The Net Promoter Score, or ‘NPS’, is the world’s leading metric for measuring customer satisfaction & loyalty. The NPS serves as a consistent, standardised means of measuring oftentimes hundreds of responses to one critical question we ask participants after an event: “Based on your experience, how likely is it that you would recommend this AV event to someone else?”

The respondent selects a rating from 0-10, with 0 being the least likely to recommend and 10 being the most. Responses are segmented into one of three groups:

1. ‘Detractors’ (those who gave a rating between 0-6),
2. ‘Passives’ (those who gave a rating between 7-8), and
3. ‘Promoters’ (those who gave a rating between 9-10).

The NPS is then calculated using a standard universal formula. The resulting score can range from as low as -100 to as high as 100.

In simple terms, the better the experience, the higher the NPS. And the higher the NPS, the greater the customer satisfaction & loyalty. For AV and AV clubs, that translates to more event entries and more members.

Based on global benchmarking of more than 200,000 organisations, a good NPS is any score above 0. A score above 50 is excellent, and a score above 75 is considered world-class. On the flip side, any score below 0 is considered poor.

Nearly every AV event records an NPS above 30. Noting a few examples, the Track Relay Championships in November recorded an NPS of 36. The 2023 XCR season recorded an NPS of 46. The recent Country Championships recorded an NPS of 43. The Combined Event Championships recorded an NPS of 57. And the most recent ZATOPEK:10 recorded an NPS of 71. However, arguably AV’s core product in AVSL is our outlier, with an NPS of  -7.

Analysis of AVSL data over the last seven years shows that on average, approximately 5% of AVSL competitors compete in all 12 rounds. 91% of AVSL competitors compete in ten rounds or less.

Put simply, at present, AVSL has room for improvement, and we know this because our people are telling us directly.

Despite it recording a lower than satisfactory NPS, at 12 Rounds x 5 venues AVSL is also our most frequently staged event, effectively occupying 12 prime-time weekends.

Time and available space on the calendar is AV’s most precious and finite commodity, and maximising our opportunities to stage great events our greatest responsibility. Every time a subpar event is run where a great event could be, our sport pays a significant opportunity cost.

As we know, Officials numbers here in Victoria are struggling to keep up with the demands of what is far & away the busiest athletics calendar of any state in Australia. A key challenge to the Officials’ Recruitment & Retention Strategy is the sheer volume of hours and commitment AVSL demands of its voluntary Officials, with Officials typically volunteering more than 80 hours at AVSL events alone each summer. AVSL also commands significantly greater AV staff hours than any other event.

The numbers also show that AVSL isn’t enticing new people like we would hope. Of our 600 casual participants in 2023, 85% of them competed in winter alone. This casual cohort is a critical group, as they are our next crop of members, or at the very least, their event entries provide a vital revenue stream.

AVSL is also failing to be that critical vehicle for younger athletes to transition from junior athletics into senior. While a good number start AVSL, they are not being retained, with an 85% drop-off of athletes aged between 16 and 23. While a drop-off in this age cohort is not entirely inconsistent with what we see in other sports, we don’t have the critical mass of numbers to sit idly by and accept this drop-off like others might.

AVSL has arguably struggled to define its audience, acting as somewhat of a ‘catchall’ for the beginner to the elite and everyone in between. As one survey respondent put it, “AVSL feels like it’s trying to appeal to everyone, and as a result feels tailor-made for no one.” Going forward, we see AVSL as the sport’s definitive community product, and just as with any other event, we want to ensure the event mechanics befit the intended audience.

In 2023 AV partnered with Gemba, Australia’s leading sports market research firm, to conduct an independent, comprehensive, highly analytical research piece, informed by current market data and trends, and untainted by history or emotion. 

Within Gemba’s 70-page final report, Gemba’s team of research analysts identified that 344,000 Victorians are on the cusp of our sport – that’s 344,000 Victorians with a meaningful, quantifiable interest in what we do, potentially already doing something very similar, but for various reasons are not actively or regularly engaged with us, instead sitting on the periphery.

The Gemba study offered the keys to attracting this cohort, but it also reinforced that with an event every weekend over summer, we have neither the calendar space nor the staff & volunteer bandwidth to consider doing something new.

The AV Summer Calendar paints a picture.

In the five months from October 2023 to February 2024, there are 21 weekends. 19 of them, or 90%, are accounted for, with an Athletics event on every weekend but for those that fall over Christmas and New Year’s. Resourcing aside, we couldn’t stage another weekend event right now, even if we wanted to.

The argument can be made that if you can’t compete on a weekend, you can’t compete in our sport. Many current members, as well as many of those identified in Gemba’s target markets, have young families or other circumstances that mean an entire weekend’s afternoon spent at the track just isn’t possible.

While we’re jam-packed for weekend competition, over the same five months there are 109 weeknights, with just 17 of them, or 15%, accounted for, with 92 weeknights free of Athletics competition.

AV seeks to run a pilot that sees relatively conservative changes for summer 2024-25, but which provides opportunity to explore a potential alternative model for future summers. There will be 10 rounds of AVSL, with eight rounds as normal. However, two rounds will effectively be ‘Fast Athletics’ rounds, where weeknight competition is not mandated but is highly encouraged, held within a three-four-hour block and built on one-hour modules. Part of this will be a hyper-focus on those events that typically fill-up quickly, and creating more opportunities for those events and their competitors.

