Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Federal funding linked to more medals for Canadian Olympians – but less participation in grassroots sport: Study

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 17:19:55 +0000

Federal funding linked to more medals for Canadian Olympians – but less participation in grassroots sport: Study

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 07/09/2024 - 13:19

Cutline

Canadian federal funding in sport is associated with more medals for Olympians like Andre DeGrasse, gold medalist in the men's 200-metre sprint at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and reduced participation in sport among recreational athletes, according to U of T researchers (photo by Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Breaking Research

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Olympics

Research & Innovation

Sports

Subheadline

A research report from the Faculty of Kinesiology & Public Education examines the relationship between federal funding, Olympic success and participation in sports

Federal funding for sport is associated with Canadian athletes winning more Olympic medals – but this comes at the cost of reduced participation in grassroots recreational and competitive sport.

That’s according to a report from the Centre for Sport Policy Studies at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education that delves into the relationship between high-performance sport and grassroot participation.

The research calls into question the notion that funding of high-performance sport – and resulting success of elite athletes on the world stage – has a “trickle-down” effect by inspiring people to participate in sport and physical activity.

“We do not dispute that excellent performances by national athletes are inspirational. However, the effect of inspiration on increasing participation is far less clear,” says Peter Donnelly, a professor emeritus of sport policy and politics at the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, who co-authored the report with Bruce Kidd, professor emeritus of sport and public policy and former Olympian.

The researchers argue that inspiration is not enough to break down the barriers that prevent many young people from participating in sport. “Family income, gender/sexuality, (dis)ability, geographical location and other factors can all, individually and in combination, have an enabling or a constraining effect on the possibilities of participating in organized sports,” says Kidd.

The researchers used data on sport participation, Sport Canada’s annual budgets and statistics on Olympics medals won by Canadian athletes since 1988 to examine the relationships between participation in sports, funding and Olympic successes.

“Prior to 1970, the federal government tried to invest in high-performance sport, broadly based participation and physical education in equal measure, and made multi-year shared-cost grants to the provinces and territories to assist with broad-based participation,” says Kidd. “In 1970, it established Sport Canada with a high-performance mandate and unilaterally withdrew from its support of provincial and territorial programs.”

This led to an ongoing decline in participation in organized, competitive sport among Canadians over 15 years of age – from 44 per cent in 1990 to around 27 per cent today.

While there are other factors that can help to explain this decline, including an aging population and rising costs of participation, the researchers point to shifting federal priorities and the structure of Canadian sport policy as the reasons for increased investments in international sport success and decreased investments in grassroots participation.

“Data in other countries show a similar pattern – more money means more medals, and medals cost a lot,” says Donnelly.

In the 16 years since the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the Sport Canada budget has more than doubled, now sitting at more than a quarter of a billion dollars each year, according to the report.

”As other countries in the ‘sporting arms race’ increase their budgets and expectations, it will cost more and more money just to stay in the same place in the Olympic medal table,” says Donnelly.

“This has the potential to distort a national sport system in two ways: First, most funding is directed to those sports where national sport leaders see the greatest chance of being able to win medals; and second, the vast majority of government funding for sport tends to go to high-performance sport.”

The researchers offer the following solutions in their report:

Survey national, provincial and territorial sport organizations to determine their capacity to incorporate new participants.
Develop an ‘open house’ strategy during and immediately following major Games for the public to try out different sports, with coaches, athletes and – where possible – former Olympians present to talk about their sports.
Target children and youth; low-income individuals; Indigenous, ethnocultural and immigrant communities; and, for certain sports, persons with a disability and older individuals looking for a form of physical activity.
Re-invigorate school physical education programs, intramural and extracurricular sports; engage coalitions of sport organizations in offering free basic skills development programs for those past school age.
Ensure widespread publicity for the participation initiatives.
Develop a clear subsequent use policy for major Games facilities that includes grassroots participation, similar to the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, jointly managed by the City of Toronto and U of T.
Develop an evaluation strategy to determine the success of participation initiatives introduced in association with major Games.

