Women and Table Tennis
Where we are now and where we want to be……..
Liz Davidson –Sports Partnerships Manager WSFF, 28th January 2011
Our work
Creating a nation of active women
1
2
Create a society
in which being
active is attractive
3
Develop policies to
improve leadership,
investment & profile
Give the customer
what she wants
Help
Inspire
Persuade
Provide expert consultancy to
sport & fitness industry on
treating women as customers
Consumer campaigning &
promotions to make fit &
healthy women into social &
cultural role models
Influence government
& policy-makers
Session
Using what we know to help us plan
Current participation levels in England
Where the opportunity is.
Increasing participation, progression and representation of
women and girls in table tennis
- Engaging new participants
- The transition from casual player to formal
engagement
- Getting more women involved in and progressing as
coaches
Summary and actions
•
•
•
•
There is a wealth of information and data available to
us, this afternoon we’re going to have a look at how
we can use this to plan for the future in combination
with our existing knowledge and insight and some of
what we heard this morning.
Current participation levels
• Table tennis grew fast as a sport among women from 2005-06 to
2007-08, but failed to grow as significantly in 2008-09
• Only 24,100 women played table tennis at least once a week in
2008-09
• Only bowls and golf have a larger proportion of female players
over the age of 55
• Table tennis is the 18th most popular participation sport for
women
• Table tennis is one of a handful of sports that has an age and
ethnicity profile that is not too dissimilar to the female population
as a whole
Table tennis is the 18th most popular participation sport for women
Proportion of people who play table tennis
by gender
All chart-data used in this presentation is taken from the Active People Survey 3 (200809). All English adults (aged 16 and over) who have taken part in the sport at least once
a week (moderate intensity), unless stated otherwise.
Women
Men
0.66%
0.11%
0.30%
0.29%
Played at least once a week Played at least once in the
(moderate intensity)
last four weeks
Profile of people who play table tennis by
gender and age
45%
26%
36%
55+
28%
35-54
29%
34%
16-34
29%
30%
Table tennis
playing
women
All women
44%
Table tennis
playing men
33%
36%
32%
All men
Profile of people who play table tennis by
gender and ethnicity
10%
9%
13%
10%
87%
91%
Table
tennis
playing
men
All men
BME
90%
91%
Table
tennis
playing
women
All
women
White
Cliff Simms
BME Women’s Participation in table tennis.
Engagement and the opportunity.
www.sportingequals.org.uk
Profile of people who play table tennis by
gender and household income
33%
38%
29%
Table
tennis
playing
women
26%
High
(£41,600+)
33%
35%
35%
Medium
(£20,800£41,599)
40%
37%
39%
Low (under
£20,799)
28%
29%
Table
tennis
playing
men
All men
All women
People playing as a part of a club, in competition and
receiving coaching/ tuition
Table tennis is a straightforward sport that is easy enough to play for fun
with no training. As such it has a low rate of formal organised participation
Just one in seven women play as a member of a sports club, and less
than one in ten take part in competition
Women also have little interest in receiving tuition. The sport has the
lowest proportion of women receiving tuition of all the 46 funded sports
Women*
20.1%
20.1%
Men
14.3%
9.3%
Club membership
Competition
5.2%
8.7%
Tuition
Women as coaches of sport: % of NGB
affiliated coaches who are women
One in seven affiliate coaches is a woman – which is about the
average for all NGBs
99.1%
80.7%
16.8%
A
AS
24.9%
33.1%
10.9%
18.9%
14.2%
.
g
h
A
ss
nd
FA
DP
as
lin
a
LT
A
l
e
c
u
M
g
E
Th
Sq
Cy
nis
En
n
d
h
n
Te
to
itis
lan
r
e
n
g
l
i
B
b
En
dm
Ta
a
h
B
lis
g
En
What women like about table tennis
On the whole, female table tennis players are more
satisfied than the average with their sport. Particularly
so with the social elements, value for money, ease of
participating and own performance
Engaging new participants
31.9%
7.1%
m
im
w
S
ing
4.5% 4.4% 4.1%
2.6% 1.7% 1.5%
0.83% 0.19%
1.0%
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
0 ) (2 2 )
(9
(4
(7
(8
(6
(3
(5
(2
1
l
l
(
l
s
l
s
g
n
g
g
a
a
n
o
n
ll
ic
is
ni
in
tb
tb
idi
cli Ten
let mint eer
ba enn
o
e
r
t
y
h
o
N
t
C
F
d
in
ue
At
se
cq able
or
Ba unta
a
H
T
/r
Mo
sh
a
u
Sq
(1
)
Sport England’s Market Segmentation tool
Current participants
Where the demand is….
Where the opportunity lies within the adult
population
Helena
Elaine
Brenda
Norma
Phyllis
Elsie
Brenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Older working woman 46 – 65
Typically married, with children who have left home
10% of adult female population are “Brendas”
“Brendas” aren’t currently very active, but would like to do more.
The main motivations for Brenda playing sport are keeping fit and enjoyment
51% of this segment say they would do more sport if they were less busy,
compared to 46% of the overall adult population.
23% said they would do more if there was cheaper admission. Both of these
issues appear to be more important for Brenda than other adults and could be a
barrier to her participation.
13% would be encouraged by having people to go with and 9% would need more
free time which reflects Brenda’s busy life
“Brendas” can be best reached through local papers, face to face
communications and like communication to be “jargon free”
See handouts for further information
Norma
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mainly aged 56-65
Typically single, recently retired, with a basic income to enjoy their lifestyles
4% off adult female population are “Normas”
“Norma” has below average levels of sports participation. 79% of this segment
have done no sport in the past four weeks, compared with the average of 60% of
all adults.
41% of “Normas” would like to do more sport
The main motivations for Norma are keeping fit, enjoyment and socialising
28% of this segment say they would be encouraged to do more sport if they
were less busy, compared to 46% of the overall adult population.
19% said they would do more if there was cheaper admission and 15% would be
encouraged by having people to go with
“Normas ” can be best reached through local papers, face to face
communications and like communication to be “jargon free”
See handouts for further information
Under 16s
Focus so far has been very much on adult women,
but as part of this afternoons discussion’s we will also
consider what would encourage more girls to take up
the sport and remain involved in it.
Compared with many other sports, table tennis is
successful in engaging with those groups within
society who are often low participators (e.g. older
women, and BME women). This is possibly due to the
fact that table tennis is a low impact sport, that is
relatively easy to just pick up and play – so is
accessible to all. However, table tennis is played
informally by women, so the English Table Tennis
Association (ETTA), needs to consider how to move
these casual players into more formal engagement
and how to get more women involved in coaching.
Group discussion
• Three groups
• Topic each
- Engaging new participants
- The transition from casual player to formal
engagement
- Getting more women involved in and
progressing
as coaches
30 – 40 minutes then feedback
Feedback from group discussion
Possible actions and next steps
Many thanks
Further information
www.wsff.org.uk
http://www.sportingequals.org.uk
Summary and close from Judy Rogers.