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Description
Objectives: Even before the Corona pandemic, more and more sports clubs reported declining membership, episodic engagement and difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers. Given the complex constraints on sports club and social activities during the Corona pandemic, the question arises as to how this exceptional social situation affected membership retention in clubs and the importance of social capital. This paper addresses a research gap by estimating membership commitment in the aftermath of the Corona pandemic, focusing on the relevance of different social capital indicators.
Methods: The empirical analyses are based on a representative population survey conducted in late 2020/early 2021.
Findings: Membership retention of the sports club members remains quite high. Social capital indicators that are narrowly related to the sports club explain little in predicting member retention. In addition to perceived norms of reciprocity in the club, helpfulness and ingroup trust increase retention, while sociability orientation and outgroup trust decrease the likelihood of still being a member of the club after the pandemic. When all predictors are included, the model goodness of fit increases to almost 26%.
Discussion and Conclusion: Solidarity orientations were already relevant predictors of member retention in other surveys. The Corona pandemic does not seem to have changed this. During the pandemic, however, the bridging potential of sports clubs seems to have suffered. The extent to which negative effects of a high social bonding capital are indicated here must be examined in further trend analyses. Preliminary conclusions but also limitations of the study are presented at the end.