The researchers say they are encouraged by the recent announcement by Carla Qualtrough, Canada’s minister of sport and physical activity, that she will review the Canadian sport system and recommend options for reform.

“People may be inspired by the achievements of high-performance athletes,” says Donnelly. “However, if the material and structural conditions of participation are the same after the Games as they were before, then all the claims of a legacy of increased participation become empty promises.”

Outburst by Blackhawks exec highlights need to challenge culture of abuse in sport: U of T's Simon Darnell

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:53:06 +0000

Outburst by Blackhawks exec highlights need to challenge culture of abuse in sport: U of T's Simon Darnell

geoff.vendeville Tue, 02/08/2022 - 11:53

Cutline

(Photo by Patrick Gorski/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Our Community

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Hockey

Chicago Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz has been critized for his angry outburst at a town hall meeting last week, berating reporters for asking about the organization's response to a sexual assault scandal.

Simon Darnell

Wirtz cut off the team's CEO, his son Danny, while he was answering a reporter's questions, and said: “What we're going to do today is our business... I think you should get onto the next subject.”

“We're not looking back on 2010, we're looking forward. And we're not going to talk about 2010," he added, referring to a law firm report published last fall that documented failures made by the Blackhawks after their former player, Kyle Beach, reported he was sexually assaulted by a coach during their 2010 Stanley Cup run.

Wirtz later apologized to fans and the media for his behaviour at the town hall, saying he had “crossed the line.”

Simon Darnell, an associate professor in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education and the director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies, recently shared his thoughts on the NHL controversy.

What did you think of Rocky Wirtz’s outburst?

Like most people, I was shocked and then kind of disgusted. It seemed, on first blush, that the Blackhawks were going to use the press conference to assure people that the team was committed to making sure that the kind of abuse endured by Kyle Beach would never happen again and that there was, at the very least, a structure in place to ensure that players can come forward if they suffer any kind of abuse – or know of any – while serving as members of the team. And it appears that Danny Wirtz and team President [of Business Operations] Jaime Faulkner were prepared to answer those questions, though we will never know for sure now since they were shut down by Rocky Wirtz. So, to have the owner of the team interject and shut down the discussion at such a crucial time for the rebuilding of this team and the rebuilding of confidence in this issue within the NHL, was really shocking and deeply troubling.

It served to dismiss the pain and suffering of Kyle Beach, and really the pain of many other athletes and people who have suffered abuse. Wirtz was effectively making a claim that the issue is somehow now over and done with. In reality, the only person who gets to decide that this issue is closed, or that there is nothing left to discuss, is Kyle Beach himself. In the meantime, the ethical and organizational responsibility lies with Wirtz and the Blackhawks to ensure that this never happens again on their watch, and to keep the conversation going so people are aware of this issue and of the need for vigilance and change. So, I really did feel a sense of cruelty in his attempt to shut down even a modicum of continued discussion on the topic.

What did you make of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s response after he came to Wirtz's defence and said his comments were borne of frustration?

In some ways I was even more disappointed and angry with Bettman than with Wirtz. Really, Bettman gave Wirtz a pass which sends a strong message that from the NHL’s perspective, this isn’t a big deal, or certainly not one that people in positions of authority within the league have any real responsibility towards or interest in. It was a really strong example and reminder, at least to me, that Bettman works for the owners, and not the other way around. His loyalty is obviously to protecting the owners more than the players and to ensure that profits are maximized even at the expense of the human beings involved. That professional sports in North America have always operated this way doesn’t make it any easier to process when we see it happen again.

What message does this send to the world of hockey?

I think this all sends a terrible message to the sport of hockey because it says that despite all of the ongoing efforts to make the sport safer and more inclusive, when it comes to the highest levels of authority within the richest, most prestigious league in the world, there is still a real resistance to naming the problem, which in turn puts in jeopardy the changes needed to make the game more inviting and healthier. I think all of us who care deeply about this sport should remind ourselves that Gary Bettman and the NHL owners are not the stewards of hockey. They are the overlords of a cartel that just so happens to control, through a monopsony, the labour of the world’s best hockey players.

