Contents:

1. 🚀 Australian Schools Are Quietly Solving Sport’s Biggest Problem

2. ⚽ $343 Million and a Question Nobody can Ignore 

3. 📰 Queensland and Japan Building One of Sports Most Interesting Partnerships

4. 🪙 Grant releases - What you might have missed

5. 💹 Australia’s First Sports Venue Hire Marketplace

NEWS
Australian Schools Are Quietly Solving Sport’s Biggest Problem

State governments are investing in school facilities for community use — and the benefits for schools are real.

It's a reasonable instinct. School facilities are expensive to maintain, carefully managed, and built first and foremost for students. For many school leaders overseeing community use of facilities, the default answer has simply been: it's more trouble than it's worth.

But that calculation is starting to shift - and it's worth understanding why.

Across Australia, access to places to play remains the single biggest barrier to sport participation. Clubs are growing. Junior registrations are up. The demand for court time, oval space and gymnasium access in local communities has never been higher. Resulting in Hundreds of thousands of would be sport participants stuck on the sidelines. In many cases, the infrastructure that could solve this problem is already standing — it just goes hidden at 3:30pm.

Schools are uniquely positioned to change that. And increasingly, state governments are making it easier and more financially rewarding for them to do so.

Tasmania: Investment Backing the Intent

In January 2026, the Tasmanian Government announced a $10 million investment into its Playground and Sports Court Upgrade Program, committing to upgrade more than 100 schools and child and family learning centres over the next five years with upgraded sites actively promoted for shared community use — Premier of Tasmania Media release.

Importantly, the government isn't just asking schools to open their doors - it's funding the infrastructure to make it viable. A dedicated Community Liaison Sport team is working directly with schools and sporting groups to manage out-of-hours access, connecting schools with state sporting bodies, local associations and community groups to ensure facilities are used safely and effectively.

The early results speak to the demand. In Tasmania's northern region alone, the Launceston Basketball Association had over 250 teams accessing school gymnasiums.

That's 250 teams: coaches, players, families, connected to a school facility, with the school at the centre of that community activity.

South Australia: Removing the Friction

South Australia is taking a similarly practical approach. Alongside a commitment to legislate community access to public school facilities, the Malinauskas Government has pledged a $13 million fund over four years specifically targeting the upgrades that make community hire workable, new lighting, electronic external access points, and minor facility improvements designed to reduce the day-to-day burden on school administration teams — Premier of South Australia Policy Announcement.

The Opportunity for Schools

For school leaders who have been hesitant about community hire, this policy environment represents a genuine shift worth reconsidering. State investment in facility upgrades creates a pathway to better infrastructure. Infrastructure that benefits students first, and the community second.

Revenue generated through hire flows back into the school's budget, not out of it. And a school that becomes a genuine community sporting hub tends to find that the relationship with the local community deepens in ways that go well beyond a booking fee.

The administrative burden that has historically made community hire feel unsustainable is also being addressed directly - both through government-backed coordination support and through platforms like PitchUp, which give schools a simple, intuitive way to manage bookings, payments and access without adding to the workload of already stretched admin teams whilst generating bookings through Australia’s first designated sports venue hire marketplace.

The question for most schools is no longer whether community hire is feasible. It's whether now is the right time to take a closer look.

If streamlining community hire might be of interest to your school community, don’t wait - The tools to do this have made it easier and more accessible than ever before —

PITCHUP RESOURCES

📥 Want a practical starting point? Download our free Community Access Toolkit - a simple, step-by-step guide covering hire rate setting, Community Use Agreements, insurance requirements and booking management, written specifically for school leaders. Available to Download directly, below:

NEWS
$343 Million and a Question Nobody Can Ignore

The Matildas lit the spark. Now football AUS is asking NSW to keep the fire burning… but will the government answer?

We've been watching this story unfold in real time.

A few weeks ago in this newsletter, we wrote about the Matildas effect - the sold-out stadiums, the record television audiences, the 231,000 women and girls who now play football in this country, and the uncomfortable question of whether Australia's grassroots infrastructure was built to handle any of it. We flagged a $2.8 billion national infrastructure gap and asked whether ambition without investment was just a press release.

This week, Football answered back.

Football Australia, in partnership with Football NSW and Northern NSW Football, has formally called on the NSW Government to establish a $343 million Legacy Fund - seeking annual grant rounds of $34 million over a decade - to bridge a widening facilities gap driven by female player numbers skyrocketing nearly 31% between 2022 and 2025, Ministry of Sport.

