The Evolution of Entry-Level Sports Programs
That’s me… front row on the right wearing the Steve Waugh sunglasses. And unlike my sense of fashion, entry-level programs have come a long way since 1997.
They go by lots of names - ‘junior game development programs’, ‘introductory programs’ - but the purpose of entry-level programs is the same: to provide a fun and safe first sporting experience for children. The most popularised ones that Australian sport developers will know are programs like Auskick, Aussie Hoops, NetSetGO, Cricket Blast. Mini Roos. Hook intoHockey, and HotShots.
Many of you know I’m super-passionate about these programs, and they’ve formed a huge part of my world for 20+ years:
First, as a participant sampling multiple programs between 5-8 years;
Then as a volunteer coach and coordinator for 10 years throughout high school and university;
Then as a national program manager; and
Today as a consultant / facilitator, working with peak bodies to design and review these programs (or should I say products? We’ll come to that later…)
These programs serve a major role in the participation pathways of many sports, and have evolved to become large commercial and fan engagement engines.
So I thought it was worth giving a brief insight into how we got here, and where I think things are headed. There’s been some really exciting innovation in this space, and also some ‘gift wrapping’ of tried-and-true tactics.
Disclaimer: The eras I present below are generalised - some sports were early adoptors of these trends and others were (and/or remain) laggards:
1980s and 1990s: Hotbeds of Community Programs
One of the earlier attempts at nationalising youth sport around a common brand/program in Australia was ‘Kanga Cricket’ - an 1984 initiative by the Australian Cricket Board that started off targeted a schools audience, and would later permeate into grassroots clubs into the 1990s. The key takeaway for me from this video is that “the need for sport to change” and “offer modified products for children” is not a new phenomenon.
As sport developers we’re often quick to talk about “old-school” or “traditional” coaching methods being inferior to today’s “games-based approaches”. But despite the recent popularisation of games-based teaching approaches, in many ways these approaches can be viewed as ‘re-brands’ or iterations of long-standing teaching principles that first emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. This can be seen through the inclusive and play-based philosophies towards development used in the Kanga Cricket ad above.
“Beginners and the more skilled can play together, with equal opportunity to bat and bowl using a minimum of safe and inexpensive equipment.” - Kanga Cricket ad (ACB, 1984)
But this example aside, it’s otherwise fair to say that up until the 1990s, the majority of entry-level programs were contained within grassroots club settings with limited connection to peak bodies or neighbouring regions. In the 1990s we start to see regions aligning their programs around a common name: examples like ‘Vickick’ (Australian Football), ‘Oz Ball’ (Basketball), and ‘Netta’ (Netball).
During this period the ‘pack’ you received as a participant was highly individualised according to your club/region. And I consider myself very privileged that my club’s Oz Ball participant pack in 1996 included a cassette tape with a “Baske-robics” class on the A-side, and a B-side of Shaquille O’Neal rapping. The evolution here, as with most sporting initiatives, was bottom-up rather than top-down.
2000s: Nationalisation
Once we moved past Y2K, we started to see more national sporting bodies take successful models from a region, gain alignment across their federated models, and scale them into nationally-branded programs. It’s during this period we see the infancy of programs that most reflect what we see today like Auskick, Aussie Hoops, NetSetGO.
This provided the scale which would start to see blue-chip corporate partnerships emerge (enter McDonald’s, NAB, Milo etc.), and the accompanying investments in mass media promotion, program ambassadors, event activations, and participant packs. Some other trends to note during this period:
To achieve brand and program consistency to service these commercial partnerships, we start to see more of a franchisor model emerge, with community clubs being made to sign agreements outlining the terms of delivery. Whilst formal structures are prescribed at a national level, many organisations find the trickle-down effect takes years and additional resourcing.
The growth and scale of participant packs, with deliverers providing collateral and modified equipment to each participant.
Terms like ‘Centre’ emerge as peak bodies broaden their sphere of influence, beyond the humble sporting club to include third-parties such as schools, leisure centres and private contractors.
At this stage, the positioning of these programs is still very much to the full breadth of primary school children (5-12 years).
