Sport volunteering in Australia: how many people volunteer in sport

The series break, stated plainly

Gender and per-sport breakdowns of sport volunteers were published in the series up to 2021. The series was re-based after that release, and the 2025 headline is not comparable with the pre-break figures at the breakdown level. This page therefore prints neither a gender split nor a per-sport split: quoting a 2021 share next to a 2025 total would imply a continuity the data does not have. Anyone who needs the split should cite the pre-break 2021 release explicitly, with its year, and not present it as current.

Trend: what the two sources allow

The AusPlay non-playing figure verified for this page is the calendar year 2025 level, and with the series break described above no year-on-year change is printed for it. The General Social Survey is a multi-year survey rather than an annual one, and its volunteering rate is published as a point-in-time measure for the survey year; the 23 per cent figure is the 2025 result and is not compared here with earlier GSS cycles, whose questions and collection modes have changed over time. Both organisations publish their own time-series commentary, which is the right place to source a trend statement.

How each figure is collected

AusPlay is the Australian Sports Commission's continuous national telephone survey. Adults aged 15 and over are asked, alongside their own participation, whether they were involved in sport or physical activity in a non-playing capacity in the previous 12 months and in what roles; the CY2025 estimate covers January to December 2025 and was released on 30 April 2026. The General Social Survey is run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics with a household sample of persons aged 15 and over and asks about unpaid voluntary work through an organisation or group in the previous 12 months; the 2025 results are the source of the 23 per cent rate. The two samples, questions and reference populations differ, which is why the figures are not interchangeable.

• AusPlay: non-playing involvement in sport, adults 15+, 12-month recall, telephone survey.
• ABS GSS 2025: formal volunteering through any organisation, persons 15+, household survey.
• Neither figure counts informal help given outside an organisation.
• Breakdowns by gender and sport: pre-break 2021 series only.

How to cite the volunteering figures

Cite each figure to its own publisher. AusPlay data carries the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 attribution; ABS data is cited to the Australian Bureau of Statistics under its own terms:

• Australian Sports Commission - www.ausport.gov.au
• Suggested citation (AusPlay): Australian Sports Commission, AusPlay calendar year 2025 (released 30 April 2026), adults 15+ involved in sport in non-playing roles, 2.8-2.9 million.
• Suggested citation (GSS): Australian Bureau of Statistics, General Social Survey 2025, formal volunteering rate, persons 15+, 23 per cent.
• If quoting a gender or per-sport split, cite the pre-break 2021 series by year and note the break.

What 2.8 million volunteers means for the club they hold up

Almost every club on this site is run by a handful of those volunteers, and the job that burns them out is not coaching, it is chasing: unpaid fees, unanswered messages, a roster that lives in one person's head. The clubs that keep their volunteers are the ones that took the chasing away, so that a treasurer reconciles a weekly payout instead of a shoebox of receipts and a coach gets a filled waitlist instead of a text thread.