In those two rounds, we’ll do everything within our capacity to encourage regions, clubs and athletes to give evening activity a go. Given the shorter program and lesser time commitment, it should prove less onerous on all those responsible for running it, so we’ll aim for more venues and more opportunities over those two rounds, no matter which evening you as a region/club opt to host, or indeed whether you look to host competition on multiple evenings those two weeks – we’ll work with you. We just need enough user-experience feedback to make further informed decisions for the following season. And of course, it’s not foreign for athletes to come together on, say, a Thursday evening – it’s just that what might have been a regular Thursday training night, becomes a Thursday competition night.

In addition, we’ll explore further ways to add a heightened element of head-to-head competition, or club-vs-club, across these two rounds, aimed at reinvigorating some of those great club rivalries.

In the four weekends of space created, we’ll seek to innovate to bolster our event offering – for example, that might be a ‘Summer Sundays’ Road Series, plus something similar to the Track Relay Championships, creating both participatory opportunities for a less competitive and more recreational market, as well as further opportunities for clubs to come together in that carnival-like celebration of athletics, which are less frequent over summer. These new offerings are currently being fine-tuned.

Basically, we’re talking a trade-off here – less AVSL rounds, but more Track Relay Championship-type days, in addition to the creation of other new opportunities aimed at a more recreational market.

You may be familiar with the Fast Athletics concept, which was introduced at the back-end of COVID lockdowns as a means of allowing people to get in, compete, and get out. Albeit different circumstances, the data shows participants loved Fast Athletics, with it recording an NPS of 65. Further specific information will be shared with Clubs in the weeks to come.

In recent times each athlete has been able to compete in as many unique events as they wish, with their best three individual events (plus one relay) each round counting towards their club’s overall score. This in turn impacts how quickly certain events fill up and reach capacity.

We want to ensure athletes are competing for the right reasons, while also levelling the playing field to a degree between larger and smaller clubs. With that in mind, moving forward each athlete will still be able to compete in as many unique events as they wish, however it is proposed that there be a limit to the number of scoring athletes for a club in each discipline. This limit will be reviewed in preparation for the new season.

No – to the contrary, we want to see more opportunities for community participation and competition. Opening up four Saturdays in a summer calendar that is otherwise full to the brim with AV activity allows for clubs and regions to get creative with their own participation and competition initiatives, while community participation will remain at the forefront of AV’s new event offerings.

You will note that very few state sporting bodies run every element of competition – from community through to the elite and everything in between. In part, that is because it carries a significant staffing requirement, and a sport’s growth is therefore limited by its staff headcount. Ultimately, staffing is funded in large part by event entries and membership, meaning there is a direct relationship between what a participant pays for their entry/membership and a state body’s efforts to expand its competition calendar. To that end, we need to find ways to provide everything we provide and more without always adding to the staff headcount, effectively finding more efficient ways to scale and expand the sport’s reach and impact.

We recognise that some athletes, whether metro or regional, travel significant distances to compete in AV events, including AVSL.

While data analysis shows that it is not a disproportionate number of regional athletes travelling more than 30 minutes to compete in comparison to their metro counterparts, we would hope that with plenty of advanced notice (i.e. 6 months +), weeknight activity for two of the AVSL rounds will be possible for the absolute majority. Bear in mind, a regional centre might opt to run multiple nights over those two rounds, meaning that while an athlete mightn’t be able to compete on certain evenings – say, a Monday or Wednesday, they may well be able to compete on others – say, a Tuesday or Thursday.

Ultimately, we’re looking to actively encourage weeknight activity for two rounds, but not mandate it. If a regional centre decides that based on its member make-up weekend AVSL is the only viable option, we will support that.

Our Officials do an incredible job, and we would of course love to have more Officials involved. At the same time, we recognise volunteerism has never been tougher, and Athletics is about as tough a volunteer assignment as it gets – typically long days, subject to the elements – be it the wind and rain or the scorching summer sun, year-round activity, and the requirement of a significant degree of technical proficiency to boot.

This year will see the development of the AV Officials Recruitment and Retention Strategy, which will be focused on how we can maintain and ultimately grow our critical Officials’ cohort, and ensuring we invest in this space appropriately.

It is true that there is a poor retention rate of younger athletes in AVSL, with an 85% drop-off of athletes aged between 16 and 23. While it is equally true that a drop-off in this age cohort is not entirely inconsistent with what we see in other sports, we don’t have the critical mass of numbers to sit idle and casually accept this drop-off like others might.

Yes – acknowledging less rounds of AVSL for 2024-25, we have reduced the prices of both the AVSL package & Max package.

No – to the contrary, and in somewhat of a statistical anomaly, the survey data shows that the longer you compete in AVSL, the stronger your degree of dissatisfaction.

Other AV events have at times suffered from a similar degree of dissatisfaction, and typically it is only a subtle tweak here and there that turns participant sentiment. Similarly, our research suggests that wholesale changes are not necessarily required for AVSL to once again return to the widely loved event it has been.

AVSL is a unique event on the Australian athletics landscape, and we are confident the subtle updates the 2024-25 pilot will provide will ultimately enhance the experience for competitors, with this heightened degree of event-focus meaning there has likely never been a better time to compete in AVSL.