Sporting capital: a theoretical and empirical analysis of sport participation determinants and its application to sports development policy and practice

Abstract

The central contention of this article is that having a more coherent and robust theoretical foundation to underpin sports development policy and practice is not just a nice to have discourse for academic debate but a fundamental pre-requisite for effective public policy. This article proposes a theoretical perspective for sport development focused on the concept of ‘sporting capital’. In terms of its constituent parts, sporting capital is not new. However, as a holistic and coherent theoretical proposition, it can provide a new lens on sporting behaviours and their determinants that the author believes has the potential to unlock the door to improved insight and understanding of the phenomenon that is ‘sport’ and in turn provide a foundation for more effective public policy intervention. The theory of sporting capital is tested empirically using data from the ‘Active People Survey’ (n = 4527) to create a 10-point ‘sporting capital index’. The results are discussed and suggestions made for how they can in...