On Tuesday, Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson announced $80m in funding targeted at all levels of the Play, Active Recreation and Sport sector.

On Tuesday, Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson announced $80m in funding targeted at all levels of the play, active recreation and sport system. 

That package included support for national leagues affected by COVID-19. Over $4.9m will be provided to 12 sports who represent a total of 21 national leagues to be held this year.

Initial support is capped at $300,000 per national league.

To be eligible, leagues must meet the following criteria:

• Be a national men’s or women’s premier sports league that is open to teams from across New Zealand;
• Be operated by a Sport NZ national partner;
• Have existed pre-COVID-19 or was already announced to be run for the first time in 2020 pre-COVID-19; and
• Is scheduled to commence prior to 1 January 2021.

The following are out of scope and not eligible for this funding:

• One-off competitions (e.g. events that take place over the space of a week or weekend);
• Age-grade competitions or leagues;
• Regional leagues; and
• Individual sports.

A full list of leagues that have been approved for support is shown in the table below.