Post by baseballnewby on Jun 13, 2018 9:29:43 GMT 10
I think this would be an interesting Masters\PhD research idea.
Do elite facilities and teams actually impact junior participation in a sport?
Certainly ancedotally I'm unaware of any of the juniors that I have spoken to link the existence of an elite team and facilities to their participation in baseball.
Looking at Winter baseball junior teams (excluding tee ball and being mindful that Dandenong runs 4 age teirs and some other leagues run 3).
Ringwood 31
Dandnenong 29
Diamond Valley 21
City West 9
Geelong 8
Note I'm not sure how this would be done with Summer League due to the multi leveled Charter system, it might be easier to use actually player numbers. Werribee's transfer appears to assisted in City West growth and hopefully more teams will join up now they have a local junior subleague.
Effectively the Ringwood is further time wise from the elite facility then Dandenong is due to the configuration of Melbourne's freeways. It would appear that even after having an elite facility for 28 years,the relationship between junior teams and the locations is an inverse one.
Another interesting observation is that from my somewhat limited exposure the junior facilities in Ringwood are generally very poor. Waverley, Croydon and Ringwood junior grounds areas are subject to flooding, Forest Hill being a flood retarding basin obviously often floods, Knox is probably the best facility but it is actually softball ground. So crappy grounds don't stop juniors playing.
Do elite facilities and teams actually impact junior participation in a sport?
Certainly ancedotally I'm unaware of any of the juniors that I have spoken to link the existence of an elite team and facilities to their participation in baseball.
Looking at Winter baseball junior teams (excluding tee ball and being mindful that Dandenong runs 4 age teirs and some other leagues run 3).
Ringwood 31
Dandnenong 29
Diamond Valley 21
City West 9
Geelong 8
Note I'm not sure how this would be done with Summer League due to the multi leveled Charter system, it might be easier to use actually player numbers. Werribee's transfer appears to assisted in City West growth and hopefully more teams will join up now they have a local junior subleague.
Effectively the Ringwood is further time wise from the elite facility then Dandenong is due to the configuration of Melbourne's freeways. It would appear that even after having an elite facility for 28 years,the relationship between junior teams and the locations is an inverse one.
Another interesting observation is that from my somewhat limited exposure the junior facilities in Ringwood are generally very poor. Waverley, Croydon and Ringwood junior grounds areas are subject to flooding, Forest Hill being a flood retarding basin obviously often floods, Knox is probably the best facility but it is actually softball ground. So crappy grounds don't stop juniors playing.
