Growing Sports Communities through Geospatial

The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent and only fully professional men’s competition of Australian rules football. 1 in every 24 Australians is a member of an AFL club, with record levels of female participation in 2018. The AFL’s Game Development Department has a focus on community facilities around Australia and aims to grow participation in the game.

AFL aims for around 3% to 4% growth in community engagement each year and works with a variety of stakeholders including local and state governments and state football bodies to make it possible. They needed a way to communicate quickly about their local needs and use a standardized report to convey their message between all the stakeholders.

The solution shows the journeys of players from where they live to their club, showing if they pass other clubs on their way. It brings together player and facility data, overlaying it with demographic information from the Census to inform each locality where they have good market penetration.

To provide the AFL team an intuitive and user-friendly solution (that could be used by non-technical stakeholders across Australia), CARTO partnered with Liveli, the leading provider of mapping product technology in the APAC market. Using Excel and Dropbox connectors for frequently updated data, they were able to seamlessly create simple and beautiful maps.