Inclusive, games-based learning receives a push, on the back of the Australian Sport Commission’s Playing for Life philosophy linked with the Active After-School Communities program.
Registrations are still paper-based at this stage, but online registration technology starts to become accessible for clubs towards the end of the decade.
Early 2010s:
It’s around 10 years ago that we started to see a number of entry-level programs reposition themselves to catering to 5-10 year olds (as opposed to 5-12 years). This came as an adaptation to the consumer trend where the participant bell-curve was heavily skewing to a younger audience, with only ~5% of participants aged 11-12. We refer to this trend as age creep. Other trends that took place in these years included:
Some sports starting to formally divide their programs into tier-based programs according to age and/or ability (e.g. Rookie, Starter, All-Star tiers in Aussie Hoops)
A number of savvy programs shifting from seasonal delivery (e.g. Winter and Summer programs) to shorter program length lined with the school term (8-10 weeks).
Online registrations means that peak bodies could now start to collect more information about their participants, such as their favourite professional team. For most entry-level programs this would not take flight until later in the decade, and it would also start to showcase some of the relationship gaps between peak bodies and the ecosystem of elite teams and regional bodies.
The larger peak bodies start to outsource the fulfilment of their participant pack duties to fulfilment partners like DMC Sport and TPF. The onus at this stage is still largely on the grassroots club to order and distribute merchandise packs for their participants.
It’s during this period we rapid growth of ‘pink programs’ to increase girls participation. My take on these programs requires its own blog, but in short:
Providing standalone programs for girls is indeed an effective tool to increase their participation; BUT
They were over-marketed with pink merchandise as if that was the reason girls had not been flooding to their club.
The positioning of many programs like ‘Pink Ball’ implied that the peak body’s introductory program served boys as the default and that girls needed a special approach, effectively serving to ‘other’ them.
The actual reason these programs found success had less to do with a pink uniform, and more to do administrators placing girls at the forefront of their design for a change (e.g. women in coaching roles, thoughtful group composition, retaining competitive elements but not ‘winner take all’ elimination style competition against older boys). Had these principles been applied within the core program at clubs to start with, I’d suggest clubs could have saved their money creating new brands, registration forms and uniforms.
Mid/Late 2010s: Mass Personalisation of Experiences
Entry-level programs benefit greatly from two government enables during this period:
In 2015 the Australian Sports Commission launches Sporting Schools, giving peak bodies a stronger platform to link their national introductory programs into primary schools.
Government voucher systems enable greater participation and sampling by families, and in some markets start to shape pricing strategies ($100 voucher = $100 registration fee).
Peak bodies start to reap the benefits of years invested trying to nationalise and digitise registration forms:
Program Locators become more sophisticated, moving to map-based systems that can serve program details based on a user’s postcode and preferences.
Online data collection starts to be used more effectively, with professional team affiliations being used to shape ticket/membership offers and optional merchandise add-ons. In some sports the integration of professional teams runs deeper, with teams adopting the national entry-level program for their school and community engagement.
This enables some of the biggest shifts in entry-level program delivery over the past decade, in the way that participant packs are managed:
Fulfilment partners reach a scale where they can offer personalisation of merchandise to participants, including having names printed on shirts and giving choice of merchandise according to team supported or region. We also see many programs shifting to direct-to-consumer fulfilment (D2C), sending participant packs directly to the participant’s home thereby removing the burden of community clubs to manage inventory. This provided peak bodies a greater level of quality control on the first impression families receive have, but centralising these services hasn’t come without its challenges.
Whilst we see this shift to personalisation at a participant level for many peak bodies, for some sports their need for personalisation comes at a Centre level - with some clubs achieving a scale that gives them suitable power to advocate for co-branding merchandise with their logo.
And the positioning of programs continues to evolve:
During this time we see a further repositioning of entry-level programs to primarily serve 5-8 year olds, with some sports developing targeted programs for 9-12 year olds who may feel ‘too old’ for the junior product. This is accompanied by a drive by parents to progress their child into structured competition, in many instances supported by the child wanting to mirror what ‘the big kids do’
I feel it’s this period where “connecting grassroots to the elite” became the catch-cry of many entry-level programs, and later picked up by elite teams seeking to position themselves as community-focused.
