newsworthy
Sports participation plummets since 1998
HAYLEY MICK
Globe and Mail Update
February 8, 2008 at 9:05 AM EST
As far as organized sports go, Mike Yerxa can usually muster enough enthusiasm to play one game of tennis a month, and that’s in the summer when the weather is good.
“I think I kind of live vicariously through people playing sports on TV,” said Mr. Yerxa, 25, a self-described Olympics addict who skips work to watch his favourite events (tennis and figure skating) and can rhyme off Olympic moments stretching back to 1994, when, a month before the Lillehammer Games, Shane Stant clubbed Nancy Kerrigan in the knee - and Mr. Yerxa was hooked.
According to a new study, Mr. Yerxa is part of a growing number of Canadians who are moving from the tennis courts and the soccer fields to the couch.
The Statistics Canada study, released yesterday, found that less than three in 10 Canadians aged 15 or older participated regularly in at least one sport in 2005, down dramatically from the early 1990s.
An estimated 7.3 million people, or about 28 per cent of Canadian adults, participated in some form of sport in 2005. That plummeted from 8.3 million, or 34 per cent, in 1998, and 9.6 million, or 45 per cent, in 1992.
Still, more and more Canadians are enjoying sports - from their living rooms or the sidelines.
The report found that the number of adults watching sports jumped 20 per cent between 1998 and 2005.
“The Patriots had an [almost] perfect season. Did that keep us on the edge of our seats? Oh yeah,” said Sheryl Walker, an avid National Football League fan from the Victoria area whose sports career ended after she suffered one too many injuries, such as the time she joined a “friendly” women’s soccer league and left her second game in an ambulance.
“I think, for organized sports, Scrabble is good,” said Ms. Walker, a 53-year-old computer technician.
The study found the decline in sports participation was widespread, cutting across all age groups, education levels, income brackets, gender and all provinces except Prince Edward Island.
The downward trend doesn’t necessarily mean that Canadians aren’t active, however. The report focused only on organized sports and not other popular activities such as fitness classes, gardening, lifting weights or cycling to work.
After years of sporting mishaps, for example, Ms. Walker swapped her soccer cleats for rollerblades. She walks to buy groceries and runs errands near her home in the hilly section of Esquimalt, B.C.
Mr. Yerxa, 25, stays trim by walking around downtown Toronto, where he lives and works in the film industry. He doesn’t play in sports leagues, but if friends are kicking around a soccer ball, he’ll join in.
“I always have a ball,” he said.
In today’s regimented society, people may be turning away from sports because they’re yet another activity with rules, structured times and people giving instructions, said Douglas Brown, a sports historian at the University of Calgary’s faculty of kinesiology.
“Sport is highly organized and based around competition,” he said. “It’s a very linear type of thing, and in this day and age, when people feel like they’re stressed and have a million and one obligations, sports are not a very appealing option.”
Recent spikes in the popularity of activities such as yoga - and new fitness trends such as spin classes on stationary bicycles - show that people aren’t necessarily couch potatoes, they’re just seeking out alternatives, Dr. Brown said.
As for the spike in watching sports, it may be a product of increased supply, he said. With 24-hour sports channels, devices that record games for the future and millions of dollars spent promoting events such as the Super Bowl, it’s no wonder more people are tuning in.
Jack Neumann, a 60-year-old retired amateur sports promoter from Calgary, agrees.
Back when he was a boy growing up in Saskatchewan, “you had only one channel and you got one hockey game a night - on Saturdays. Now there’s a hockey game every night, sometimes two.”
The report cited several factors for sports’ decline in popularity, including family responsibilities, child-rearing, careers, lack of interest and participation in other leisure-time pursuits.
Thirty per cent of non-active Canadians reported lack of time as the major factor for their inactivity, and that proportion was 15 percentage points higher for those 25 to 34, a group generally consumed by careers and raising children.
The report also suggested an aging population may be one reason for the decline. Among older non-active Canadians 55 and older, 28 per cent indicated that age was the biggest factor, citing health conditions and lack of interest in sport.
