Five key takeaways from the 2026 Why Sports Conference

Celebrating its 10^th anniversary, attendees heard from inspiring names from sport, physical activity and health, as we looked forward to the future direction of the sector and its relationships.

As the day went on, five key themes were emerging. Here is what we learned from the 2026 Why Sports Conference:

Trust

Trust is the bedrock to success – without gaining trust, you don’t have anything. You have no mandate, no confidence and no sustainability. The sport and physical activity sector has been working tirelessly to gain the trust of other sectors, including healthcare. Slowly, we are chipping away and gaining that trust – CEO of Active Humber David Gent made reference to just this, as he mentioned positively that he feels we have made a huge amount of progress within the sport, health and wellbeing space.

But we don’t need to just gain trust from the top – in fact, gaining trust from our communities is just as important, if not more.

Strategic Leisure Limited discussed the importance of this, especially when you are looking to develop a facility in a close-knit community. They gave their case study of Warsop Health Hub. Now run by Serco Leisure as its operator, the health club previously needed a big uplift. Situated in a former mining town, where residents had previously felt let down by their local council, a lot of trust had to be built.

The project involved local people from the beginning by allowing trusted organisation Vibrant Warsop in on early discussions and still working in partnership for the leisure facility today. Now, there are groups of people who are using the facility who would have never previously engaged, having a huge impact on the Warsop community.

Trust is the key to everything. If you are not trusted, people will not buy in to your practice.

Things take time, persevere

You know that they say, patience is a virtue. And they say that because it’s true – being patient is a hard characteristic to uphold and can be challenging, but such an important one to gain mutual respect.

The sport and physical activity sector has been patient for a long time – patient in waiting for recognition from policyholders for the work that we do, but also from neighbouring sectors on the impact that we can have on their work, too.

In her morning session, Sport England’s Lisa Dodd-Mayne highlighted that systemic change is in fact happening – community value is increasing, policies are changing, resource allocation is shifting. We are getting an increase in buy-in value for our sector thanks to all of our joint efforts. This became evident in the recent Healthy Ageing Inquiry report from the Health and Social Care Committee, which puts physical activity at the heart of the NHS’s support for older people. But, our work isn’t done yet. We now need to build on this buy-in value and scale it even further.

Attendees also heard from Jeff Hunter from Courtside Hubs CIC, a community organisation who transform local parks to encourage physical activity participation. Throughout Jeff’s presentation, the key theme of perseverance was present. He discussed the many hidden hurdles that come with realising community projects:

• Money
• Agreement
• Planning
• Support

All of these things can take time. Planning applications notoriously can be lengthy, so perseverance and patience are crucial. With each of these, also comes trust – trust from funders, trust from local people. And as we have already discussed, it takes time – Hunter noted that it took 10 years to build trust in Sheffield and to get residents using the new facilities, but it was worth it in the end.

We need an evidence base

“A statement without data is just an opinion.”

We have the numbers. We have the statistics. Countless incredible figures came out of the conference, listing just a couple of examples:

• 11 minutes a day of moderate physical activity is associated with 23% lower risk of an early death. (Office for Health Improvement and Disparities)
• Over 10.6 million adults use group exercise as part of their blend of activities. (EMD UK)
• Warsop Health Hub generates £260 of social value per member, higher than the national average. (Strategic Leisure Limited)
• Over 450,000 take part in a parkrun event every weekend. (parkrun)
• 78% of customers in Sheffield agree that Courtside CIC has helped them improve their physical activity

Evidence, evidence, evidence. Evidence is the key to securing a new or extended contract, evidence can also help you gain trust from the people you need it from. If there is concrete evidence that something can help you individually, or help your area hit a target outcome, it becomes increasingly difficult to find an excuse not to.

Gather statistics and data wherever you can. Evidence bases are getting bigger – the evidence in favour of women needing to do strength training is increasing, there is now a study from Bournemouth University and NHS Dorset looking into how static cycling is more effective for hip pain than medical interventions.

If you are unable to conduct your own research, find data that already exists to back up your programmes.

Listen to people

The sport and physical activity sector is here to serve individuals and communities, but how do we know what people actually want or need?

We need to listen. Listen to local people, listen to local stories, listen to what people think is working, what isn’t working and how places are changing.

During her session, Hayley Lever, CEO of Greater Manchester Moving referenced that we need to let local people take the lead. After all, they are the ones that are living in their local communities every day – they know what local people like, dislike, their barriers, and their sticking points.

She used her own area of Greater Manchester to point out that we need a continual learning cycle. We can’t use the same techniques from five years ago or use the same methods as a blanket across all audiences, as people’s priorities shift – what worked well in Disbury last year for example, may not work in another area of Greater Manchester next year.

Warsop Health Hub also made sure that they employed local people who live in the community – Strategic Leisure Limited cited that 75% of facility employers lived in Warsop, with the other 25% all living in the district of Mansfield. Local employment not only helps the local economy, but it can also have an impact on participation rates – combined with insight and data, local people know what will work for their local area.

Continue to break down barriers

Lisa Dodd Mayne and Office for Health and Disparities – how the gap is widening in some areas.

One of the government’s five missions is to break down barriers to opportunity. The sport and physical activity sector takes a very similar approach, as we collectively aim to make physical activity more accessible for everyone, no matter their circumstance.

A lot of work has already been done to tackle this, as we can see from previous Sport England Active Lives data. However, as Sport England’s Lisa Dodd-Mayne discussed, some areas may not be ready for place-based intervention yet, and there is still a lot of work to do.

People living in some places in England are twice as likely to have more than two long term health conditions or a disability than other areas, and physical inequalities have been static or worsening over the last 40 years.

To help address this, Sport England’s universal priorities are to address gaps in the sector workforce, focusing on diversity, skills and experience. Having a workforce representative of the community that it serves, and is suitably qualified, it will encourage more people to feel like they can take part.

The attendees were inspired to think creatively when it comes to breaking down barriers. There are multiple factors why groups may not be engaging in physical activity – it could be travel and location, it could be fear of worsening their health, it could be financial reasons. Chris Allen discussed how clothing and equipment can be barriers to participation – he suggested that embracing sustainability in our sector can actually drastically reduce barriers. For example, a recycled bike is a fraction of the cost of a new bike, opening up more opportunities for people to take part.

Get creative and care about breaking down barriers – not only will you improve participation rates, but you will open up new opportunities for people who may not have had them before.

Final thoughts

The absolute minimum we need as a sector is trust. Building trust is an important fundamental to be recognised, but this also takes time, so perseverance is needed. And to help build that trust among potential funders and important stakeholders, an evidence base should be a priority. We need to continue to break down barriers to realise our potential, but again, this comes down to building trust, and listening to people, especially local communities who are experiencing those barriers.