https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5831-6433
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ABSTRACT
The impact of the COVID-19 crisis and its related measures on how people practice and experience leisure continues to be significant. In the current study, a survey measuring sport participation during the third week of the first lockdown, that started on the 18th of March 2020 and has been gradually loosened as of the 18th of April 2020, was carried out among 13,515 Flemish citizens. Through a canonical correlation analysis, four clusters of COVID-19-sports-participants are distinguished, i.e. people who experience restrictions when it comes to (i) time and sports infrastructure, (ii) closed sports clubs and cancelled event activities, (iii) time and fear/sickness, and (iv) those who experience no impact. Logistic regression results indicate that participants with online sports experience have a (more) positive effect on their sports participation behaviour, while less missing and having to adapt their previous sports behaviour. The opposite is found for sports club members, while former sports event participation has a positive effect on sports frequency, but a negative effect on their motivation. The results of both analyses give insight into the role that different policy instruments (i.e. sports clubs, events, type of sports) play in keeping different clusters of sports participants motivated to stay sports-active.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Erik Thibaut
Erik Thibaut is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Policy in Sports & Physical Activity Research Group (KU Leuven) and a lecturer at the University College of Thomas More (Turnhout). He is also the Coordinator of the Policy Research Center on Sport. In his research, he focuses on the determining factors of sports participation and sports expenditure.
Bram Constandt
Bram Constandt is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sport Management at Ghent University, Belgium, as well as an Affiliated Scholar at the Global Institute of Responsible Sport Organizations (GIRSO) of the University of Minnesota, USA. His main research interests include integrity issues and integrity management in sport.
Veerle De Bosscher
Veerle De Bosscher is associate professor at the department of Sports Policy and Management (faculty of Physical Education) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. She has research expertise in youth and elite sport, athlete pathways, sport development, sporting outcomes in relation to sport policy, effectiveness, monitoring and evaluation, strategic management, benchmarking and competitiveness.
Annick Willem
Annick Willem is Associate Professor in Sport Management at the Department of Movement & Sports Sciences (Ghent University) and head of the Sport Management research group. Her research is on management and policy in the sports sector, with a particular focus on social issues, such as Sport-for-All and ethics management. Annick teaches several sport management courses and is academic coordinator of the Belgian Olympic Academy.
Margot Ricour
Margot Ricour is a doctoral researcher at the research unit Sport and Society, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. Her main research interest concerns quality in youth sport and youth sport policy.
Jeroen Scheerder
Jeroen Scheerder is Professor in Sport Policy and Sport Sociology, and Head of the Policy in Sports & Physical Activity Research Group at KU Leuven, Belgium. He was President of the European Association for Sociology of Sport (EASS) and currently he is Promotor-coordinator of the Policy Research Centre on Sports on behalf of the Flemish Government. His primary research interests focuses on political and sociological aspects of sport and physical activity. Recently, he published The Rise and Size of the Fitness Industry in Europe: Fit for the Future? (Palgrave, 2020).