The workforce delivering entry-level programs also continues to shift with the emergence of casual employment for some organisations, and larger sports even starting to employ part-time or full-time development officers.
2020s: Program to Product
So we’re only 4 years into this decade, but we’re seeing some continued change partly instigated by COVID-19, but also reflecting the macro-level trends we’d been seeing in decades prior:
The biggest thing I’m seeing is that communications around entry-level programs are shifting from being a ‘participation program’ to ‘participation' product’. For me this is a reflection of a few factors acting on peak bodies. First and foremost the commercial interest in entry-level programs is continuing to rise, coming from:
Peak bodies developing a greater ownership over the key assets involved (participant data, merchandise and signage); and
An increase in companies investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR).
The plus-side of this is that a number of entry-level programs and their staff receive the investment and internal love they’ve been seeking, which helps put many shelved projects into action. The challenge that comes with this is that commercial and marketing teams are playing a much higher role in the decision-making process, but these staff are not always equipped with the knowledge and empathy around community sport and navigating the complex stakeholder network that is the federated model in Australia.
You can learn a lot about how peak bodies view their entry-level program based on where it sits within organisation hierarchies. And we see that some peak bodies are formally or informally shifting their entry-level programs towards ‘brand’ and ‘fan engagement’ portfolios, away from more sport and operations-focused departments.
Products are a set of features - transactional in nature. Programs are a set of activities - transformational in nature. So whilst it’s just a subtle word shift, words are important and it'll be interesting to see how this trend plays out.
Other trends / initiatives we’re seeing in recent years are:
Cricket Australia and Netball Australia pivoted to digital delivery in an effort to retain participants the pandemic, via the Anywhere Blast and Playground, respectively. This was really the first time we’d see asynchronous, home-based delivery of national programs at scale.
COVID-19 placed a strain on the just-in-time (JIT) and DC2 inventory methods that many peak bodies and suppliers were using to manage the fulfilment of participant packs. We’re seeing a few programs go ‘back to the future’ and diversifying their risk away from purely on-shore or off-shore fulfilment.
Apps like MOJO that use algorithms to generate developmentally-appropriate youth sport practices, allowing peak bodies to steer quality education and delivery to communities at scale.
Program curriculums are becoming more gamified, with the addition of video game principles like ‘levels’ - more on this in the next section.
What trends do we see on the horizon?
What innovations are we seeing, or anticipate seeing over the next decade?
1) Sustainability
It’s possible we’re approaching the peak of maximalism (more is more) in entry-level programs. Organisations are facing greater social responsibility to act sustainably, which I think we’ll see impact entry-level programs through:
A need to create new assets for partners with a smaller carbon footprint (i.e. digital assets over physical assets)
A need to shift existing participant pack items to recycled materials, or at the very least, remove plastic wrapping (which by the way, also typically reduces the unit cost by 5-10 cents).
Collaborations with groups like Upparel who re-purpose and re-cycle textiles such as sports uniforms.
Donation streams where parents can ‘donate’ their child’s participant pack and have it re-directed to a low socio-economic community.
An unrelated but linked issue here is the tightening of discretionary income in Australian families, which will also prompt peak bodies to keep pricing accessible by trimming unnecessary features from their participant packs or giving flexibility through Good-Better-Best pricing models.
The tension that is no doubt playing out already is that peak bodies have positioned merchandise as a key asset to commercial partners, placing themselves between a rock and a hard place.
2) Role of Tech, Digital and AI
Wearables. Athletics Australia have a great example in-market currently, with their Active Bands program.
AI: Peak bodies need to consider how they leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to positively impact communities, and continue along this trend of personalising experiences at scale. Applications might include:
Automating manual processes for resource-lean sports administrators;
Giving parents personalised recommendations around sporting pathways, developmentally-appropriate equipment, and personal development plans for their child.
Personalised challenges and quests for children, making sports activities feel like exciting adventures and motivating them to stay active.
