Better Sporting Experiences. Making Sport Even Better.

Better Sporting Experiences. Making Sport Even Better.

Introducing 'The Sporting Experience' - helping make Victoria the best place to be involved in sport, for everyone.

Think about why you first became involved in sport. Or why you continue to give your time to it.

Perhaps it was the friendships. The sense of belonging. The challenge and enjoyment. The chance to improve, achieve something, help someone else, or be part of a community.

Maybe it was a coach who made you feel capable. A teammate who made you feel welcome. A volunteer who made sure you belonged.

Ask people what they love about sport, and they'll often talk about these experiences.

Ask someone who works or volunteers in sport what they're most proud of, and chances are they'll tell you a story about a person, a team, a club or a moment when sport made a difference.

These are the experiences that make sport matter.

But, there's another side to the story.

Think about how much time and energy sporting organisations spend responding when experiences don't meet expectations.

A participant who doesn't feel welcome. A young person who gradually loses interest. A volunteer who feels unsupported. A parent whose concerns remain unresolved. A competition dispute. An unsafe environment. A relationship or trust that's been damaged.

Many of sport's most difficult challenges - and some of its greatest opportunities - are experienced by people through moments like these.

Which raises an important question.

If the quality of sporting experiences matters so much, how good are we at understanding, designing, delivering and improving them?

A shared ambition. An opportunity to do more.

Across Australian sport, the importance of experience quality is increasingly recognised.

The sectors Play Well strategy faciitated by the Australian Sports Commission has a clear ambition to create safe, welcoming, inclusive and fun sporting experiences, so that everyone has a place in sport. And as NSO's and their members have seen recently. the 'Quality of Experiences' is now being robustly measured and evaluated.

Plus Victoria's own Active Victoria 2022–2026 framework emphasises equitable participation, inclusive places and spaces, a capable sport workforce and a safe, sustainable sector.

And if we look across the strategic plans of sporting organisations and you'll find similar aspirations: stronger participation and retention, positive environments, supported volunteers, belonging, inclusion and meaningful involvement.

All ‘experience’ related.

So, at VicSport we think the opportunity is not necessarily to convince sport that experiences matter.

It's to strengthen our collective capability to deliver the experiences we aspire to provide.

And to know whether we're getting better.

What the evidence tells us

This is not the pursuit of a vague ‘feel-good’ idea. Research continues to reinforce the importance of understanding what people value about sport. Work by VicSport Board member Professor Rochelle Eime has deeply explored the role of experiences in sport participation and retention, and VicSport's State of Victorian Sport & Recreation Report 2026 added another perspective. The research highlighted the influence experiences have on participation and invovlement in sport, and the relationships Victorian's have with their sport.

Why does all that matter?

Understanding the sporting experience matters because participation numbers tell us how many people are involved, but they don't tell us everything about what being involved feels like. We need to better understand not only whether people participate, but what makes them want to return, what encourages them to contribute, and what might cause them to step away.

The same principle applies to volunteers.

And when we better understand people's experiences, we can make more informed choices about how sport is organised and delivered.

The Sporting Experience

To help Victorian sport respond to this opportunity, VicSport is sharing The Sporting Experience, a capability-building initiative to help sporting organisations better understand, design, deliver and improve the experiences of participants and volunteers.

With a simple idea - that:

Better sporting experiences means sport is better.

Running from October to December 2026, with ongoing capability-building activity into 2027, we are bringing together evidence, research, sector conversations, practical resources and opportunities to take action.

With a Sporting Experience resource site, organisations will be able to explore:

• Evidence and understanding: Insights from State of Sport, participation research and emerging experience measurement approaches.
• Investigation and exploration: Human stories, the Sport Experience Immersions and investigations into important participation challenges.
• Practical guidance: A 'Victorian Sport Experience Guide' and resources for specific sporting settings.
• Capability and improvement: Future Sport Labs, Guiding Sport projects and opportunities to design and test better experiences.
• Measurement and shared learning: Developing approaches such as the Sport Experience Index, organisational case studies and a future Sport Experience Community of Practice.

The campaign will also explore one particularly important question through its first investigation: Why Teenagers Leave Sport - and What Makes Them Stay, linked to a Participation Innovation project VicSport has partnered with VicHealth to explore.

More than a resource!

Please note that 'the Sporting Experience' isn't simply about sharing information or celebrating what sport already does well.

It's about helping organisations put new understanding into practice.

A club improving how it welcomes new participants.

A coach changing how young people experience progress and belonging.

A sporting association redesigning a competition or participation pathway.

An organisation finding better ways to support and retain its volunteers.

And, importantly, finding ways to measure whether those changes make a difference.

This will be the first domain-specific application of VicSport's emerging Improvement System - connecting evidence to shared priorities, investigation, capability development, practical implementation, measurement and learning.

The goal is to create a more connected and repeatable approach to improvement, with practical outcomes visible in sporting organisations and clubs.

Making Victoria the best place to be involved in sport

Victoria has a remarkable sporting culture, supported by dedicated organisations, clubs, coaches, volunteers and communities.

The next opportunity is to become even more deliberate about the experiences we provide.

Because a great sporting experience is not simply the result of a well-run competition, a successful program or a good facility.

It's also how people are welcomed, supported, included, challenged, recognised and valued.

It's what makes someone look forward to coming back.

And it's what makes giving time to sport feel worthwhile.

Our ambition is simple: to help make Victoria the best place to be involved in sport - for everyone.

To do that, we want to help every sporting organisation become better at providing experiences that make people want to start, stay and contribute.

Better sporting experiences. Making sport even better.

Please Explore The Sporting Experience!

LAUNCHING THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5

Discover the evidence, Victorian Sport Experience Guide, investigations, practical resources and capability opportunities in our new Sporting Experience Ecosystem.