What are the implications for safe sport?

This whole mess speaks to the ongoing work still to be done to ensure the rights of athletes and all participants in sport, and to challenge the cultures of sport that enable abuse and silence those who call for change. This is at the core of the work we do in the Centre for Sport Policy Studies. It also is, I am proud to say, a central research thread across the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education. Our students and alumni, like Joseph Gurgis and Erin Willson, who just became the President of AthletesCan, are leading the way here. And we need to back them up with our resources and our courage, because we clearly cannot rely on the leaders of professional sport to do this work, to seek the reforms or to make the changes that we need in sport so that no one else has to suffer.

In wake of COVID-19, U of T researcher finds 'steep decline' in youth participation in sport

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 15:38:07 +0000

In wake of COVID-19, U of T researcher finds 'steep decline' in youth participation in sport

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/26/2021 - 11:38

Cutline

(Photo by iStock)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Breaking Research

Coronavirus

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Mitacs

Sport

COVID-19 shutdowns have given millions a glimpse of a world without sport.

But interruptions to athletic programs due to the coronavirus were also an opportunity to think of better ways for youth to develop through sport after the pandemic. Simon Darnell, an associate professor in the University of Toronto's Faculty Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) and director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies, helped conduct a research project that evaluated youth access and engagement in sport in the wake of the pandemic.

Simon Darnell

Despite a slight uptick in youth engagement in individual sport and activities such as running, strength training or conditioning, the report found large declines in team and facility-based sports such as soccer, basketball, hockey, swimming and baseball.

“The impact of COVID-19 on sport access and engagement has been drastic,” Darnell says. “There has been a steep decline in the frequency of sport participation overall, as well as changes to both how and where youth have been able to access opportunities to engage in sport.”

Darnell worked on the report – titled “Change the Game” – with Daniel Sailofsky, a PhD student in sociology at McGill University, and Bryan Heal, manager of research and evaluation at the Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) Foundation. The study, the largest of its kind in Canada, received funding from Mitacs, a non-profit national research oganization.

Between March and May of this year, the researchers surveyed close to 7,000 youth of different backgrounds, including race, geography, age, gender, ability and income, to get a better understanding of barriers to sport participation after the pandemic and explore opportunities to build back better – with a focus on more equitable access to sports for youth.

They found that, while different virtual initiatives have been introduced across the sport sector, the increase in virtual engagement paled in comparison to the proportion of youth who previously enrolled in sport or recreation offerings in-person and who are no longer able to participate.

“To make things worse, youth who have relied on Ontario’s school system for accessible opportunities and competition have now experienced two consecutive years of disruption due to the pandemic,” Darnell says. “Almost unanimously, they expressed feelings of frustration and sadness about the loss of sport.”

The full report includes an interactive visual dashboard that shows how youth responded to key topics, from how many participated in sports multiple times per week before COVID-19 to how those patterns have changed.

It also includes suggestions on how to rebuild the sector in positive ways, including:

Expanding access to free, low-cost or subsidized youth sport and sport for development opportunities
Developing a culture of representation and inclusion that is supported by policies and processes
Designing post-pandemic plans around why youth play – making it fun, social and safe
Investing in sport to build community belonging

“We set out to better understand how youth from across this land engage in sport and how to build a more equitable sport system for them,” Darnell says. “Along the way, it became the largest youth sports study of its kind in Canada – one which will provide sport and recreation providers, policy-makers, funders and future researchers with valuable data and recommendations to change the game for the better.”

Canada's university-level sports teams not as diverse as their student bodies, U of T study finds

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 16:26:23 +0000

Canada's university-level sports teams not as diverse as their student bodies, U of T study finds

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 07/04/2018 - 12:26

Cutline

U of T researchers studied data from nine Canadian universities and found that white student athletes were over-represented in every sport and team examined (photo by Martin Bazyl)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Our Community

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Diversity

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Sports

–Canadian university sports teams aren’t reflective of the diversity of their campuses because of an over-representation of white student athletes, new University of Toronto research suggests.

