough people involved in the club system to keep it ticking over,'' Brimble said.
Declining membership means fewer subs, fewer resources, fewer people returning the clubrooms, fewer people to contribute, fewer teams and fewer reasons to join a club.
‘‘Clubs have always had to work hard to stay afloat and find ways of raising funds, and on the whole most clubs do pretty well.
‘‘But we have come out of a pretty tough economic environment where the purse strings were tightened, so there was less money around.
‘‘The amount of funding through gaming has reduced, which has been a traditional source for a lot of clubs. So it has become tougher and clubs have to work harder to generate that income.''
For clubs such as Caversham AFC, the situation has become critical.
It is faced with a tough decision of whether to walk away from its base at Tonga Park and link up with another club, or find new ways of funding and maintaining its clubrooms.
‘‘Clubrooms often sit there empty for large periods of time and they are a drain on resources,'' Brimble said.
‘‘That will probably prompt clubs to look at where the logical partnerships are that they can enter into.
‘‘There is certainly a move away from single-sport clubs. Increasingly, clubs are having to look at becoming multisport clubs. And I can see that trend accelerating.
‘‘We have got some really superb club facilities here in Otago that lend themselves to wider community use and other sports being invited in to use them.
‘‘It makes that facility more viable, it strengthens the club system and it also reduces the amount of facilities which need to be built in the future.''
TOMORROW: How netball and football are facing the challenges, and we take the pulse of club life in Clyde.
