Softball Australia is pleased to announce that Softball membership in Australia has grown by 2.5% over the last 12 months.

Softball in Australia also experienced 2.05% growth compared to the most recent COVID unaffected membership period in 2019-20.

After generally being in decline since 1996, it is the first discernible growth since 2013-2016, when membership plateaued over a four-year period.

Almost all States and Territories experienced strong growth over the last 12 months, spearheaded by Queensland (13% growth), WA (11%), and Victoria and SA (both 10%).

5-Year Membership Data by State

While clearly buoyant about the result, Softball Australia National Participation Manager Nick Frayne said the metrics need to be put into perspective.

“This is the first year that memberships for all States and Territories have been recorded through RevSport except for NSW, and with the increased flexibility of new membership offerings we have seen an immediate impact on numbers.

"The results clearly demonstrate that current and potential new markets want to participate in softball in more flexible ways, and not necessarily with a traditional 6 or 12-month membership.

“This is a fantastic result and great news for the sport in Australia. With new participation programs like Home Run Heroes, better reporting and data insights available through RevSport, and more flexible softball opportunities across the board post-COVID, I’m optimistic that we now have a strong pathway to grow membership and become sustainable at all levels in the future.”

Amongst other key areas, Softball Australia will now embark on a large-scale project to look at how the slowpitch/social format of softball can be further embedded into the Association and Club network to stimulate growth.

"Social and unstructured sport has overtaken traditional models of competitive sport, and the slowpitch format is the perfect complement to traditional fastpitch softball within our Associations and Clubs,” Frayne said.

"With more than 45 million participants in the USA, clearly there are significant opportunities in Australia for a proven softball format that encourages fun and promotes the simple, social aspects of the sport, and it is something we will be aiming to roll-out in the coming 12 months".

Other membership highlights include:

• An overall membership increase of 2.5% compared to 2020/21.
• An overall membership increase of 2.05% compared to 2019/20, the most recent period without a significant COVID impact on participation.
• Five out of eight States/Territories achieved membership growth in the last 24 months, compared to the last COVID unaffected data set.

Membership by State and Category