Researchers at U of T’s Centre for Sport Policy Studies compared 2016 data from nine Canadian universities, representing nearly 1,600 student athletes and 65 teams, with the self-reported racial demographics of students at eight universities included in the National Survey of Student Engagement in 2014.

The results showed that white student athletes were over-represented in every sport and team included in the report in comparison to their numbers in the student population at their university.

Student athletes who were white, for example, accounted for over 90 per cent of the players on ice hockey and volleyball teams, approximately 80 per cent of the players on field hockey teams, three-quarters of football players and almost two-thirds of basketball players. Basketball, with 34.3 per cent "other than white" players, was the sport that came closest to the proportion of non-white students (47.25 per cent) at the eight universities where demographic data were available.

The universities included in the study were U of T, Ryerson University, York University, McMaster University, Queen’s University, Western University, McGill University and the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia.

U of T research fuels IOC Gender Equality Review Project

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 17:02:11 +0000

U of T research fuels IOC Gender Equality Review Project

noreen.rasbach Thu, 03/08/2018 - 12:02

Cutline

(photo by Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images)

Topic

Global Lens

Alumni

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Global

Sports

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

Alumna and faculty from Kinesiology & Physical Education tackle gender inequality at Olympics

On International Women's Day, the authority behind the Olympic Games pledged to advance women's participation and leadership in sports.

The announcement follows years of U of T research highlighting gender inequalities at the Games.

In a statement, the International Olympic Committee promised to act on 25 “gender equality recommendations.”

“It is not just the right thing to do. It is in the interest of us all,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.

The Centre for Sport Policy Studies in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education at the University of Toronto has done gender audits of the Olympics going back to the London Games of 2012.

“I think it’s fair to say that CSPS has contributed significantly to the environment that produced these recommendations,” said Bruce Kidd, an Olympian and vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough.

He added that he has shared the U of T surveys with senior IOC staff in Lausanne, Switzerland. “The surveys have not only focused on numbers, but the quality of opportunities, including the nature of events and whether they were equal,” he said.

Kidd said the U of T research is reflected in the IOC’s Gender Equality Review Project, which aims to further gender equality across the global sports community by removing barriers to women and girls' participation in sports at all levels.

“The CSPS has been involved in gender equality work for some time, but the international shift started in association with the London 2012 Olympics,” says Professor Peter Donnelly, director of CSPS. “There was a great deal of gender equality triumphalism (on the part of the male dominated IOC) associated with the fact that there were, for the first time, women in every sport (with the introduction of women's boxing), and women athletes on every team from countries that had previously excluded women from participating.

"These were important achievements, so some of the triumphalism was deserved, but I was a little skeptical about the announcements that these were 'the Women's Olympics.'”

The CSPS researchers decided to carry out a gender audit that asked what remained to be done to achieve gender equality at the games. They found there were significantly more medal events for men than women, more male athletes than female athletes and important differences in the circumstances of participation for women.

The researchers followed this with an audit of the Sochi Olympics (2014), and are preparing reports on Rio (2016) and Pyeongchang (2018). All of the published reports are available on the CSPS website.

The IOC’s new 25 recommendations were also informed by the work of Nancy Lee, a U of T alumna and former head of CBC Sports. Lee was hired as an adviser and co-ordinator for the IOC Gender Equality Review Project after she gave a presentation to the International Sport Federations and National Sport Organizations in Doha, Qatar, in 2015.

She focused on why women’s sports get less coverage than men’s sports, suggesting sports organizations shared the blame for perpetuating the myth that women’s sport is second class. She highlighted inequalities in contracts and how women are portrayed in publications. She also pointed out unequal representation of women’s events in competition schedules.

Lee is hopeful that the Gender Equality Review Project will lead to progress.

“The work that went into this report is comprehensive,” she says. “In the past, IOC and IFs have dealt with various women’s issues, but they didn’t look at the whole picture.

"We can’t just talk about getting equal numbers of athletes on the field of play if we don’t have equality in the boardroom and if we’re portraying them in a sexist or non-gender neutral basis.

