Spikes in registered club members, according to German Footballing Association Membership data, in the 1970s correlated with Men's 1972 European Championships and 1974 World Cup titles. Individual memberships increased by more than 100,000 in the year following a German World Cup win; an undeniable link between elite success and growth at grassroots level. The long time frame of the study, covering over 50 years helped the pair avoid many shortfalls of previous research, and allowing secondary data for more impartiality and factoring in controls such as income and working hours of club members.

Interestingly, Women's teams did not see a similar increase in memberships following the Women's European Championship titles. Frick & Wicker urge for more research to determine why women seem not to be motivated by success at national level and encourage cross-gender analysis to determine "whether (fe)males are more inspired by sporting success of (fe)males and vice versa." In addition, they suggested that "Future studies should also examine the inspirational effect of sporting success on informal participation as opposed to club-related participation" -- and with events such as the Rugby World Cup about to begin, we may expect to see just that.

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Taylor & Francis. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.