Sports participation is almost always measured by a single number: how many licences the federations issue. That number is reliable, comparable year on year, and published. It still has a built-in limit: it only counts people who got a place. This page covers what the licence misses, and how online search makes it visible.
What a licence counts, and what it does not
A sports licence is a participation entitlement issued by an accredited federation in exchange for a fee. In France, according to INJEP (the national youth and community education institute), the 120 federations accredited by the sports ministry issued 17.2 million annual licences in 2024, up 3.8% on the year. INJEP is explicit that it counts licences, not people: one individual can hold several.
That count records a successful administrative act. It says nothing about people who asked for a place and did not get one, or about those who looked for a club without ever applying. Clément Anne, a statistician at INJEP, put it plainly when talking about swimming: what gets counted is “licences issued, not licences refused.”
Swimming shows the gap. The French swimming federation has around 400,000 members, while France has more than 13 million occasional swimmers and close to 4 million regular ones, according to INJEP data reported by RCF. The licence describes a small slice of participation, and none of the demand left at the door.
A measure capped by supply
The number of licences depends on two variables: how many people want to play, and how many places clubs can offer. When supply is saturated, the second variable sets the result. The licence then measures capacity, not appetite.
After the Paris 2024 Games, several French federations described that ceiling. In autumn 2024 the basketball federation said it had had to turn away “between 100,000 and 110,000” players at the start of the season, and the head of the handball federation expected to refuse around 100,000 people over the season, according to franceinfo. The badminton federation cited an internal survey putting the previous season's refusals at between 22,000 and 45,000.
A survey of sports employers by COSMOS, AÉSIO mutuelle and OpinionWay points the same way: 50% report more participants or members since the Games, and a lack of available time slots is the main obstacle cited by those who do not feel ready to take them in.
The limits are physical and well known: time slots, pool lanes, pitches and courts, qualified coaches. For swimming, Clément Anne lists the number of available lanes, the number of lifeguard instructors and an ageing stock of pools. None of these constraints appears in a licence total.
Participation demand, defined
Participation demand is everyone looking to play a sport in a given area, whether or not they get a place. It covers three groups: licence holders, the turned-away (on a waiting list or sent home for lack of room) and the searchers who never follow through, because price, schedule or distance stops them before they apply. Only the first group shows up in official statistics. The piece on turned-away club members and invisible demand covers the other two.
When supply keeps up: padel
Padel shows the other side of the mechanism. The French Tennis Federation passed 100,000 padel licence holders for the first time in June 2025, up 42.7% on the end of the previous season (70,500). Over the same period the federation counted 2,917 padel courts in France, up 40% in a year, and 959 clubs and private venues offering the sport, up 25%.
Licences and courts grow together. When supply expands, the licence captures demand that was already there, and the number looks like it is exploding. The federation as a whole then passed 1.2 million licence holders across all its disciplines. The useful question is not whether padel attracts people, but where demand still outstrips the number of courts. That is the subject of the piece on padel players, courts and demand.
What online search reveals
Before registering, paying for a licence or turning up at a club, people search. They type “swimming club near me”, “kids tennis registration”, “basketball licence price”, “beginner padel lessons”, “pool waiting list”. Those queries exist whether or not the person gets a place. They leave a trace of participation demand that does not depend on available supply.
Search allows three readings the licence cannot provide.
- Volume by area: where demand for a sport is densest, town by town or catchment by catchment, relative to population.
- The nature of demand: price, schedules, adult classes, children's sessions, recreational or competitive play. Each type of query points to a different obstacle or expectation.
- Timing: the start of the school year, the weeks after a major event, the end of a season. The curve shows when demand forms, often before registration opens.
Set against existing supply (clubs, facilities, time slots), these readings expose the areas where demand exceeds capacity. Those are exactly the places where the licence most underestimates potential participation.
What search does not say
A query is a signal of intent, not participation. It does not say whether the person signed up elsewhere, gave up or plays outside any club. It is read as a trend and as a comparison between areas, not as a headcount. The reading precautions are set out in the methodology.
Who decides with participation demand
Participation demand feeds concrete decisions, taken by different players.
- Federations (swimming, tennis and padel, handball, basketball, badminton): direct development towards the areas with the most unmet demand, and put a number on that demand for public authorities and partners. The piece on swimming, the Olympic legacy and marketing rights shows what that changes in a commercial negotiation.
- Regional leagues and committees: allocate coach training and new sections where refusals concentrate.
- Amateur clubs: open an adult slot, a recreational section or a second site where demand justifies it, rather than wherever a space happens to free up.
- Local authorities: decide which facility to build and where, from observed demand rather than a facilities-per-capita ratio.
- Facility operators (pools, sports halls, padel centres): match time slots and pricing to the real demand at each site.
- Equipment brands and retailers: locate the people taking up a sport, at the moment they kit themselves out.
Demand is not confined to a club's home area either. Part of a club's or team's following lives far from its ground and facilities, which the piece on fans who live far from the stadium explores.
After a major event
Major sporting events produce a spike of attention. What matters to participation decision-makers is how much of that attention turns into a wish to play, and where. The licence total, published a season later and capped by supply, answers poorly and late.
In swimming, RCF notes that licences rose by around 8% after Athens 2004, while the increase since Paris 2024 is in the order of 1 to 2% according to INJEP. A gap like that can reflect weaker appetite, or supply that was already saturated. Only a measure of demand independent of supply can settle it. Search is one: it shows whether participation queries rose after the event, and in which areas.
Where to start
A first reading comes down to three questions: where is participation demand for my sport densest, what share of it finds a place today, and which obstacles (price, schedules, distance) keep coming back in searches. The answers often shift the priority from a saturated area to an underserved one.
Demand signals in general are covered in Signals, case studies in Analysis, and turning them into a field plan in Activation.