Voice of participant 2024-2025
Voice of participant 2024-2025
Understanding the club participant experience
The voice of participant survey gives sports organisations a clear picture of how people feel about their club experience. By listening to participants, clubs can see what’s working well and where improvements are needed – helping them keep members engaged and grow their communities.
Who took part
29,327 participants across 12 sports.
Athletics, bowls, cricket, futsal, golf, gymnastics, netball, rowing, rugby, swimming, tennis and volleyball.
Respondent groups
Overall satisfaction
*NPS measures how likely a member is to recommend their club to someone interested in playing their sport, on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). A positive score means there are more promoters (9-10 rating) than detractors (0-6 rating), and anything above +40 is generally seen as excellent, showing high loyalty and likelihood to recommend.
Top reasons for belonging to a club
- Learn and improve skills (35%)
- Have fun (25%)
- Play competitively (51%)
- Learn skills (17%)
- Play competitively (46%)
- Have fun (18%)
- Play competitively (31%)
- Have fun (16%)
Satisfaction by age group
| Measure | Tamariki | Rangatahi | Young adults | Older adults |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall satisfaction | 68% | 61% | 60% | 66% |
| NPS* | +47 | +31 | +43 | +53 |
| Likely to rejoin the club | 83% | 80% | 80% | 85% |
| Value for money | 76% | 70% | 70% | 70% |
| NPS* = Net Promoter Score. | ||||
Top areas for improvement
- Player development programmes
- Quality of coaching
- Number of coaches
- Player development programmes
- Quality of coaching
- Playing / training venues
- Playing / training venues
- Player development programmes
- Facilities (clubrooms, changing rooms)
- Playing / training venues
- Facilities (clubrooms, changing rooms)
- Club management
Participant satisfaction
Participants are most satisfied about how friendly and safe their clubs are. They also appreciate the focus on fair play.
The areas that score lowest are the role of officials, the support offered to help members improve and how well information is shared.
These strengths and weaknesses have shown up regularly in past voice of participant surveys.
Key areas of satisfaction
Percentage rating as highly satisfactory
Gender equity
- 84% of women and girls agree their club treats all people equally regardless of gender.
- 88% of women and girls agree men and women have equal leadership opportunities.
- 81% of women and girls agree there are appropriate programmes and/or opportunities programmes for them.
Integrity and behaviour
- 77% have high trust in their club to handle integrity issues appropriately and effectively.
- 26% experience inappropriate sideline behaviour when playing ‘occasionally’ or more often.
- 4% experience inappropriate sideline behaviour when playing ‘every time’ or ‘almost every time’.
Skill development
25% feel there isn’t enough emphasis on developing skills at their club.
