Countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom invest enormous sums in elite institutes, high-performance centres, specialist personnel and increasingly sophisticated athlete-development systems.
But consider a simple question.
If an additional $10 million became available for sport, which investment would ultimately produce the greatest benefit—even at elite level?
Would it be better spent within the institutionalised high-performance system, supporting a relatively small number of already-identified athletes?
Or could it achieve more by financing thousands of local competitions across many sports—providing prize money, equipment, coaching support, facility access and assistance for the volunteers who keep community sport alive?
Elite institutes are very good at improving athletes who have already emerged. But they depend upon a much larger sporting ecosystem to produce those athletes in the first place.
Regular school and community competition creates participation, strengthens clubs, develops coaches and officials, and gives talented young people repeated opportunities to be noticed and improve. It also allows people to establish a lifelong relationship with sport, whether or not they ever become elite athletes.
Australia and the UK already possess strong sporting institutions. However, as investment becomes increasingly concentrated at the top, we should ask whether the foundations beneath them are receiving sufficient attention.
Perhaps the most important high-performance question is not:
“How much more should we invest in elite athletes?”
It may be:
“How much talent never emerges because we have not invested enough in the competitions and communities where sporting journeys begin?”
