The bar chart compares the number of adult participants of various major sports in 1997 and 2017. Overall, some sports saw significant increases in the number of participants, one sport a sharp decline and two sports hardly any movement at all.
When compared to 1997, the number of tennis players and golfers in 2017 has increased slightly from 50 thousand to 55 thousand and from 31 thousand to 32 thousand, respectively. At the same time, the number of adult participants in Basketball, Football and Rugby saw a significant increase. The number of basketball players more than doubled (from nine thousand to 21 thousand) and the number football and rugby players increased in parallel from roughly 31 thousand to around 49 thousand.
Both Golf and Swimming saw hardly any movement in the number of participants over this period of time, with the number of adult golfers and swimmers staying steady at around 31 thousand for golfers and 33 thousand for swimmers. The only sport that saw a sharp decline in the number of participants during this time is Cricket, with the number of participants decreasing from 25 thousand to 6 thousand.