By Ashleigh Matosevic
In public parks and the courts of local recreational centres across Melbourne’s western suburbs, thousands of athletes train each week, forming the foundation of Australia’s next generation of elite sportspeople.
These grassroots spaces host training sessions and competitions across a variety of different sports, from junior to senior levels.
But behind the familiar routine of dribbling balls and coaches shouting, sits a quieter reality for many grassroots clubs; it is becoming harder than ever to run them.
Melinda Foley is the president of the Cambridge Basketball Club. Whilst the organisation is not currently in financial distress, the biggest costs faced by the club are for “training and playing facilities”. Sponsorship has helped keep fees stable amidst cost-of-living pressures.
“We have a great sponsor, and they have alleviated a lot of that concern. During this time, I didn’t want to increase basketball fees because I think it’s hard enough on parents as it is,” Foley says.
While she’s grateful for sponsorship helping keep fees down, she acknowledges that other clubs in Werribee are not as fortunate.
While the cost for the average Australian child to play sport has significantly increased, the Cambridge club has seen the number of enrolments surge in the lead up to the new basketball season. Foley attributes this to the Victorian government’s Get Active Kids voucher initiative, which aims to encourage more kids to participate in sport.
“I know [for] this season, we’ve so far had $4,400 revenue generated from the Get Active Kids voucher, … you do wonder without that if kids would be compromised because of the current [cost of living] situation,” she says.
Such initiatives can only go so far though, and Foley says that the club has seen an increase in the number of people needing payment plans.
“There are a lot of families who don’t qualify for the vouchers. So, the cost of living is affecting them,” she says.
Many other clubs across the western suburbs are also finding ways to help offset rising costs.
Dr Erica Randle, a Senior Research Fellow at La Trobe University, says that cost of living pressures is affecting clubs “from both a participant and sponsorship angle.”
Currently doing work with the Container Deposit Scheme, Dr Randle says this is another way clubs have been looking for alternative revenue. She says sponsors are also now “giving containers rather than cash”.
But besides the support from the state government, it’s volunteers who are keeping clubs functioning weekly.
An AusPlay study from 2025 found that an estimated 2.8 million Australians aged 15 and over volunteer annually. Among those surveyed, 772,000 were from Victoria with positions like fundraising, medical support and coaching often filled by volunteers.
Clare Hanlon, a professor from Victoria University, says that without volunteers these clubs would not exist.
“Volunteers are the foundation for grassroots clubs,” she says. “Yet volunteers are time-poor and with increasing expectations and pressure on clubs, volunteer burnout is evident.”
She says that clubs rely on memberships to help fund their organisations. While clubs try to find ways to keep their organisations afloat, Professor Hanlon says “communities under financial pressures often see individuals moving away from organised sports due to the traditional membership models in place.”
With increasing costs families are often having to weigh the cost of memberships against essential household expenses. But in Melinda Foley’s case, the club is yet to see players pulling out of playing due to financial pressures. She says that if this were the case for a Cambridge player, the club would try to work something out.
“At the end of the day, our interest is just to have a place for kids to play sport,” she says. “All kids should be able to have fun and play basketball, so we would make it happen..”
Professor Hanlon warns that the survival of grassroots clubs is vital, with inaccessibility likely to have “far-reaching long-term impacts” on the wider community.
“Sport provides mental, physical, and social health. For many people sport may be their only source of physical activity,” Hanlon says.
Without physical activity she says we’d see an increase in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, plus a greater risk of significant health challenges, social isolation, mental health problems and increased healthcare costs.
