4147.4.55.001 - Culture and Recreation News, Mar 2007  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 21/03/2007   
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SPORTS ATTENDANCE

The output from an ABS survey of attendance at sporting events was released on 25 January in the ABS publication Sports Attendance, Australia, 2005–06 (cat. no. 4174.0). The survey found that 44% of all Australians aged 15 years and over attended at least one sporting event in the 12 months prior to interview.

Nationally, the most attended sport was Australian Rules football with around 2.5 million people saying they had attended at least one game. Other popular sports were horse racing, motor sports and Rugby League.

Other key findings of the survey are presented below.

  • Males recorded a higher overall sports attendance rate (52%) than females (37%) and also had higher attendance rates than females for most individual sports.
  • Women, however, recorded higher attendance rates than males at tennis and netball.
  • The frequency of attendance varied considerably across the different sports. Nearly one in every two (46%) people who attended netball, and over a third (34%) of those attending soccer, attended six times or more. However, the majority of people who attended dog racing, harness racing, horse racing, motor sports and tennis only attended once or twice.
  • People of the Northern Territory recorded the highest sports attendance rate (50%), while the lowest attendance rate was recorded for people living in New South Wales (42%).