Opportunities for higher education and community sport

The higher education student market offers significant potential. There is a large group of semi-sporty students - creating a major opportunity to grow regular participation - and high unmet demand among students for more sport.

519,000 HE students play sport regularly, doing sport at least three times a week; a further 484,300 HE students play sport once or twice a week, according to the third Active People survey.

There is also considerable unmet demand with 72% of higher education students stating they would like to do more sport.

The significant improvements in sporting opportunities for 5- to 19-year-olds through PESSYP , for example; Sport Unlimited, have also raised expectations about sporting provision and provided the foundations for growth in less traditional sports or less traditional formats. There is already a strong tradition of competitive sport within higher education, but there is a significant opportunity to build on this through more informal and social opportunities as well as improving intramural competition.

Active People data shows that graduates have an above average propensity to play sport throughout life. Improving participation of students at universities should therefore foster life-long sporting habits and provide a quality pathway for young people to continue their sporting activities post school or college. Therefore this theme can also contribute to sustaining participation.