The Athlete-First Path to Growing Sports Participation

Sports Leagues, especially when it comes to grassroots, women’s sports and niche sports, face a great challenge when it comes to expanding their size and increasing participation. Their goal is rightly not simply about growing numbers. It is about sustaining participation, strengthening connection, and ensuring that every athlete – regardless of age, gender, geography or background – feels seen, supported and part of the game.

Meeting this challenge is not just a question of building new facilities or empowering coaches. It demands a systemic shift towards an ecosystem that is athlete-centric by design. One that keeps athletes engaged longer, keeps families connected, and reduces the operational load on clubs and leagues.

Why the Athlete’s Experience Is Key

Participation growth and retention are not abstract concepts. They are practical realities. The data is clear:

• Many children leave organised sport by age 12
• The vast majority of teenage girls stop playing by age 17
• Regional participants are more likely to drop out -and at high rates

Athletes leave because they feel invisible, disconnected, or unsure of where they are heading. And every athlete who drops out early represents lost registration revenue, lost volunteer effort, and many other lost opportunities.

Retention can the single biggest multiplier in arresting this decline.  Retention increases participation, and an athlete-first system is the bigger single lever operating here.  It changes everything by ensuring:

• Every player is able to video moments
• Progress is tangible and shared with family and the full ecosystem
• Participation feels both personal and communal

When athletes are discoverable, they can dream about a career in sport and are motivated to stay engaged. This extends to their families; when families feel connected, they stay invested and in turn will encourage participation and support retention.

Growth Markets Need Scalable Solutions

Across all regions, the challenges are the same. Clubs and leagues are being asked to do more with less.

Growth requires systems that:

• Work without large volunteer bases
• Scale across metro, regional and remote areas
• Deliver professional calibre viewing experience

Growth is inherently holistic, and as such cannot be achieved with a fragmented technology stack   A lack of harmony in a tech stack increases cost and complexity, while an integrated platform reduces both.

Unlocking Growth in Key Targets

Australia is a perfect example of how integration and innovation can overcome structural barriers that include:

Culturally Diverse Communities

The fastest-growing regions are home to families whose sporting identities may lie in soccer, cricket, basketball or rugby. For these families, participation is driven by understanding, pride and shareability. An athlete-centric digital platform allows:

• Simple, visual storytelling of a child’s sporting moments
• Multilingual, shareable highlights that travel beyond Australia
• A sense of pride and community bonding that families can share with relatives overseas

When parents and extended family can see and celebrate a child’s progress, the sport becomes culturally meaningful and embedded, not just accessible.

Indigenous Communities

Indigenous athletes across regions such as Cape York, Arnhem Land, the Kimberley and Central Australia have suffered from limited access and visibility.

An athlete-centric system delivers:

• Visibility without reliance on large volunteer bases
• Digital equity for remote and regional athletes
• Talent discovery that does not depend on postcode or connections

When every athlete is captured and visible, opportunity becomes more equitable, pathways open earlier and more fairly, and talent is recognized rather than being hidden from view.

Regional and Rural Australia

In regional towns, sport is the heartbeat of the community, but volunteer fatigue, travel demands and administrative load are increasing.

An all-in-one, athlete-centric platform:

• Reduces administrative burden on clubs
• Ensures consistent coverage across age groups, just like in the big metro areas
• Keeps families connected even – and especially when they cannot attend in person
• Gives equitable opportunities for athletes to be scouted

When the system works seamlessly in the background, communities can focus on what matters most: the athletes themselves.

Keeping Up With the Changing Digital Landscape

With recent and increasing restrictions on under-16 access to mainstream social platforms, community sport is losing one of its most important informal engagement channels. Without a safe, sport-controlled alternative, young athletes will lose a key part of how they build identity and pride around participation. A dedicated, secure environment that allows athletes and families to access highlights and moments is no longer a nice-to-have. It is part of the participation infrastructure.

Additionally, research shows that half of all Australian youth may be overweight or obese by 2050 and over 40 per cent report feeling lonely. Sport can play a major role in addressing and capitalising on these challenges with a system that keeps young people engaged and provides a sense of belonging, physical health and community connection.

A Field-Proven, Integrated Platform

Driving participation beyond one million participants requires more than point solutions, or better coaching tools. It requires a single, end-to-end platform built around the athlete, that reduces friction for clubs and leagues.

Pixellot’s integrated system has already delivered athlete-centric growth at national scale:

• United States with NFHS and PlayOn
• South Africa with SuperSport Schools

Since launching three years ago, SuperSport Schools has become the largest youth sports platform on the African continent, delivering measurable impact across diverse geographies and cultures and measurably growing the audiences and participation in youth sports.

January–September 2025 results include:

• 108 million total views
• 3 million unique viewers
• 38,700 live hours broadcast
• 2 billion minutes watched
• 50% increase in girls’ participation
• Over $10 million per year in sustainable revenue

This is a field-proven blueprint, that is directly applicable to all leagues that want to grow at scale.

Making Technology Serve People!

In an age where many are concerned about the burdens and complexities of technology, at Pixellot we feel privileged to be in a business that is all about using AI and digital innovation to serve people in deep and meaningful ways.

By integrating Pixellot’s open platform with complementary technologies, any sport federation can establish an environment that enables every player to shine, every family and community to participate while lightening the load on clubs, and increasing retention.

To sum up; Creating an ecosystem where every moment is captured, every player feels part of the story and every family has a reason to stay connected, is the basis for moving onwards and upwards!

 

 

If you’re a league, federation or governing body looking to grow participation, strengthen retention and build an athlete-centric ecosystem at scale, we’d welcome the conversation.

To explore how this approach could be applied within your sport, contact Dean Anglin, Chief Commercial Officer for Pixellot Australia & New Zealand, to discuss how an integrated, athlete-first platform can help unlock sustainable growth and long-term impact.

DeanA@pixellot.tv