Jack Anderson: Is sport betraying the terms of its social licence?

Sport fans love their statistics and, increasingly, so do sports administrators. Annual reports of the CEOs for all major Australian sports now include tables on TV viewership figures, marketing and sponsorship revenues, and, of course, participation numbers.

The accuracy with which certain sports in Australia, notably cricket, collate and even inflate participation numbers was criticised this year. To be fair, all sports rush onto various multimedia platforms and interpret Sport Australia’s annual release of participation numbers in sport to their own advantage — football will say it is the strongest sport overall; netball will say it has a significant reach among women and girls, and so on.