"This report is comprehensive across the board and the outcomes are tangible,” she adds. “There are dates and timelines and people with assigned responsibilities. That should make a difference this time around.”

GTActivity measures diversity of physical activity in the GTA

lavende4 — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 17:11:13 +0000

GTActivity measures diversity of physical activity in the GTA

lavende4 Fri, 09/09/2016 - 13:11

Cutline

A woman jogs in Coronation Park in downtown Toronto (Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Author legacy

Jelena Damjanovic

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

multiculturalism

Diversity

The Greater Toronto Area is widely recognized as one of the most multicultural communities in the world, but what does that mean for physical activity in the GTA? How many different sports, martial arts, forms of dance, exercise systems, and other physical games and activities do people participate in? Which ones thrive and which ones don't – and why?

That’s what GTActivity.ca aims to find out and they’re asking citizens of the GTA for help. Led by the Centre for Sport Policy Studies at the University of Toronto, GTActivity.ca is a citizen science project that will collect, catalogue and celebrate the diversity of physical activity in the GTA and serve as a public resource for GTA’s diverse communities.

“We continually hear that people should be more active, but we tend to think of sport and physical activity in quite limited ways – going to the gym, running, playing the major team sports,” says project lead professor Peter Donnelly of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education. “However, in addition to the physical activities practiced by First Nations peoples, every settler community that has come to Canada has brought its own forms of physical culture.”

Because of the limited way of thinking about sport and physical activity, and the limited measurements of activity, the researchers suspect that the amount and variety of physical activities in which people participate may have been underestimated. This project is the first attempt to document that diversity of physical culture in a community as large and diverse as the GTA.

“We are interested in all forms of physical cultural activities, ranging from dances that are only performed on specific formal occasions (such as at a wedding), to daily exercises – running, yoga, tai chi, pilates, etc. – to regularly scheduled sports leagues,” says Donnelly, who also serves as Director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies at U of T.

For each activity, there will be a written description, a brief history and geography of the activity, and some photographic and video images of people participating in the activity in the GTA.

The citizens of the GTA who participate, occasionally or regularly, in different physical cultural activities, or who know about such activities, are requested to post information about the activity on the site. They may be contacted by the researchers for their help in addressing the other objectives of the study, such as the life cycle of physical activities – which ones come to Canada, which ones thrive and which ones die out?

“We recognize that multiculturalism involves religious and linguistic diversity, and exposes us to cuisines and musical traditions from many different countries and regions,” says Donnelly. “But we have not focused as often on the grassroots forms of culture in which people participate, and what those might tell about the processes of migration and the experiences of living in a multicultural community.

“We are interested in the ways that physical cultural activities may be involved in the integration and inclusion of new Canadians; and we are interested in the political and financial support of physical cultural activities,” says Donnelly.

This project is funded by the Sport Canada Research Initiative through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and supported by the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto.

Donnelly is the head of the project and Dr. Mark Norman the project director. Co-researchers include Professor Bruce Kidd, Principal of the University of Toronto, Scarborough and Vice President of the University of Toronto, and professors Yuka Nakamura and Parissa Safai from the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University.

The three collaborating researchers are Daniel Burdsey, deputy head of school (research) in the School of Sport and Service Management at the University of Brighton, UK; Tracy Taylor, deputy dean of the business school at the University of Technology, Sydney, Autralia; and Maarten van Bottenburg, head of department at the Utrecht University School of Governance, Netherlands.

Centre for Sport Policy Studies

Federal funding linked to more medals for Canadian Olympians – but less participation in grassroots sport: Study

Outburst by Blackhawks exec highlights need to challenge culture of abuse in sport: U of T's Simon Darnell

In wake of COVID-19, U of T researcher finds 'steep decline' in youth participation in sport

Canada's university-level sports teams not as diverse as their student bodies, U of T study finds

Read more about the study in the Toronto Star

U of T research fuels IOC Gender Equality Review Project

GTActivity measures diversity of physical activity in the GTA