Grassroot sport faces huge bill due to climate weather
New research from BASIS (The British Association of Sustainable Sport) and Round Our Way finds boggy sports grounds and ankle-deep puddles are becoming a fixture of UK amateur sport, with ground staff struggling with rescheduling and cancellations.
The report charts significant impacts on amateur sports across the UK including 132,644 cricket overs lost to rain in the ten seasons played between 2013 and 2023.
A poll commissioned by Round Our Way for the report finds that up to 64% of spectators and players say that extreme weather conditions are making supporting grassroots sports harder.
The new survey also finds:
40% of football spectators and players say they have experienced weather extremes associated with climate change in the past year.
In cricket, 60% of spectators and players say they have experienced climate disruption over the same time period.
In golf, the number rises to 64% for golfers and golf spectators.
The findings come as the 2023-2024 winter sports season has already been hit by five named winter storms since September: Storm Agnes, Storm Babet, Storm Ciarán, Storm Debi and Storm Elin, with forecasters warning that climate impacts are bringing more intense rainfall alongside the impacts of global weather patterns like El Ninō.
The report builds on concerns raised by the FA around the 120,000 games it estimates are lost every season and figures from the Sport and Recreation Alliance that show around a third of grassroot pitches lose six weeks to two months of the year from flooding due to severe weather.
New research by the British Association of Sustainable Sport in collaboration with Round Our Way.
The research was covered by the BBC, ITV, The Mirror, The Times, The Independent, The Herald and a host of local and regional papers.
The full report is available here.