It's a significant ask. And it demands a serious response - from the government, and from anyone who cares about the long-term health of grassroots sport in this country.

The Numbers Behind the Ask

This funding request isn't built on sentiment. It's built on structural failure. Football NSW CEO John Tsatsimas has pointed to the stark reality that playing fields are currently losing around 34% of their capacity due to conditions alone — substandard lighting, inadequate drainage, and ageing irrigation systems that were never designed for the volume of play they're now absorbing.

Add to that a persistent shortage of female-friendly changerooms — still one of the most cited barriers to women's and girls' participation across the country — and the picture becomes clear. The participation wave that the Matildas generated didn't just expose a gap in football. It exposed a decades-long under investment in the community sporting infrastructure that was always supposed to serve as the foundation of the game.

As Football Australia CEO Martin Kugeler put it, the fund would ensure "the state can meet demand and secure a meaningful legacy for women's football." That framing matters. This isn't about building elite facilities. It's about making sure a ten-year-old girl in Western Sydney or regional Newcastle can actually find somewhere to train on a Tuesday evening.

Is $34 Million a Year Enough?

Here's the honest question the funding request invites: is $34 million per year, spread across the most populous state in Australia, covering metropolitan and regional hubs, changerooms, lighting, drainage and more, genuinely sufficient to address the scale of what's needed?

The 2026 tournament alone is forecast to generate $260 million in national economic output. That figure represents a single tournament's commercial return. The funding ask represents a decade of investment. The asymmetry is worth noting.

What the Legacy Fund framework does get right is the permanence of it. Annual grant rounds over ten years create a pipeline, not a one-off injection. They allow clubs and councils to plan, to apply, to build. That structural consistency is arguably more valuable than a larger lump sum that arrives once and disappears.

But the lag remains the problem. The NSW Government has not yet formally responded to the proposal. And while the bureaucratic wheels turn, the registrations keep coming. The girls turning up to trials this winter won't wait for a legacy fund to be approved before they need somewhere to play.

The Broader Implication

What makes this moment matter beyond football is what it signals about the relationship between elite sport and community infrastructure in Australia. We invest heavily in spectacle — in hosting rights, in broadcast deals, in the events that fill stadiums and generate economic output. The harder, less glamorous work of building the grassroots ecosystem that sustains those spectacles over generations receives a fraction of the same urgency.

The Matildas proved there is an appetite for women's football in this country that nobody fully anticipated. The $343 million ask is football's attempt to make sure that appetite has somewhere to go.

Whether NSW listens will say a great deal about what this country's sporting legacy actually means.

FROM THE FOUNDERS
Queensland and Japan are Quietly Building One of Sport’s Most Interesting Partnerships

Ahead of Brisbane 2032, two nations with a shared infrastructure problem are finding common ground.

Earlier this month, PitchUp co-founder Tom Clark took the stage at the Japan-Australia Sports and Health Innovation Exchange (JASHIE) in Brisbane, presenting the PitchUp platform to a room of Japanese sports executives, investors, and Queensland Government officials.

Hosted at Deloitte's Riverside Centre and organised by JA Network alongside Mizuno and Trade and Investment Queensland, JASHIE brought together 32 delegates to explore cross-border opportunities in sports technology ahead of Brisbane 2032. The day featured sessions from Deloitte, NTT DATA, and global law firm Ashurst, before MIXI Inc. — owners of FC Tokyo, the Chiba Jets, and the LaLa arena — opened the floor to a curated pitch session with some of Australia’s leading SportsTech startups.

PitchUp was one of them.

We presented our vision for turning underutilised school sporting facilities into active community hubs and how that model has strong global reach and utility, particularly in markets like Japan, with over 30,000 schools, ageing infrastructure, and a government pushing grassroots participation post-Tokyo 2020. With the World Masters Games coming to Japan in 2027 and Brisbane 2032 on the horizon, the timing couldn't be better for a platform that connects facilities, athletes, and communities through a single digital layer.

The session generated real interest and new opportunities with audience members, such as Mizuno, on how to engage and grow PitchUp’s 3,000+ monthly active participants. 

JASHIE reinforced something we've been building towards: PitchUp isn't just an Australian story. The facility shortage problem is global, and the infrastructure we're creating to solve it has relevance well beyond our borders.

More to come on the Japan opportunity soon.

Read the Queensland Gov - Department of Sport, Racing and Olympic and Paralympic Games full media release here.

