Grassroots Sports

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SPRC2003- Fundamentals of Sport & Recreation
Assessment 1- Case Study
Introduction
One notable change that has occurred from the increasing demands placed on sport and recreation managers is grassroots sport and social capital. It is well documented that grassroots sport and social capital is considered as an important area of concern as grassroots sport clubs are the foundation for sport in Australia, they provide for mass participation across all ages and are mainly overseen by volunteers. The benefits of being involved in sport and specifically a sport club, both from a health and social capital perspective are well recognized. Current issues that face sport and recreation managers will be examined as it threatens to undermine not only the
It is no secret that social capital plays an important role in sport and recreation management in a positive attribute that can help communities to respond to challenges. This lack of participation will no doubt impact sports and recreation managers as social capital will not be made possible in rural settings with the shortage of participation. Part of the problem is being blamed on the absence of young school leavers leaving communities for various reasons like study or employment purposes, which has a serious impact on the viability of sporting clubs within communities. This results in smaller or low numbers of participants in the sport in the younger age bracket. Too, lack of spare time can also be blamed for lower participation numbers. Mr. Dollman said that "One of the knock-on effects is that you start to see older people filling in for the B-grade on the Saturday, older people who don't train and are filling in in vigorous sports are at high risk of injury," (Coote, 2014). Thus, needing to improve and target the volunteering area for the reason being because it is considered as the lifeblood of rural communities, volunteers are the glue that hold these communities together. The impact of drought is also another challenge that will be faced with dire drought conditions causing the sport to suffer even lower
Consequently, improving the sporting structures and effectiveness in creating healthy lifestyles in hope to lead an increased number of participants and elite athletes. Nonetheless, imbalance of subsidizing between elite athletes and grassroots sports still persists, shown in the number of issues regarding low levels of participants, lack of infrastructure and social capital for grassroots sport. The government still does not prioritise funding for grass roots sports in comparison to elite athletes. Because of this dissimilarity, there is an apparent requirement for greater equity in the Australian Government's expenditure on sport. Social capital also seeks consideration with a number issues being provided through changing demographics in rural communities. This is evident through the low levels of participants and volunteers encouraging developing interventions that is going to have traction in rural communities to prevent putting the sport under threat. An investigation needs to be carried to explore the issues which are considered as unique to rural communities to better tailer interventions and policies which are going to actually

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