VR applications allowing a more immersive experience where children can imagine they are on the world’s biggest sporting arenas. This technology is currently limited to sponsored activations at major events, but judging by how quick these technologies are evolving it’s not unforeseeable that the technology becomes accessible and more scalable within the decade.
NFTs: The world of NFTs is still in its infancy, but many pundits think that they will play a big role in how society operates in the next decade. For entry-level programs, there may be potential applications like:
Ability to provide participants with certificates as NFTs,
Unlocking achievements or ‘badges’ as collectibles or which unlock exclusive content or events.
These are examples of assets that could cast a smaller carbon footprint than physical merchandise and maintain value to commercial partners.
3) Values-based curriculums
The physical education curriculum is seeing a holistic shift towards using sport and recreation to actively teach personal wellbeing and social values with focuses on mental health, respect, inclusion and resilience. As with a lot of trends in the school setting, we expect this to translate into entry-level programs in the coming decade.
Executed genuinely, this has the potential to increase value for partners and parents without compromising the fun and fast nature of entry-level experiences.
4) Brand penetration into sport curriculums
Up until the past five years or so, the extent to which brands integrated with entry-level programs was superficial: signage, logos on shirts and equipment, and messaging capability. The on-field component has remained largely untouched, but there remains a large opportunity for creative brands to integrate their messages authentically into the program curriculum. Two simple and recent examples include:
The FA’s Shooting Stars programme which uses Disney storytelling to inspires active play, or
England Football’s Pokemon Futsal shown below, which uses a Pokeball-themed game ball.
Superhero integrations of this nature are a really fun and logical investment for brands, and make for more relevant and contemporary versions of traditional games like “Rats and Rabbits” or “Cat and Mouse”.
This is definitely a space that Australian-based programs can play in. NAB (sponsor of AFL’s Auskick) will likely be wary of repeating the CBA’s Dollarmites controversy, but I’d like to think there’s a way to smartly and ethically build financial literacy into sports programming (maybe not through ‘Rob the Nest’, though…). And for the likes of grocery-sponsored ALDI Mini Roos and Woolworths NetSetGO, integrating healthy eating messaging into their curriculum would seem a no-brainer (FIBA Foundation’s Hoops 4 Health program is a market leader here, and we recently collaborated with them on a recycling-based program linked to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023.
Continued age creep
Not sure how excited we are about this philosophically, but we need to touch on it here. With a shift over the past 12-15 years from “5-12 years” to “4-8 years”, it would seem inevitable that the age creep continues as parents seek to introduce their child into organised sport settings earlier.
Several sporting clubs have successfully created developmentally-appropriate programs for 3-4 year olds, and we’ve helped a few with their journey. Check out this blog for some key design principles when building developmentally-appropriate kinder-age programs.
Will centralisation compromise connection?
Peak bodies have largely centralised key parts of the participant experience including registration forms and communications, but are they biting off more than they can chew? Parents are increasingly viewing the national program social media handles as a customer service channel - but these accounts are ill-structured to adequately advise a parent in Launceston whether their Auskick program runs on a public holiday. AI may bring remedies for this particular solution, but I still believe that the community club or centre is ultimately the only body who can build meaningful relationships and instil belonging. Peak bodies need to be careful when trying to control quality by centralising resources, that they don’t stymy the community-level identity and innovation that led to such programs.
Child as a co-customer
My friend has a two-year old, and she navigates YouTube better than many adults I know. For many years, peak bodies were communicating via Facebook to the parent - hence messaging and “safe” programming. But as more digital natives become parents of school-age children, and the age of digital literacy decreases, expect to see more content targeted at the child rather than parent (and perhaps we’ll see ‘unboxing videos’ of participant packs?).
Summary
The macro-trends that we see shaping entry-level programs, almost in an iterative manner, are (in no particular order)
Centralising systems to the peak body;
Younger entry to (and exit for) entry-level programs;
Integration of commercial branding;
The role of digital;
Personalisation of experiences;
I love a chat around this space, so if you’d like to discuss how any of these areas relate to your participation program (or product) - reach out to darren@forwardpivot.com.au.