GRANTS
What You Might Have Missed 

Grants are a great way to contribute to school and community fundraising. It’s important to know what to look for, where to look and be prepared! PitchUp has put together resources for grant applications and will continue to compile these resources in each newsletter edition to make sure you don’t miss anything.

PitchUp Grant updates will cover:
- Public School Grants
- Private School Grants
- Education Grants
- Grants for sporting clubs

1. NATIONAL | Sporting Schools — Australian Sports Commission

Sporting Schools is an Australian Government initiative designed to help schools increase children's participation in sport and connect them with community sporting opportunities.

Grant funding is available each term for both primary and secondary schools, supporting the delivery of sport-based programs that help students build the confidence and capability to be active for life.

The objectives of Sporting Schools are to engage primary and secondary school students in free, high-quality sport programs at school, establish partnerships between sporting organisations and schools, develop the capability of schools and teachers to provide positive sport experiences, and support life-long involvement in sport and physical activity.

Eligible to: Primary and secondary schools in metropolitan and regional areas across Australia. Remote schools are catered for under a separate Remote Sporting Schools program from 2026.

Applications: Dates for future rounds beyond Term 2, 2026 are yet to be confirmed. Updated information will be shared on the Sporting Schools website as soon as it is available. — Get more info here

2. WA | Game On, Girls Grant Program — Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport

Game On, Girls is focused on boosting participation, retention and engagement of girls aged 13 to 17 in club sport, breaking barriers and nurturing lasting connections to club-based sport through inclusive, supportive and empowering environments.

In WA, only 32% of women participate in weekly sport compared to 52% of men, and by ages 15 to 17, 46% of girls have stopped playing sport compared to 30% of boys. This grant is designed to directly address that gap.

Sporting clubs can apply for grants to:

• Develop innovative and inclusive programs and adapt formats to better meet the needs of girls

• Provide resources that make participation fun, safe and sustainable

• Grow participation by creating welcoming spaces and enhance retention through programs that reflect what girls want from sport

Eligible to: Sporting clubs across Western Australia.

Grant amount: $1,500 to $5,000

Applications: Open now —Get more info here

3. NSW | Community Participation Stream 2 — Active Regional Communities Package

The NSW Government has established the ARC Community Participation Stream 2, with funding of up to $25 million available to increase liveability and social cohesion of communities through greater participation in community activities.

Eligible projects include new and improved infrastructure and activation of under-used assets, new or expanded services or programs that increase access to community activities, and addressing barriers to participation by improving amenity, facilities, safety and transport.

Projects that could qualify include upgrading a sports ground to meet regional level competition, improving lighting and facilities, or enabling shared use across multiple sports.

Eligible to: Incorporated not-for-profit organisations, incorporated Aboriginal community organisations, local government, and section 355 committees of local councils. Must be located in eligible regional NSW local government areas.

Grant amount: $100,000 to $1,000,000. A minimum 20% co-contribution is required.

Applications close: 1 May 2026, 4:00pm —Get more info here

4. TAS | Minor Facilities Upgrade Program 2025–26 — Active Tasmania

The Minor Facilities Upgrade Program aims to assist eligible organisations to upgrade existing facilities to enable greater use, providing funding for minor infrastructure, minor playing surface upgrades, and minor safety and accessibility improvements to existing facilities.

Particularly relevant for schools: for projects that improve access to school facilities where the applicant can provide evidence that more than one sport will benefit, no co-contribution is required.

Eligible to: Organisations whose primary focus is the delivery of sport and/or active recreation activities to the Tasmanian community, including local government authorities.

Grant amount: $10,000 minimum to $60,000 maximum, from a total funding pool of $650,000.

Applications close: 14 April 2026, 2:00pm — Get more info here

5. VIC | Significant Sporting Events Program — Sport and Recreation Victoria

The Significant Sporting Events Program is a Victorian Government funding program that assists event organisers to enhance the delivery of national or international level sporting events in Victoria.

Two grant streams are available:

• Event Assistance Grant — up to $20,000 to offset general operational costs associated with staging events

• Event Development Grant — up to $150,000 to develop or expand existing events, or to attract new events to Victoria that deliver key outcomes for the state

Higher grant amounts may be considered on a case-by-case basis. The program runs six funding rounds per financial year, and applications must be received a minimum of six months prior to the event.

Eligible to: Event organisers delivering nationally or internationally sanctioned sporting events in Victoria, for sports recognised by the Australian Sports Commission.

Applications close (Round 5): 15 April 2026 — Get more info here