INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to present information about the manufacture of, trade in, supply of, and demand for, sports and physical recreation products. The term 'products' encompasses both goods - such as a cricket bat or tennis racquet - and services - such as entry to a game of AFL football or the use of a squash court.
The latest information about the manufacture of sports and physical recreation products has been obtained from the 2000-01 Manufacturing Industry Survey. For wholesaling and retailing, data is collected less frequently and the latest available is from the Wholesale Industry Survey and Retail Industry Survey conducted in respect of 1998-99. The information about exports and imports has been obtained from FASTTRACCS, an ABS product which provides electronic delivery of international trade statistics sourced from customs records. Supply and demand data comes from the ABS Australian National Accounts Input-Output Tables.
The products selected from each of these data sources for inclusion in the tables presented in this chapter are those which most closely align with one or more sports and physical recreation product classes as defined in the Australian Culture and Leisure Classifications (ACLC) Product Classification. The ACLC Product Classification lists all classes of products which the ABS defines as pertaining to culture and leisure. A subset of these are defined as pertaining to sports and physical recreation.
Some sports and physical recreation products could not be included in some of the tables because, for the relevant data source, they were part of a larger product category which was predominantly out of scope of the ACLC Product Classification. Conversely, some out-of-scope products are included in the tables because they were part of a product category which was predominantly in scope.