The Sport England Active Lives Survey for Academic Year 2022-23 (published in May 2024) showed that:
1.55million - the most amount of people playing basketball since its Active Lives surveys began in 2015
Basketball is England's second most popular team sport, after football
1.2million children and young people (aged 5-16) play basketball on a weekly basis
374,000 of which are females (31.2%)
350,000 adults (16+) participate in the sport twice a month66,900 of which are females (19.4%)
U16s play basketball once a week
Further detail
In the Active Lives Children and Young People survey for Academic Year 2022-23, over 20,000 more under-16s are playing basketball on a weekly basis – up from 1,178,300 in 2021-22 to 1,198,900.
The most popular school years for the sport are 3-6 (640,000) and 7-11 (509,600).
The gender split is 814,600 boys and 374,000 girls, which means there has been an uplift of 6.4% (47,200) for boys’ participation and a decrease of nearly 1% (23,600) for girls, when compared with the previous academic year.
Additionally, in the Active Lives Adult survey, which covers November 2022 to November 2023, 344,400 take part in basketball (at least) twice in a 28-day period, which is up over 55,000 compared with November 2021 to November 2022 where it was 289,300.
That means, basketball adult participation numbers are at their highest ever since November 2015 to November 2016 – the first ever Active Lives Adult survey – where over 325,000 was recorded.
The gender split is 272,200 men and 66,900 women, with men’s participation increasing by over 58,000 and women’s decreasing by over 7000, when compared with the previous year’s survey.
Basketball England members:
Basketball England has almost 40,000 licenced members
Over 18,000 of Basketball England members are under the age of 16, and almost 500 members are over the age of 60
Over 7,000 of our members are female
Over 3,000 of our members are from areas of Low-Socio Economic affluence
In addition to our playing members:
We have over 2,000 licenced coaches
We have almost 3,000 licenced officials
Playing:
Basketball England has 14,279 licenced National League players, including 9,276 under 16s, 2,430 females, and 1,445 of a Low-Socio Economic group
We also have 22,986 licenced Local League/BUCS players, including 8,914 under 16s, 4,128 females, and 1,748 of a Low-Socio Economic Group
Coaching:
Basketball England has 2,151 licenced coaches, and of them, 1,396 qualified for the National League
2,036 of our coaches are qualified at level 2 or above
We have 319 female coaches
Officiating:
Basketball England has 2,960 officials holding at least one licence, including 1,606 licenced referees, 1,892 licenced table officials, and 120 statisticians
We have 931 female officials
Sources: Active Lives Survey November 22-23 adult data import - Sport England; Active Lives Survey Academic Year 22-23 children and young people data import - Sport England; internal data reporting 31/03/25 – Basketball England.
